(Quebec) Christine Labrie wants to break with the label of “cloud shoveler” from Québec Solidaire. The combative academic is not afraid to anger activists with his criticism, at the risk of losing the race for the position of co-speaker.
Posted at 5:00 am.
“I know what I am putting forward will shock some people in the party, but I know it will resonate greatly with others. We will see the result at the end […] We never do politics without taking risks,” she said in an interview.
Since the race to succeed Manon Massé began, Christine Labrie has not minced words. She judges that the party’s policies to combat climate change have created a feeling of “revulsion” among the population and that QS is using the Constituent Assembly as an “escape route” to avoid defining its independence project.
Without giving up QS’s “radical proposals” – in this party, speakers do not decide on the content of the program – she believes that the recipe to convince more voters is based on concrete and clear ideas, presented in simple language become. “I am better informed than many long-time members about how people view Québec Solidaire from the outside,” she says.
“Dreaded politician”
This combative attitude is part of Christine Labrie’s personality. The MP for Sherbrooke is the target of a Liberal minister, Luc Fortin, and a star CAQ candidate, Caroline St-Hilaire.
She is someone who, despite her benevolent aura, is a formidable politician. She understands the political game, she plays it in her positioning, in the way she mobilizes allies for her cause.
Luc Fortin, former Liberal minister
Even as a teenager, Christine Labrie had a “critical eye”. In 2004, Sherbrooke announced that public transportation would be free on blizzard days. The city then states that the idea was submitted by a young student at Triolet Secondary School, Christine Labrie, as we can read in an article in La Tribune.
She became politicized at CEGEP, where she was involved in the student movement, and became a mother at 19. Motherhood forced her to stop working while studying, and she couldn’t ask her parents to foot the bill. It showed him “the need” to have a good social safety net.
During her university studies (master’s degree in history and doctoral studies in women’s studies), Ms. Labrie was drawn to social causes. But she never thought about going into politics.
Butterfly effect
It’s a strange butterfly effect that leads him to present himself as a spokesman for QS. In 2017, the pedestrian — who doesn’t have a driver’s license — signed an open letter denouncing the Costco move as an “environmental disaster.” A new, more left-wing local party, Sherbrooke Citoyen, is exploring interest.
“I wasn’t sure. I started attending the council meeting to see what it was like. Once I was there, I realized that I could have done a better job than what I saw there” , she says.
Sherbrooke Citizen Councilor Geneviève La Roche remembers the confidence Ms. Labrie had in asking her questions as a citizen. She doesn’t have a “flamboyant personality,” she says, but is “integrated, rigorous, capable of great analysis and great listening.”
Ms. Labrie narrowly loses her election, but she catches the political virus. This year she bought a QS membership card. In 2018, she was recruited as a candidate and caused a surprise by winning Sherbrooke.
Unusual trio
Ms. Labrie was newly elected in Quebec, part of an unusual trio she formed with Liberal Marwah Rizqy and PQ’s Véronique Hivon. They formed a united front against the Minister of Education Jean-François Roberge.
We have taken similar positions in several bills. We found out we were working together. There were times when we consulted.
Christine Labrie
She believes this is an example of her ability to do bipartisan work.
Then Prime Minister François Legault called her “Mother Teresa” at Salon Bleu on the issue of the lack of daycare places. “He gave me a gift. […] It gave me a lot of platform,” she says.
To strengthen her position on the issue, she launched a call for testimony from educators and former educators: “I received hundreds of testimonies. I put this together. “I felt like I was writing a master’s thesis again,” she says.
Mélissa Généreux, a public health specialist, unsuccessfully ran for Québec Solidaire in the neighboring town of Saint-François in 2022. “When I think back to my decision to go into politics, it was a bit crazy. I felt very comfortable in my role as a doctor […] If she could dress me, I imagine a lot of people would,” she says.
Who is Christine Labrie?
Age: 36 years old
Place of Birth: Sherbrooke
Education and profession: Lecturer in history at the University of Sherbrooke, master’s degree in history and doctorate in women’s studies
Support in the Quebec Solidaire Caucus: Guillaume Cliche-Rivard, Haroun Bouazzi, Étienne Grandmont and Alexandre Leduc, his new husband