Pauline Marois to become Quebec’s 1st female premier
Liberal Leader Charest’s future uncertain after loss in home riding
Pauline Marois and the Parti Québécois claimed victory over the incumbent Liberals Tuesday night, winning a minority government in an election night that ended with a deadly shooting.
One person died and another was critically injured after shots were fired at Montreal’s Metropolis, where Marois was in the middle of her victory speech. A third victim was treated for shock in hospital.
Quebec’s premier-designate had just told a cheering crowd that Quebec needs to become an independent country when her bodyguards swooped in and whisked her off stage.
Marois took the podium just before midnight as a gleeful crowd of supporters burst into a round of Gens du Pays, a nationalist anthem, Marois told all Quebecers she was hopeful they could put aside their differences for a united Quebec.
“Voters have made a choice and we will respect it, and we will govern with all other parties at the national assembly,” she told the packed room at the Metropolis concert hall. The PQ won 54 of the province’s 125 seats with 31.9 per cent of the vote, while the Liberals won 50 seats with 31.2 per cent of the vote.
Marois, 63, will become the province’s first female premier.
During her speech, Marois thanked all of the candidates in the election and said the PQ will govern with all parties represented at the national assembly.
In English, Marois directly addressed anglophone Quebecers, saying their rights would be respected.
“We share the same history, and I want us to shape together our common future,” she said.
She also addressed her “friends and neighbours in Canada” saying that Quebec needs to become sovereign.
“We want a country and we will have it,” Marois said to loud cheers.
The PQ has never governed in the past with a minority, however, and its ability to table a referendum question or any other confidence measure would be tested by Liberal opposition.
Potential support for the PQ from two members of Québec Solidaire who were elected to the national assembly would still not provide a majority.
Prime Minister Stephen Harper congratulated Marois on her election win, but dismissed the prospect of Quebec sovereignty.
“We don’t believe Quebecers want to reopen the old constitutional quarrels of the past,” Harper said. “Our government will remain focused on jobs, economic growth and good economic management. We believe economic issues and jobs are also the priority of Quebecers. In that sense, we will continue working with the government of Quebec on those common objectives.”
Federal interim Liberal Leader Bob Rae remarked on Twitter that “Quebec voters reject separatist project.”
While the minority win falls short of a majority the PQ pitched for during the campaign, it marks a significant loss for the Liberals, who, after nine years in power, gambled on a summer election a year before the end of their mandate.
Jean Charest, the longtime premier, lost his bet that student turmoil and a soft economy would be enough to push voters to support a Liberal government for a fourth term.
In his own riding of Sherbrooke, Charest lost to PQ candidate Serge Cardin, a former Bloc Québécois MP.
With a hoarse voice, Charest conceded defeat to a crowd gathered in his home riding, alongside his wife and family.
“This is not the result I would have wanted. This is not a battle that I backed away from. I now have the firm conviction that our party will continue to serve Quebec, and will do it together.”
Charest pointed to the PQ’s failure to gain a majority, saying the campaign results show that the “future of Quebec lies within Canada.”
He took responsibility for the Liberal loss, saying he did so with an “open heart.”
“I tell you at the same time, there will be other chances for the Quebec Liberal Party,” he said.
“We have work to do. We proposed things to Quebecers, and now, faced with a minority government, we will be able to make our own contribution to the further construction of Quebec.”
Charest will likely consult his caucus before deciding on his future, according to a former cabinet minister and close ally.
Monique Gagnon-Tremblay said Charest is scheduled to meet his cabinet Wednesday and then his caucus later in the week.
In her victory speech, Marois told the crowd they should salute Charest who held a “demanding” job for nine years.
The newly formed Coalition Avenir Québec, in its first appearance in a provincial election, had a good showing, coming in third with 19 seats.
“The political landscape of Quebec will never be the same,” CAQ Leader François Legault told a crowd gathered in Repentigny. “We will see a new political force rise in Quebec. We can be proud of the road travelled in the last year.”
Legault won his riding of l’Assomption in a down-to-the-wire race against his nearest opponent, the PQ’s Lizabel Nitoi.
Québec Solidaire won two seats, one each for its co-spokespeople. Françoise David marked her first win in the Gouin riding, defeating PQ MNA Nicolas Girard, who had held the seat since 2004.
To a standing-room crowd at Montreal’s Olympia Theatre, David thanked voters for believing in the party.
