QUEBEC — Parti Québécois Leader Jean-François Lisée got busy Friday tending to bruised egos and patching things up with MNAs during a reconciliation caucus meeting in Quebec City, the first one since he was elected leader.
Lisée replaced Pierre Karl Péladeau, after a five-month leadership race that pundits declared was probably the most divisive in the party’s history.
He began the reconciliation process by inviting runner-up Alexandre Cloutier to dinner Thursday night. Then on Friday, Lisée, announcing his shadow cabinet, said he granted Cloutier his wish to return as education critic.
“He can count on me,” Cloutier told reporters. “We had a very cordial meeting … I was very clear from the get-go about what I wanted and I must say that I’m very satisfied with my responsibilities.”
The newly elected Parti Québécois leader Jean-François Lisée, right, is greeted by PQ MNA Alexandre Cloutier, during their first party caucus meeting at the National Assembly, in Quebec City on Friday, Oct. 14, 2016.
Martine Ouellet was named culture and communication critic, “a new challenge,” she said. Pascal Bérubé and Carole Poirier, who supported Lisée in the race, were rewarded with the prestigious house leader and whip posts, while Agnès Maltais was asked to continue as secularism critic.
The unveiling of the shadow cabinet also came with news Lisée is trying to “re-balance” his positions on religious neutrality.
Lisée was harshly criticized during the race for proposing, among other things, that all civil servants voluntarily refrain from wearing ostentatious religious symbols at work. He also said he would be willing to look at banning burkas in the province for security reasons, and suggested reducing the number of immigrants Quebec welcomes every year.
Now, Lisée said he is rethinking, and negotiating with his MNAs, two of those three positions: religious symbols at work and immigration levels. “As a PQ leadership candidate, I made strong proposals that are important to me. Now that I’m leader, I must unite and I’m open to discussions.”
“It’s a sensitive question and it’s essential that we find a comfort zone,” he said, adding he doesn’t feel he’s betraying PQ members who voted for him and his particular brand of secularism.
Quebec Premier Philippe Couillard, right, and the Prime Minister of France Manuel Valls on Dufferiin terrace overlooking the St. Lawrence river, Friday, Oct. 14, 2016 in Quebec City.
Meanwhile, religious neutrality was also a hot topic in the National Assembly’s Red Room, where Premier Philippe Couillard welcomed French prime minister Manuel Valls.
It is currently illegal for women in France to wear burkas and niqabs in public, and for civil servants and schoolchildren to display most religious signs.
Couillard was put on the spot by reporters who asked him whether he thought France’s position resembled the PQ’s, which Couillard last Saturday in Iceland associated with European right-wing populist parties. The premier steered clear of any comparisons between France and Quebec, arguing the two are evolving in “totally different historical, social and geopolitical contexts.”
French Prime Minister Manuel Valls (L) and Quebec Premier Philippe Couillard speak at a press conference in Quebec City on Oct. 14, 2016.
During that same press conference, Valls emphasized that he is a socialist who has battled the populist parties all his life.
“I’ve been following international relations for decades … I have never heard a foreign guest be so blunt toward a Quebec premier,” Lisée said.
“The socialist prime minister of France told him, ‘Any comparison (between my position and) the populist positions that I fight against, and that’s the sense of my life, are completely unacceptable to me’.
So he was saying to Philippe Couillard ‘I know what you said in Iceland and in Quebec City over the last few days and this to me is unacceptable because I fought against these populist movements all my life, and my positions on secularism are nowhere near populist.’ ”
