Q&A: Parti Quebecois leader Paul St-Pierre Plamondon on tuition, immigration, screen time

Elected officials returned to the national assembly in Quebec City on Tuesday, and the party with the lowest number of seats in the Salon bleu is the one that is riding highest in the polls.

The Parti Quebecois is also trying to connect with English-speaking Quebecers.

CTV News Montreal anchor Maya Johnson interviewed PQ leader Paul St-Pierre Plamondon as the new session gets underway. 

This article has been edited for clarity and length. Watch the video above for the full interview.

CTV: I want to start with his big picture of you smiling on the front page of the Montreal Gazette yesterday, part of a two-part series. Saturday's headline was PSPP reaches out to anglophones, and you said you would consult anglophones more than CAQ. But ultimately, it seems you agree with the CAQ on things like out-of-province tuition hikes for English universities. So is there really a difference between your two parties when it comes to policies affecting the English-speaking community?

St-Pierre Plamondon: Well, obviously, the approach is different, and I invite everyone to listen to the Corner Booth podcast. We had 55 minutes of conversation on several topics. What I clearly mentioned on the topic of universities is we were never consulted, and there are gaps in terms of the efficiency of that measure. And if it's not effective, I've committed to reviewing the approach.

CTV: Reviewing the approach as in canceling those tuition hikes?

Paul St-Pierre Plamondon: As in the argument that was made in that podcast is, if the number of students [drops], well, the objectives of the measure will not be achieved. And I've mentioned that the PQ's approach is to change the way that universities are financing themselves because it is a race of getting more and more foreign students as possible to get financing for the university.

So we are working currently on a change in the way we finance the universities. I've mentioned that I want equitable, fair financing for French-speaking universities, as compared to English-speaking universities, but the way to do it, I don't think it's through international students.

So we're working on that, and we will have a clear answer on that in 2026 with the knowledge as to whether the CAQ's measures are problematic or not.

CTV: Let's turn to immigration; now, obviously, it's a big issue again. You want to lower the number of newcomers allowed to come to Quebec to 35,000 a year, that's less than the CAQ wants to allow. How did you arrive at that number?

Paul St-Pierre Plamondon: That's the figure that we put forward for the election 2022. It's based on how our capacity to deliver services and to deliver housing to a growing population. So we looked at how many houses were being built last year; we had around 30,000 units built. At the same time, if you add temporary and permanent immigration we added to our society 230,000 people.

The disproportion is obvious, and it's been the case for several years, and the consequences are very serious: a steep rise in homelessness and a steep rise in prices, and you have a new generation that cannot access ownership anymore.

So, we're working on a different approach that would be balanced. Forty-five thousand is the figure that we had at the beginning of the 2000s in Quebec, and we had no problem with housing. We can't say that by rising importantly immigration we solved the shortage of labour, and it's the same observations in Ontario and the rest of Canada.

CTV: Advocates for immigrants for migrants, asylum seekers will say that, these are pre-existing systemic problems. The housing crisis didn't just magically appear because immigrants are coming into Quebec, and some are arguing that politicians are scapegoating immigrants. Are you concerned about the tone of the political debates around immigration?

Paul St-Pierre Plamondon: I'm concerned about their tone. Those parties who scare people by saying things that we never said. I'm talking about public policies and levels of immigration, and they transform that to create a climate of fear. Quebec Solidaire is the master in that, and the Liberals also play that game. If you look carefully, Bank of Montreal, Bank National and the Bank of Canada, they all signed papers recently to say there's a direct causation between high levels of immigration and the housing crisis.

They also make clear causation with services that are difficult to deliver for the state. It's a matter of being objective and trying to find a responsible approach that is balanced, that is sustainable. You will never hear the Parti Quebecois blaming anyone because the goal here is to integrate and give a fair chance to every Quebecer in a fair society. That's what we will continue doing.

CTV: You're a father of three, you're concerned about kids and screen time, you say it's a public health issue, and you want to make it a priority. Tell us how you'll do that.

Paul St-Pierre Plamondon: You cannot have one psychologist per person, and you cannot add new resources if you don't go to the root of certain public health problems.

We spend so much time in front of televisions, intelligent telephones, and iPads, that our kids are - 95 per cent of our teenagers - are way beyond the recommendations in terms of time being spent.

The impact is gigantic. Our teenagers, they weigh 15 pounds more on average than teenagers in the 80s. The health care problems have doubled. The attention deficit problems have also nearly doubled in six years. You look at the figures, our teenagers are spending on average four hours a day on social media, even kids that are four years old, they spend on average 15 hours a week.

So it is a serious public health question. I compare it to cigarettes in the 80s and 90s. And the way to do it as in the 80s is to say, 'We want a society that is free from smoke.' In this case, we want a society where there's no dependency to the level where the health of our kids is threatened, and I want to work on that even though I know it's not a popular topic. I think it's a healthcare topic that we should be taking much more seriously and people have written to me, experts, parents who are worried and we're working on a plan that I think would be complete by the end of the year.