“Thank you for expressing a profound desire for a feminist, ecologist and sovereigntist change,” she said.
The former president of the Quebec federation of women congratulated Marois on her historic achievement as the first woman to lead Quebec’s government.
Amir Khadir, the party’s other spokesperson and sole QS MNA when the national assembly was dissolved, has also been re-elected in the Montreal riding of Mercier.
Jean-Martin Aussant, leader of the Option Nationale, lost to the CAQ candidate Donald Martel in the Nicolet-Bécancour riding. Aussant previously held the same riding for the PQ before he left the party in 2011.
While all eyes were on the party leaders, the spotlight was also shining on several key candidates.
Former student leader and PQ candidate Léo Bureau-Blouin won the riding of Laval-des-Rapides, defeating the Liberal incumbent Alan Paquet and CAQ’s star challenger Maud Cohen.
Jacques Duchesneau, former head of the province’s anti-corruption squad and high-profile CAQ candidate, won his race in St-Jérôme.
Four cabinet ministers — Pierre Corbeil, Clément Gignac, Alain Paquet and Serge Simard — were all defeated. All four lost their seats to PQ challengers.
This campaign wasn’t a walk in the park for any party, with all leaders traversing the province and revving up the engines of their get-out-the-vote machine until its dying hours.
The Liberals were in a fight for their political lives since the campaign’s very first day.
The PQ and the upstart CAQ were quick to try to claim an advantage by highlighting the Liberal record on economic issues, the continuing corruption inquiry into the construction industry and the government’s handling of the tuition crisis and resulting civil unrest last spring.
Voters elected 125 representatives to form the legislature’s 40th national assembly. Sixty-three seats were required to form a majority government.
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FOOTNOTE:
Shooting at Quebec election event
A gunman opened fire at a separatist Parti Quebecois election victory rally in the Canadian province of Quebec, killing one man.
The shooting followed preliminary results indicating the party was on course to form a minority government after nine years in opposition.
PQ leader Pauline Marois was giving a victory speech in Montreal when shots were heard at the back of the hall.
As the suspect was led away, firefighters were called to put out a fire that had been lit outside the building.
The BBC’s Lee Carter said there was a lot of confusion when the shooting took place.
Pauline Marois told reporters afterwards that it never occurred to her that she was the target of a gunman who killed one man and seriously wounded another, plunging the province into a state of shock on the night Quebecers chose her as their first woman premier.
“I am profoundly sad,” Marois, looking pale and her voice cracking, told reporters.
Her news conference was supposed to be her victory lap, after her Parti Québécois won the provincial election, but without the majority she sought.
“A man is dead for no reason,” Marois noted.
“Quebec is not a violent society and one act of violence cannot change that,” she said, suggesting the gunman had “very serious” mental health problems.
Marois was hustled off the stage of Montreal’s Métropolis theatre by her security detail while she was delivering her victory speech to her PQ supporters Tuesday night, but then returned twice, once to urge people to stay calm and a second time with her family and elected PQ members to finish her speech.
She said she did not know until police had taken her to a downtown hotel that a man had died. She saw an injured man at the Métropolis whom she believed was not in serious condition and decided she could complete her speech.
“It seemed that everything was under control,” she said.
Marois intends to speak with the families of the victims Wednesday and she told reporters as well that she had a first “cordial’ conversation in the morning with Prime Minister Stephen Harper.
And in spite of the limitations of her minority government, she plans to go ahead with her legislative plans, noting the opposition parties agree with the PQ on the need to add daycare places.
She also expects agreement on plugging a loophole in Bill 35 that has allowed the myriad companies belonging to Tony Accurso to continue receiving public-sector construction contracts even after Accurso pleaded guilty to tax fraud.
On more contentious PQ proposals, such as rolling back the $1,788 tuition hike and abrogating Bill 78, Marois said she will proceed by cabinet decree, rather than trying to pass laws.
She also wants to go ahead, as planned, with her new, tougher Bill 101, extending francization rules to companies with 11 to 50 employees and applying Bill 101 rules to CÉGEPs and professional training programs so that only those eligible for English schooling may attend, excluding francophones and the children in immigrants who do not qualify for English schooling in the province.
“I want to present the whole new Bill 101 as I imagined it,” she said. “I will see how far the opposition will go.
For more on this story go to: http://www.montrealgazette.com/life/Quebec+premier+elect+Pauline+Marois+idea+target+gunman/7194921/story.html#ixzz25dUq16fW
