Although languishing in third place in the polls, CAQ leader François Legault has been visualizing success Monday.
Legault said Friday that he has a good idea of who he would name to his cabinet, he has listed five priorities for his first 100 days in office, he has a transition team and he knows who’d he’d keep and axe in the senior civil service.
While some might think his planning presumptuous, Legault said that he sees himself as akin to an athlete focusing on a gold medal.
Recent polls have not budged the future coalitionists upwards from third place but Legault's party has seen some encouraging gains, what he describes as a hockey team taking control of the game in the third period.
Legault’s first actions as premier would be to abolish the health tax in a budget that would be tabled before the end of May, gradually abolish the school tax, adopt a charter for taxpayers to limit inflation and tax increases, launch his St. Lawrence project to boost the economy, take aim at patronage and then adopt a charter of secularism, which he says would be “responsible and well-balanced.”
He says he’d also like to complete an exhaustive review of all infrastructure projects.
Legault, at a press conference Friday, said that he was unimpressed by the newest employment statistics which saw jobs increase by 15,000 in March and the unemployment rate drop to 7.6 percent from 7.8 percent.
Legault said that 18,000 jobs were created in the public, rather than the private sector. “This is your money, this is not how we will create wealth. What's worse, over 12 months, the government has created 800 jobs in all, compared to 90,000 in Ontario,” he said.
As for his cabinet, Legault mentioned such names as Christian Dubé, Stéphane Le Bouyonnec, Sylvie Roy, Gérard Deltell, François Bonnardel, Nathalie Roy as well as first-time candidates André Lamontagne and Claire Samson.
