MONTREAL - Premier Jean Charest says the Parti Quebecois has become more radical with the overwhelming support that leader Pauline Marois received on the weekend.
"It represents a radicalization of the Parti Quebecois and of Madame Marois,'' Charest said Monday after a luncheon speech to a business group.
Marois garnered the backing of 93.1 per cent of delegates who took part in a confidence vote on her leadership Saturday.
"All the better for her if she has the support of her troops, but at what price? At the price of radicalization,'' Charest told reporters.
"This gathering of radicals is proposing an important step backwards for Quebec. .it's the return to bickering, it's the return to what Madame Marois calls 'the sovereigntist governance'.''
One of the measures adopted at the PQ's weekend policy convention would make it mandatory for francophones and immigrants who attend junior college to do so in French.
Charest says Marois has radicalized herself "at the price of saying to adult Quebecers that we will forbid you access to learning in Cegeps (junior colleges) if they want to go to English Cegeps.''
The premier is also warning that if Marois and the PQ are elected they will want to bring about conflict with the federal government.
Charest says the PQ will be concentrating more on the next sovereignty referendum _ and not the economy.
"Even if the majority of Quebecers don't want a referendum, don't want sovereignty, she says, if she's ever elected she will govern as if she has a mandate to do separation or sovereignty,'' he said.
"The stakes won't be the economy, it's going to be the holding of the next referendum and that, for Quebec, represents an important step backwards.''
The PQ has not set any specific timetable for a referendum but the premier accuses Marois and Bloc Quebecois Leader Gilles Duceppe of hiding the truth about their real plans.
He noted that the weekend PQ convention also approved a plan to spend public money, "taxpayers' money to promote the sovereignty-separation option.''
Finance Minister Raymond Bachand noted that several people have left the PQ over the years.
Bachand worked for the sovereigntists during the 1980 referendum and was assistant director of the Yes campaign.
"And a lot of people from the '70s, from the (Rene) Levesque era, like me, of course are not there now,'' Bachand added.
He also pointed out that Camille Laurin, the so-called father of Bill 101 _ Quebec's language law _ was against forcing francophones to attend only French college.
Charest, whose Liberals hold a slim majority in the national assembly, doesn't need to call an election until 2013.
