PQ using charter as a distraction, Liberals charge
Finance critic claims province’s economy needs more attention
QUEBEC — Pierre Paradis, the veteran Quebec Liberal MNA who was named his party’s finance critic this week, said on Wednesday the buzz created by a Parti Québécois proposal for a Charter of Quebec Values reminds him of the cover-up attempt in the 1997 movie Wag the Dog.
In the film, Robert De Niro, playing a Washington political spin doctor, enlists Dustin Hoffman, a Hollywood producer, to manufacture a fake war scenario to divert attention from the sexual peccadillos of an incumbent president, a possible allusion to Bill Clinton.
In this case, Paradis said, the PQ wants to use a charter no one has seen to divert attention from its disastrous record in managing Quebec’s economy.
The PQ is holding a pre-session meeting of its caucus of elected MNAs in Carleton-sur-Mer, while the Liberal caucus is gathering in Rivière-du-Loup.
Paradis said it is difficult to comment on the PQ’s charter proposal before legislation is actually pre- sented when the National Assembly resumes sitting in September.
But recalling Clinton’s, “It’s the economy, stupid,” campaign theme, Paradis attacked the PQ’s economic record, saying that while job creation is up in Canada as a whole, Quebec has lost 40,000 jobs this year, investment is down by 60 per cent and housing starts are off 20 per cent.
Paradis was named Liberal finance critic after Raymond Bachand, who held the post in opposition and was finance minister in the Liberal government, resigned Monday.
Bachand’s parliamentary secretary, Emmanuel Dubourg, who taught accounting at Université du Québec à Montréal, has also resigned and is seeking the federal Liberal nomination in Montreal’s north-end Bourassa riding.
Liberal Leader Philippe Couillard, does not have a seat in the National Assembly and says he plans to run in Roberval, where he lives.
But the two vacancies in Dubourg’s Viau seat and Bachand’s Outremont riding have increased pressure on him to seek election earlier. Premier Pauline Marois has said Couillard would have no PQ opponent if he runs in a byelection this fall.
The departures of Bachand and Dubourg have prompted Coalition Avenir Québec Leader François Legault, an accountant and a founder of the charter airline Air Transat, to say the Liberals now have no economic team, suggesting the CAQ would replace the Liberals as the party of the economy.
Paradis is a lawyer by training who in the past was Liberal house leader and a minister in the environment, labour and municipal affairs portfolios.
He was relegated to the Liberal backbenches for the nine years Jean Charest was premier and has never held an economic portfolio.
But Paradis is an expert in parliamentary procedure and comes to his new role with a reputation as a political street-fighter.
The Liberal caucus does include Yvon Marcoux, a banking and retail executive before entering politics, Nicole Ménard, who was vicepresident of the Bank of Montreal, Pierre Arcand, a broadcasting executive, and Sam Hamad, who was vice-president of the engineering firm Groupe Roche.
Paradis dismissed Legault’s assessment that the Liberals have lost their economic compass.
“I was on the phone yesterday with my friends Mr. Hamad, with Mr. Arcand, and, you know, we’re working as a team,” he said. “And whenever the Liberal Party is in power, the economy is first and foremost.
“That’s our trademark, and we want it to be our trademark during the fall, during the spring, going up to the next election,” Paradis said.