Ouellet enters PQ race, trumpets sovereignty
Pierre Karl Péladeau would have set in motion a referendum on Quebec independence within a first mandate of a Parti Québécois government, leadership candidate Martine Ouellet said Friday kicking off her own campaign.
Trying to shore up her own hardline sovereignty option by linking her campaign to that of the popular former leader, Ouellet said in her mind 70 per cent of the PQ members in the 2015 leadership race voted in favour of the party achieving independence in a first mandate of government.
She campaigned in 2015 based on that idea, placing third to Péladeau.
She said she established the figure by adding her score in that race, 13.2 per cent, to that of Péladeau’s, which was 57.6 per cent.
“We were two candidates to present this option, me and Pierre Karl Péladeau,” Ouellet said at a news conference held at the east-end Lion d’Or cabaret when asked about her chances of winning the PQ leadership this time.
When reporters pointed out Péladeau, in fact, never made such a promise — his line was that he would spell out his approach to referendums just before the 2018 election — Ouellet said Péladeau didn’t actually have to say it.
“You will recall his fist-pump in the air,” said Ouellet, the MNA for Vachon. “I think he didn’t need to speak and people had confidence he would achieve sovereignty in a first mandate. He said his only objective in going into politics was to make Quebec a country.”
There was no immediate comment from Péladeau or his aides about Ouellet’s claim. Péladeau quit politics May 1 for family reasons.
It was with passion in her eyes and a spring in her step that Ouellet — tagged a sovereignist in a hurry during this race — took to the stage to launch her campaign.
As was the case in 2015, she does not have the support of a single PQ MNA but this time has mustered endorsements from four Bloc Québécois MPs including former Bloc leader Mario Beaulieu, a sovereignty hardliner and former president of the Société Saint-Jean Baptiste.
“With Martine Ouellet, things will be very clear,” Beaulieu said at the launch.
In fact, clarity of action will be Ouellet’s trademark in the campaign. So is the urgency to separate.
While the other candidates Alexandre Cloutier and Véronique Hivon are pussyfooting around the referendum-sovereignty issue, and with candidate Jean-François Lisée pushing good government and no referendum, she said she will be clear from the get-go.
A Ouellet PQ government would propose a referendum and make Quebec a country in the first mandate after its election, she said.
“The waiting game is over,” Ouellet said in her opening remarks. “We have been waiting for 20 years (since the failed 1995 referendum). At this rate if we don’t shake things up in the independence movement we will continue to wait a long time, like spectators of our own future.”
She argued the longer Quebec remains in Canada, the worse things will get because the rest of the country will always have more votes. That’s how 10 years of rightwing government under former prime minister Stephen Harper was imposed on the province, she said.
Asked later if a vote for PQ government under her leadership would be a vote for independence, Ouellet said, “It’s clear.
“I propose to put an end to ambiguity, which unfortunately has been cultivated in the PQ and in the caucus in particular for too long,” she said.
A McGill University-trained mechanical engineer, Ouellet, 47, worked for 20 years at Hydro- Québec before jumping into politics.
The PQ will pick its new leader sometime this fall. PQ riding presidents are meeting Sunday in Drummondville to rubber stamp the rules of the leadership race.