‘Trust us,’ Marois says when asked about charter
Premier asks PQ volunteers to get out vote on Monday
SHERBROOKE — Saying her voice, which was giving out in recent days, was back, Parti Québécois leader Pauline Marois spoke Friday to PQ supporters in Saint-François riding, where Health Minister Réjean Hébert is the incumbent MNA.
Hébert joined Marois in appealing to PQ volunteers to make sure voters they have identified as proPQ vote Monday.
“So that we have a majority of more than 65,” Hébert said, recalling his slim 2012 win.
“I was thinking on the bus that no one wants to return to the Liberal team of Jean Charest,” she said to cheers from Hébert’s campaign workers.
“It is the Liberal team of Mr. Charest that has come back, because there are 18 of his ministers,” Marois said, adding that Liberal Leader Philippe Couillard, “hasn’t renewed his team very much.”
The PQ leader called for “a majority government of the Parti Québécois,” setting off chants of “Pauline! Pauline! Pauline!
The PQ is offering its “charter of values, charter of secularism,” she said.
“No PQ, no charter (of values)!” she shouted.
“And no Bill 101, either!” shouted back a man in the audience, referring to Quebec’s language law.
“You are right,” Marois replied, noting that the Liberals blocked adoption of Bill 14, her government’s proposal to toughen Bill 101.
Marois also stopped in Lac-Mégantic, where the PQ hopes to cap- italize on the good will of local residents who appreciated her response to the fiery train derailment last summer that killed 47 and devastated Lac-Mégantic’s downtown area.
Marois started her campaign day in Laval, where she was asked if she thinks she can catch up to Couillard’s Liberals.
A leaked internal PQ poll suggests the party is only about four percentage points behind the Liberals, contradicting commercial polls giving the Liberals a much larger advance.
Marois would not comment on the polls, telling reporters, “I am working hard to win on April 7,” and adding, “I have a great team.”
Marois was asked about rumours UPAC, Quebec’s permanent anticorruption unit, has been rebuffed by her staff in attempts to speak with the PQ leader. “I am not informed of that,” she said.
Marois took solace in Statistics Canada’s March Labour Force Survey, which showed that after losing 25,500 jobs in February, Quebec gained 15,000 in March and 31,000 on an annual basis last month.
“It is good news,” Marois said. “I think confidence has returned to Quebec.”
Marois was accompanied in Laval by Suzanne Proulx, MNA for SainteRose, Léo Bureau-Blouin, member for Laval-des-Rapides, Jean Poirier, running in Vimont, and Pierre Karl Péladeau, PQ candidate in SaintJérôme.
Stopping at the Gare Sainte-Rose, to greet commuters taking the train to downtown Montreal, and at the Cartier métro station in Laval, the reception was mixed, with some commuters reluctantly shaking hands with Marois and her candidates, while others wanted their pictures taken with the PQ leader.
Péladeau and Bureau-Blouin were pressed into service snapping photos on commuters’ smartphones.
One young man, who gave his name as Soufine-Tirg, told Marois his mother voted for the PQ in the last election and she approves of the PQ’s daycare reforms.
But she wears a hijab, an Islamic head covering, and is afraid she will lose her job because of the PQ’s proposed Charter of Quebec Values, which bans the wearing of ostentatious religious symbols by Quebec’s 600,000 public employees, including daycare workers.
Marois told Soufine-Tirg her government intends to apply the charter, with its ban on religious symbols.
“We will have a transition period to do so, to help people adapt to this law. OK? Tell her to trust us,” she said.
Reporters following the Marois campaign spoke to Soufine-Tirg after his encounter with the PQ leader.
He said he will not vote Liberal, likes elements in the PQ program, but is attracted to the economic plan of François Legault’s Coalition Avenir Québec.
“There are things we like in the charter,” he added, saying limits on wearing the burqa and niqab, Islamic face coverings, make sense to him.
“Not everyone agrees, even among Muslims,” he said.
“But eliminate all religious signs, on that we don’t agree,” he added. “It is infringing on human rights.
“People come to Quebec. They are happy to work for Quebec.
“And now they are told: ‘No. You have to remove your veil, your religious sign,’ ” Soufine-Tirg said.
Quebec has been neutral in religious matters, “since the time of Jean Lesage,” he added.
“I don’t think we have to take off religious signs to prove the state is neutral.”