Parti Quebecois (PQ) leader Paul St-Pierre Plamondon said on Thursday that the Coalition Avenir Québec (CAQ) is not hesitating to resort to Duplessis-style tactics to try to scare voters away from independence in the Jean-Talon byelection.

He suggested that he would be an "assertive, transparent" independentist and that he might table the draft budget for Year 1 of an independent Quebec, promised for last June, before the vote on Oct. 2.

"The CAQ has already started (to scare voters with sovereignty)," said the sovereigntist leader on Thursday morning at the start of the meeting of PQ elected representatives to prepare for the return to the national assembly. He even compared the CAQ with the Liberal Party under former premier Jean Charest.

"My colleague (MNA) Pascal Bérubé reminded me of how Jean Charest operated, and there are a lot of similarities."

The polls suggest a close fight between the CAQ and the Parti Québécois (PQ) in the Jean-Talon riding, and, according to the sovereignist leader, the CAQ will do everything to "change the subject" and brandish the scarecrow of independence rather than be accountable.

The subject of the day is damaging the CAQ, in his view, since it abandoned its flagship commitment to build the third link, the Quebec-Lévis motorway tunnel.

"What's the issue at the moment? It's: Do the people deserve to be respected? Should their intelligence be respected when commitments are made during an election, knowing full well that they won't happen?" he said.

CAQ leader François Legault said on Tuesday that the issue this autumn would be "not Quebec independence, but the cost of living," thus reiterating the PQ's number one objective, which is to achieve sovereignty -- which could put off some federalist voters.

In addition, the CAQ slogan asks voters to "keep Jean-Talon in government."

In a press scrum on Thursday morning, St-Pierre Plamondon associated these tactics with those of former premier Maurice Duplessis, who invited voters to "vote on the right side," to use the expression of the time.

"It sounds eerily similar to the slogans used by the Union Nationale in the late 1950s. These slogans are not intended to build or inspire, but to create fear in the population," said St-Pierre Plamondon.

He believes that the election of a PQ MNA in this seat would advance the sovereigntist cause.

"A fourth MNA would advance independence, the Parti Québécois and democracy. Having a fourth musketeer makes a very big difference," he said.

The PQ caucus went from seven to three elected members after the 2022 election.

 

This report by The Canadian Press was first published in French on Aug. 31, 2023.