PQ race: one more step for activist Sylvain Gaudreault

Sylvain Gaudreault has been a member of the Parti Québécois since 1987.

Share September 29, 2020 Updated September 30, 2020 at 7:49 am Share PQ race: one more step for activist Sylvain Gaudreault

Olivier Bossé Le Soleil The Parti Quebecois will choose its new leader on October 9, two years after the resignation of Jean-François Lisée. During the last four weeks of this marathon race, Le Soleil presents the four candidates vying to lead the PQ to the general election of 2022. Today: Sylvain Gaudreault

“I did everything. I put up posters, I did fundraising, I went door to door. I have been a candidate, deputy, minister, I have been the interim leader of the party. I know him perfectly, that party! And my entire political life has been at the heart of my role as an activist. ”

Sylvain Gaudreault now wants to become permanent leader of the PQ. This was never a goal in itself, he says. But he sees this further step as a new tool to “change things for Quebec society towards independence, but also change things within the party”.

A member of the Parti Québécois since 1987, he was in CEGEP. He became a member of Parliament 20 years later, in 2007, and has now been elected five times in the riding of Jonquière. Including the last time, in 2018, with its highest percentage of vote, 48.4%.

“In my political life, the chiefdom is the strongest experience I have had in terms of the electoral campaign. Without diminishing what I live in the county. But touring Quebec, meeting people … And you have to be good at everything, not just the environment or local or regional issues. There, we must have things to say about the French language, about economic development, about town planning, etc. ” he enumerates, in an interview with the Sun.

“I will not leave my family”

At the head of the peloton for several weeks in a four-man fight that will have stretched over nearly a year – Mr. Gaudreault was the first declared candidate, in November – the 50-year-old man advances not to prepare any other scenario than that of victory.

“I'm in a state of mind to win. It always has been! I did five campaigns in Jonquière, I have always won. I have no other scenario, ”he says.

” I did everything. I put up posters, I did fundraising, I went door to door. I have been a candidate, deputy, minister, I have been the interim leader of the party. I know him perfectly, that party! And my entire political life has been at the heart of my role as an activist ”- Sylvain Gaudreault

But in the event of a defeat on October 9, do not expect a bang or slam of the door from the one who has already witnessed three leadership races and many storms within the PQ.

“The Parti Québécois is my political family. I will not leave my family, confirms Mr. Gaudreault.

Calling himself a “reformer of the interior party”, he would set up his “nine independence projects” the day after his election as leader.

“In my plan for the transition to independence, I have nine projects. I want to set it up quickly to get answers to citizens' questions for the 2022 election. I also want us to be even more connected to local and regional realities, because my objective is to win in 2022 and to That takes us more deputies, ”he argues.

No chef's salary

The only member among the four aspirants for the 10th elected leader of the PQ, first since the aftermath of the October 1, 2018 election, Mr. Gaudreault will not be idle until the vote. Despite the recent cancellation of his last campaign meetings due to the upsurge in COVID-19.

He will be busy in parliament with the study of Bill 50, which affects the Shipshaw River in his riding, and the upcoming adoption of Bill 44 on the climate, a subject for which he is the spokesperson for his party.

“My work as a deputy keeps me busy in parallel with the leadership race, but it also has advantages. I understand several pieces of content through my work, ”he says.

“Something else, too. I don't need a salary. In the Parti Québécois, it's public, we have an important financial stake. I will not ask the party for a salary as leader. I will have my salary as a deputy and parliamentary leader [of the National Assembly], that's all. It is still an important reality, it is part of the context. This is part of the set of arguments, pros and cons that members have to weigh. I come up with that, it's my dowry! ” continues Mr. Gaudreault.

Transform the party from within

More than that, his “ability to bring the party elsewhere and further” should get him elected, he believes.

“It was I who spoke the most about the issue of the climate crisis with the strongest and most concrete proposals. I have demonstrated that we absolutely need independence to go ahead of others on the climate crisis. We have nothing more to do in Canada, which is stuck in the tar sands, he stresses.

“And it was I who, inside the party, proposed the strongest measures to change the organization. I have spoken on several occasions of “inverting the pyramid” so that the national is at the service of the constituencies. I am a reformer inside the party. I have the capacity to deliver the goods to transform the party, ”promises Sylvain Gaudreault.

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