Ex-cabinet minister joins race for PQ leader

ALMA, QUE.— Former cabinet minister Alexandre Cloutier has ensured there will be a race to succeed Pierre Karl Péladeau as Parti Québécois leader.

Cloutier, 38, announced Friday he will become the second candidate to seek the sovereigntist party’s top job.

“Today I am ready to assume the important functions of being the leader of the Parti Québécois,” said Cloutier, who was runner-up to Péladeau in the last PQ leadership vote in May 2015.

Speaking in his home riding of LacSt-Jean, he said he is ready to lead a party that would be “modern but faithful to its roots.”

A member of the legislature since 2007, Cloutier notably served as the province’s Canadian intergovernmental affairs minister from 2012 to 2014. Cloutier highlighted his work as the party’s current official education critic and promised to make the issue a focal point of his campaign.

“I have stood up to defend the education sector with parents, with teachers, with support staff . . . and I can already announce that I will once again make it a priority during this leadership race,” he said.

The PQ is scheduled to choose a new leader between mid-September and mid-October.