SHERBROOKE | On the eve of the election, François Legault surrounded himself with 44 CAQ candidates and presented himself as a unifying leader while Quebec is divided over immigration and protecting the French.
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On the very last day of the campaign, the outgoing prime minister made a brief stop in Maurice-Richard’s Montréal before heading to Estrie, where heated fighting is expected.
In particular, the Caquiste leader traveled to Sherbrooke to lend a hand to his strongest candidate, Caroline St-Hilaire, who is trying to evict Solidarity Christine Labrie. An honor guard of 44 CAQ candidates awaited him as he left the caravan.
He appeared before the media a few minutes later, flanked by outgoing Minister Sonia LeBel and well-known up-and-coming MPs Caroline St-Hilaire and Martine Biron.
“I think we need to unite in Quebec,” he said, noting that women in general have that trait. We’ve talked a lot about immigration, how to protect the French, we have the challenge of bringing everyone together.
François Legault says he wants to develop Quebec with “everyone”, be it anglophones, newcomers or francophones.
For that, he considers himself the perfect man, who claims to have ended fifty years of federal-sovereign “quarrels” with the founding of the CAQ. “My great pride is seeing people, some with a little more liberal past, some with a more PQ past, but we work together for the good of Quebecers,” he said.
The outgoing Prime Minister declined to address the possibility of Caroline St-Hilaire moving into the Council of Ministers when he returns to power. However, François Legault reiterated that his cabinet would be in the parity zone, meaning between 40% and 60% would be women.
But the CAQ candidate from Sherbrooke made no secret of her ambitions. If the former commentator and ex-Mayor of Longueuil wants a record number of women to be elected to the National Assembly on October 3, she also wants “many women to sit at the decision-making table”.
Caroline St-Hilaire claims the Sherbrooke voters she met were pleased with the apology from outgoing Minister Jean Boulet, who recently made controversial remarks about immigrants. He received no comment on his leader’s statement that raising immigration thresholds to more than 50,000 per year for French Quebec would be “suicidal”.
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