National Council: Quebec united, always united?

“My dear friends, this evening I would like to speak to you quickly about three things: security, solidarity and respectability. »

Knowing that I was leaving for Saguenay to cover the national council of Québec solidaire, a friend who was a history buff sent me a 1971 video taken from the Radio-Canada archives where we hear Pierre Bourgault criticizing the shift reasonable what the Parti Québécois is doing. He explains that the P.Q. must stop trying to secure voters, and instead seek to embody the idea of ​​freedom, arouse the desire for freedom. In the images, we see the exasperated look of René Lévesque, who does not hide his irritation.

QS right now?”,”text”:”Look at this, it’s crazy how this looks like the debate that’s rocking QS right now?”}}”>Look at this, it’s crazy how this debate shakes up QS Right nowthis friend wrote to me in a brief message.

I watched the video, pensive, just before arriving in Limoilou, where former MP Catherine Dorion lives. In his street, the smell of lilacs is strong, despite the gray and cold weather in Quebec.

Disillusionment

Last fall, when the trees were adorned with color, Catherine Dorion released a story about her time in the National Assembly. From, The hotheads, published by Lux Éditeur, has become a real bookstore success: 10,000 copies sold to date. These notebooks recount his disillusionment with the political institution, but also with his own party and its parliamentary leader, Gabriel Nadeau-Dubois.

: right-wing columnists, old parties, finance. But its most formidable face was right next to me”,”text”:”I believed that the greatest danger was distant, external: the right-wing columnists, the old parties, finance. But its most formidable face was right next to me”}}”>I believed that the greatest danger was distant, external: the right-wing columnists, the old parties, finance. But its most formidable face was right next to meshe writes on page 284.

I wanted to stop in Quebec and talk to him before arriving in Saguenay, because the publication of his book constitutes an important milestone in the path taken by the internal crisis which is shaking solidarity within the party.

Right away, Dorion shows me a video where we see Gabriel Nadeau-Dubois next to Manon Massé in 2018. GND explains, convinced, that left-wing political movements must not refocus to take power.

That’s what was hot when I joined the teamshe said to me in front of her library. This speech spoke to me. Let go, get closer to social movements, imagine things differently, let solidarity spring from the desire to question the system, make the world dream.

Fearful choice

Dorion was also one of the forty signatories of a letter published in The dutyat the beginning of May, defending the call for pragmatism launched by Gabriel Nadeau-Dubois. Where will this fearful choice of remaining within the limits of pragmatism dictated by the media and economic elites lead us? Our ambition is much bigger than that, they wrote. A sentence that would not have displeased Pierre Bourgault if he were still in this world.

Since the release of her book, Catherine Dorion is now taking a step back, she tells me. She tries to recover from what she experienced as an ordeal. She still has her party membership card, but she will not go to the Saguenay council.

Another big absentee from this family reunion will be Émilise Lessard-Therrien. I spoke to her a few times before she made her decision to resign as spokespersonCatherine Dorion tells me. guts to denounce the clique around Gabriel”,”text”:”I understood that she was experiencing the same types of frustrations as me, that she was experiencing the same balance of power as me. I think she had guts to denounce the clique around Gabriel”}}”>I understood that she was experiencing the same types of frustrations as me, that she was experiencing the same power struggle as me. I think she had to guts to denounce the clique around Gabrielshe adds, admiringly.

Weakening of feminism?

I had barely left Catherine Dorion’s house to get back on the road when my phone rang. Again. I spent part of the week on the phone with activists, influential figures in the party, deputies, ex-employees and founding members to try to understand what those who did not take the pen, neither to write a book nor to publish a letter in The duty. I wanted to know what they thought of QShis turns, his future, his relationship with women.

A former employee confided to me that she was quite disgusted to hear in particular the complaints denouncing a so-called weakening of feminism in QS. It is completely false to say that women do not have as much place as men in this party. I’m a little tired of this victim talk. A political party is neither a summer camp nor a support groupshe told me.

Some say that we invalidate the words of women. Well, I feel invalidated as a woman in the party when I hear that. I took my place and no one stopped me.

Another old hand from QS told me he saw in Catherine Dorion’s book a vendetta, quite simply. She poured her gall on Gabriel. Others did it after her. They denounce a clique. Which clique? There is no clique! It’s paranoia.

According to him, the shift proposed by Gabriel Nadeau-Dubois is a necessary dusting off. Our decision-making structures are heavy, too heavy. Those who resist form a sort of militant elite attached to our complicated statutes and to a program that is inapplicable as it stands.

Saddened

Another, very tired of the internal struggles, explains to me that she is saddened by the departure of Émilise Lessard-Therrien, but points out that the party has no money, not enough to be able to provide her with the help that she would have wished. No one had bad intentions thereshe told me. Is Gabriel a warm eccentric? No. He is as he is. But he’s a damn good guy who’s driven by damn good ideas and intentionsshe believes.

An interlocutor has a completely different vision of Gabriel Nadeau-Dubois. He is not generoushe said, speaking of the parliamentary leader. He is not listening. There are real fault lines in this party. He returns to the error of orange taxesthe party’s proposal, during the last election, to tax people who had assets of more than a million dollars. This discredited us in the region with the farmers and startled voters who had saved their entire lives to buy a duplex. Can we talk about that?

We arrive at Cégep de Jonquière around 5:00 p.m., around the same time as Joëlle Saint-Pierre, a volunteer that everyone knows in the party. Since 2009, Ms. Saint-Pierre has been preparing little treats for activists for weeks. She never misses any council or conference. She makes cakes, cream sugar, fudge, cookies. She’s in charge of the sweets table.

In the CEGEP parking lot, his goddaughter, Estelle Saint-Pierre helps him take the sweets out of his car. My job is to make them happy, she says, and at the end of the week, I’m going to work hard. In the meantime, Amir Khadir, who has been there since the beginning of the party, warmly greets the volunteer and holds the door for her. The sugar you bring us will help us solve our problemshe told her affectionately.

I ask the former party spokesperson, who has experienced many other debates within QSif Québec solidaire is always united. Yes. Being united does not mean avoiding debates.

There you have it, the table is set. And on the weekend menu, it’s a safe bet that there won’t just be little treats.