Quebec Election 2012: PQ Leader Pauline Marois plays down referendum question

Published on Wednesday August 01, 2012

BLAINVILLE, QUE.—Pauline Marois does not mind being associated with the streets — after all, she says, that is where the real people are.
“I don’t mind being part of the street, because it is the party of the people,” the leader of the Parti Québécois said on the first day of what is expected to be a hard-fought provincial summer election campaign.
Marois was responding to the ongoing characterization of her party by Quebec Liberal Leader Jean Charest — who is seeking a fourth term as premier — as being too closely allied with students protesting the tuition hike by taking to the streets last spring.
“I think it would do Mr. Charest some good to go into the street, to better understand the needs of Quebecers,” Marois, 63, said Wednesday.
“Canada has become a risk for Quebec,” Marois said as she accused the federal Conservative government of attacking Quebec’s economic interests and values and lambasted Charest for being unable to stop them from making cuts to employment insurance, dismantling the long-gun registry and imposing stricter punishments for young offenders.
“We need to eventually choose between remaining a province of Canada or to become a country,” Marois said. “More than a distinct province, we prefer that Quebec be a normal country. We will choose liberty.”
Whether that means Marois, if elected premier, will lead Quebecers to the polls for a third referendum on sovereignty, however, is something the nationalist leader refused to answer despite promising to speak about independence daily on the campaign trail.
“The day that we judge that it is possible to decide to choose a country, we will ask the question, but you know very well that our agenda is open on that issue,” Marois said as she tried to prevent the issue from becoming a ballot-box question that may motivate its rank and file but scare other voters away. “Today, we are not voting for or against a referendum. We are voting for or against a future government.”
Calling for a return to “integrity” and “honesty” in politics and government, Marois is playing into dissatisfaction with the nine-year tenure of Charest and upset over details from a public inquiry into corruption involving construction companies, governments and political parties.
Marois also called for a government that celebrates the values, language, culture and history of Quebec.
“We do not have to apologize for being who we are,” Marois said. “On the contrary, we must affirm who we are with strength by strengthening (language laws), by affirming our common values in the face of reasonable accommodation.”
Marois put a new twist on the subject by parachuting Algerian-born Djemila Benhabib in as the candidate into the mostly francophone riding of Trois-Rivières in order to highlight the cultural integration of immigrants and her rejection of the Canadian idea of multiculturalism.
“Today I am part of this ‘us’ and I am extremely proud to say so,” said Benhabib, who began to cry as Marois described her as a courageous woman. “I am certainly a little different, with an accent that some of you might find bizarre and a complicated name, but I will accommodate you.”
But she is also working to avoid getting squeezed by the newly formed political party Coalition Avenir Québec, headed by former PQ cabinet minister François Legault, and other left-of-centre parties Québec Solidaire and Option Nationale.
Marois’ message on Wednesday, which will be repeated throughout the campaign, is that the CAQ is too closely allied with the Liberals and the others do not have a realistic chance of forming government.