The Parti Quebecois' stunning electoral failure was caused by anxieties over a referendum and was not a condemnation of the PQ's attempt at legislating a ban on religious symbols in the workplace, according to PQ MNA Bernard Drainville.
Drainville, who was in charge of his party’s proposed Charter of Values, wrote in an open letter Monday that the election, “turned into a referendum election in which the question was ‘do you want a referendum?’”
As a result, he writes in Le Devoir, the draft charter “did not play a fundamental role in the results.”
Drainville argues that the charter represented “common values that define today’s Quebec,” which he likens to France’s “liberty, equality and fraternity.”
Drainville, who some believe to be a likely PQ leadership candidate, once again reiterated that the PQ was ready to compromise on the charter and would have been willing, for example, to exempt certain categories of employees.
“I profoundly believe that if the opposition parties hadn’t announced their intention to vote against the Marceau budget, we would have been able to – along with the CAQ – reach a compromise that would have allowed for the adoption of the charter.”
