(Quebec) The Coalition Avenir Québec (CAQ) resumes its financing activities and the collection of political donations, one year after having ended it due to a controversy. But cocktails will now be without the presence of ministers.
Posted at 1:34 p.m.
Party director general, Brigitte Legault, confirmed to The press Friday that popular funding will resume at the CAQ shortly after the 1is February, the time to settle administrative formalities.
As we wrote on December 20, she submitted to the deputies a proposal to resume the collection of donations, on the occasion of the Caucus meeting in Saint-Sauveur earlier this week.
It was at the end of these exchanges that the CAQ gave fire to the return of popular funding.
If the party has decided that the ministers will no longer participate in funding cocktails, it is to avoid any “perception that must be paid to meet a minister” and “to settle a file”, explains Brigitte Legault.
-Last year, the Director General of the Elections of Quebec (DGEQ) stressed that “the presence of a minister for a financing activity raises […] The risk that an exchange that has occurred in the context of the activity can lead to a decision having an appearance of constituting an advantage provided in exchange for a contribution ”.
In January 2024, the CAQ was accused of monitoring access to its ministers due to certain invitations to funding cocktails. Outraged that “doubts” are raised on his integrity, Prime Minister François Legault announced the 1is February that the party gave up political gifts and ended its financing activities.
This decision deprived the CAQ of about a million dollars. Mr. Legault had gone so far as to suggest abolishing the popular funding of political parties, which had been criticized by the opposition.
After investigation, the commissioner for the ethics of the National Assembly bleached a deputy, Louis-Charles Thouin, concerning an invitation to a funding cocktail in the presence of the Minister of Transport Geneviève Guilbault. Ariane Mignolet, however, deplored a “mixture of genres between the functions exercised by the deputy in this respect and the partisan activities in which he can be called to participate”.
MP Sylvain Lévesque wished a reprimand of the National Assembly – a rare sanction – for trying to deceive the commissioner during an investigation also relating to an invitation to a funding cocktail, in the presence of the Minister of the Minister this time Finances, Eric Girard. The blame of the commissioner did not relate to the invitation itself.
