(Mascouche) PQ candidate in Masson, Stéphane Handfield, apologizes to CAQ candidate Mathieu Lemay for the actions of his volunteer who stole 275 promotional leaflets from the Coalition avenir Québec (CAQ) to replace them with party leaflets Quebec.
Updated yesterday at 1:35pm.
Charles Lecavalier The Press
“I apologize for my volunteer’s gesture, this is unacceptable,” Mr Handfield said on the sidelines of a news conference on immigration with PQ leader Paul St-Pierre Plamondon. “The destruction of leaflets, the destruction of election signs is unacceptable,” he pounded.
In the morning, outgoing Masson MP Mathieu Lemay left La Presse, where he revealed he had lodged a complaint with Mascouche police last Tuesday after finding the disappearance of 275 leaflets from his party. During the week he received videos identifying a man distributing Parti Québécois leaflets and apparently withdrawing a CAQ leaflet.
“We accept the candidate’s apology and are satisfied that after these gestures the volunteer was thanked by the organization. The file is closed for us,” says Rosalie Tremblay-Cloutier, CAQ spokesperson for the Lanaudière region. She confirms that Mr Lemay will withdraw his complaint to Mascouche Police.
Act fast
Mr Handfield says he acted quickly when he suspected the activist of stealing leaflets last week. “I asked my team to find out who passed by on this street to get their version of the facts. He denied, even offended, that one might think he made the gesture. Despite everything, I asked my team to fire this volunteer,” he said.
He points out that he contacted his opponent to say that the theft of leaflets was “unacceptable” and that he had “nothing to do with it”.
PQ leader Paul St-Pierre Plamondon praised the speed of Mr Handfield, who “reacted as quickly as anyone could do”. “The organizations with 3,000 volunteers go as far as they can,” he said.
During an election campaign, there is no interview and no CV for a volunteer, explained Mr St-Pierre Plamondon. “There are people who arrive, there can be mental problems. There are people who can be too partial and it becomes a problem. When you have thousands of volunteers, all sorts of situations can arise. But the instructions are: be careful and when in doubt even more careful,” he said.
The Mascouche police in analysis
At the Mascouche City Police Department, Deputy Director Sylvain Chevalier told La Presse on Tuesday that his teams are currently “gathering the facts in this file to see if an investigation is possible.” “At the moment there is no conclusion, we are at the beginning of the process,” he said. In such a case, the police must first “check what information is possible,” adds Mr Chevalier. “We cannot suspect the perpetrator of the crime, so we need to determine what we can collect as evidence and as witnesses,” he added, citing the possibility that surveillance camera videotapes were also viewed by investigators. — Henri Ouellette-Vézina, La Presse