Catherine Dorion’s book about her stormy career in politics sparks controversy at Québec Solidaire (QS). In the upper echelons of the party they content themselves with pointing out that before she left “it was known that she was unhappy”.
Ms Dorion, a former MP for Taschenreau, officially published the book Les têtes brûlées on Monday. Punk Hope Diaries. The nearly 400-page work lists several moments in her political career in which she was allegedly the target of “emotional and emotional violence.” [des] Power negotiations” by QS co-speakers. Above all, Gabriel Nadeau-Dubois.
On several pages, the artist-turned-MP questions the ways of the “GND” at the top of the party. She says she has been criticized several times by the party executive for her position in the media. “As they say in the theater: I’m on stage. “That doesn’t happen,” she describes.
Neither Mr. Nadeau-Dubois nor outgoing co-spokeswoman Manon Massé made themselves available for comment on Monday about their former colleague’s tirades. Neither do the few supportive elected and former officials Le Devoir contacted. “We’ll wait. “The book has just been published in bookstores,” said QS press spokeswoman Simone Lirette.
As a long-time employee of the parliamentary wing, Ms. Lirette nevertheless allowed herself a brief comment. “She was known to be dissatisfied with the constraints associated with the work of a deputy, particularly in the National Assembly,” she wrote. “We respect that she chose to leave and we thank her for bringing her color and passion for four years. »
“Great sadness”
Supporting employee Louis-Philippe Boulianne appeared significantly less tender on Sunday evening towards the woman who hired him in 2018. In a long text published on social networks, the current employee of the party’s parliamentary wing accuses the former elected officials of the solidarity movement of having harmed them.
“I had the opportunity to read Catherine Dorion’s book. “I emerge from reading this with great sadness,” he emphasizes.
In several paragraphs, Mr Boulianne criticizes the “artistic impulses” shown by Ms Dorion during her four years in office. “For example, Catherine was determined to take part in a video project whose scenario was to see her destroying a model depicting Justin Trudeau with a shovel. Gabriel and Manon had […] “I had to intervene to convince them” to give up the idea, he says.
Mr Boulianne claims to emerge from his reading with a “bitter” disappointment in the ex-MP. “After five years, I am finally ready to say it: Catherine did not promote our movement. On the contrary, she has leaned on the shoulders of our party to rise further,” he claims.
After five years, I’m finally ready to say it: Catherine did not promote our movement. On the contrary, she leaned on the shoulders of our group to rise higher.
Québec Solidaire’s communications director, Stéphanie Guévremont, assures that Mr. Boulianne’s text is a purely personal initiative. When asked about her former employee’s writings, Ms. Dorion said several of the reported comments were “inaccurate or erroneous.”
Mr. Boulianne’s publication had the effect of a small earthquake within the party’s activist base. In the comments, former communications adviser to QS’s parliamentary wing, Marc-Olivier Gingras, claims to share “a lot of it.” [ses] Impressions and disappointments. “Shame for the left, shame for QS and ultimately shame for Quebec, all of it,” he wrote.
Another of Ms Dorion’s former employees, Catherine Desjardins, tends to question Mr Boulianne’s claims. “It seems to me that you are looking at the situation through the prism of a parliamentarian. It’s understandable that you are, but you know that politics isn’t just what happens up on the hill,” she says.
Congress in two weeks
In an interview with Le Devoir on Monday, Sackreau solidarity activist Andrée-Anne Tremblay said she was disappointed with the treatment given to Ms Dorion’s comments on the publication of her book. “I think Catherine is naming things that are there. I am an ardent supporter of the truth and think her experience is absolutely valid,” she said.
Ms. Tremblay, who still holds her membership card in the equestrian sport that Catherine Dorion once represented, is urging her activist colleagues not to tear each other apart. “It’s okay to hear both sides. I think we just have to be careful that we don’t start blaming ourselves and then create a separation: people who are for Katharina and people who are for Gabriel,” she added.
“It’s not that. Everyone is pro-Quebec in solidarity. »
QS will hold its next membership meeting in Gatineau in two weeks. The party’s next co-spokeswoman must be elected there. Gabriel Nadeau-Dubois is his party’s only candidate for male speaker.
Despite its record delegation, QS only achieved 15% of voting intentions in the last Léger poll, two percentage points less than in the Quebec company’s last poll.