Published at 1:21 am. Updated at 6:00 am.
A good week: Andrée Laforest
The local government minister managed to push through her tax reform smoothly. His bill was well received. It was the equivalent of his negotiations. A reasonable balance has been struck. Smaller municipalities enjoy more money, while larger municipalities have more powers. Ms. Laforest will allow cities to tax vacant or underused housing, such as those designated for short-term rentals. It is rare that a CAQ dares to introduce a new tax, but it serves the common interest. Another benevolent measure: the sharing of QST revenue with municipalities is anchored in law, which will make it difficult to abolish it.
Paul Journet, La Presse
Tough week: Bruno Marchand
PHOTO EDOUARD PLANTE-FRÉCHETTE, LA PRESS
Quebec Mayor Bruno Marchand held a press conference this week to provide an update on the tram project’s budget.
The mayor of Quebec is struggling with the energy of despair. We suspected there would be bad news with the tram cost update, but it’s worse than expected. The costs have not only increased by leaps and bounds. They are so high that Quebec can no longer find a bidder. Mr. Marchand doesn’t give up. He believes the project is not dead. The city could become the new conductor of the work by managing contracts with various contractors. But the CAQ government has lost its already lukewarm enthusiasm.
Paul Journet, La Presse
Number of the week
64,600
Officially, Quebec announced this week that it is setting its annual immigration threshold for the next two years at 50,000 permanent arrivals. However, if you add foreign students and business people to whom the Legault government wants to open the doors, that number could rise to 64,600 in 2024, according to estimates from the Immigration Ministry.
The quote of the week
It pains me to see Quebecers’ support dwindling. And then I’ll try to get better.
Prime Minister François Legault reacts to the Léger poll published in the Quebecor media. He was dethroned as the “best prime minister” by PQ leader Paul St-Pierre Plamondon, and his party is losing electoral traction and is being incited by the Parti Québécois.
PHOTO EDOUARD PLANTE-FRÉCHETTE, LA PRESS
Prime Minister François Legault at a press conference
Legault “better than Chartrand”?
A few days before the first day of the joint front strike, Gabriel Nadeau-Dubois was angry with François Legault on Wednesday by comparing him to the famous trade unionist Michel Chartrand. “To make people want to strike, the Prime Minister is better than Michel Chartrand,” the Solidarity leader quipped in a tough exchange with Mr Legault about the latest offer to civil servants. Mr. Nadeau-Dubois then accused his counterpart of being stingy when it is time to “give better salaries to the common world” and not when “you have to sign a check for a Swedish start-up.” He was referring to the company Northvolt, which will receive generous subsidies. François Legault responded with the attack: “The leader of Québec Solidaire has just shown why he will never be Prime Minister of Quebec.” […] He mixes business incentives with raises! »
The NDP is tired of being associated with the Liberals
The label “NDP-Liberal government” clings to the New Democrats’ skin. This is a “misleading” sentence, MP Daniel Blaikie fumed in the House of Representatives this week, because a confidence agreement like the one they signed in 2022 in support of Justin Trudeau’s minority government does not mean that this party is part of a government ‘or that they form a coalition. “I fully understand how deeply embarrassing it is for this MP to be caught up in the scandals and corruption of the Liberal government, but that is not our problem,” said Conservative Leader Andrew Scheer. The question, raised again on Thursday, was considered for consideration by the Speaker of the House of Representatives.
“Sit down!”
The Conservatives continue to play on the nerves of new House of Commons Speaker Greg Fergus, whose interventions are too frequent for some MPs’ taste. Pierre Poilievre repeatedly pointed out Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s irregular absence from Question Time on Wednesday. It was enough for the government’s House of Representatives leader, Karina Gould, to denounce “their lack of respect for democracy.” The Conservative leader jumped up and stood, even though he wasn’t allowed to speak. “Sit down,” a liberal elected official shouted at him. Other elected Liberals and New Democrats protested. “The mood is heating up,” Mr Fergus remarked, urging MPs to sit back down. Mr Poilievre added another layer by saying the prime minister was “panicking, shaking in a fetal position” over the “final days of carbon tax chaos” and turning a deaf ear to another call for respect for decency.
A walk in the snow!
There are liberals who can hardly wait for the federal capital to be covered with a beautiful white carpet. This isn’t because they like playing in the snow or cross-country skiing. They want Justin Trudeau to imitate his father Pierre Trudeau and take a little walk in the snow to think about his future. This is particularly true for Senator Percy Downe, who set out his thoughts on the prime minister’s future in the face of numerous polls that were disastrous for the Liberal Party in an opinion letter that caused a stir in Ottawa this week. Percy Downe was notably chief of staff to former Prime Minister Jean Chrétien before being appointed to the Senate by him. “Liberal Party members look forward to February 29th. “The year 2024 is a leap year, many hope it will snow on that day,” Mr Downe also told The Hill Times weekly newspaper. 40 years ago, on February 29, 1984, Pierre Trudeau took a walk in the snow and then announced his retirement from federal politics.
The return of the Night of the Long Knives
With the rise of the Parti Québécois, we started talking about the budget for the first year of a sovereign Quebec, a referendum in a first mandate, the currency and the Quebec army – it’s as if we were going back in time! Now Simon Jolin-Barrette has thrown himself into the fray again. The parliamentary leader of the Coalition Avenir Québec (CAQ) submitted on Thursday a motion to the National Assembly “to commemorate the Night of the Long Knives of November 4th to 5th, 1981”, while in the absence of former Prime Minister René Lévesque The federal government and seven provincial premiers agreed to unilaterally patriate the Canadian constitution without Quebec’s consent. In their unanimously approved motion, submitted jointly with Sol Zanetti of Québec Solidaire and leader Paul St-Pierre Plamondon of the Parti Québécois, the parliamentarians reiterated that “the nation of Quebec has the right to decide alone its political future.” and that she “intends to do so.” to use the constitutional and legislative mechanisms that allow him to assert the sovereignty of the Parliament of Quebec.”