MONTREAL – Québec Solidaire announced Saturday afternoon that Will Prosper, a former police officer, activist and documentary filmmaker, will represent the party in the riding of Bourassa-Sauvé.
Prosper is of Haitian origin but was born and grew up in Montreal North, where much of the riding is situated.
Joining Québec solidaire was a natural progression for him.
“Everything I was fighting for was already in their program,” he said later in an interview.
“It was the right decision to take the next step to represent the population as they should be represented.”
The news conference to announce what the party called a “surprise candidate” took place outside his former home on Pelletier Ave., across the street from Calixa-Lavallée high school, which he attended.
Flanked by party leader Amir Khadir, Prosper told the media the dropout rate in the area remains high, despite the fact that the riding was represented by education minister Line Beauchamp for two years.
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He then went on to chide the Liberal Party for choosing Rita De Santis, former member of Concordia University’s board of governors, to replace Beauchamp as their candidate in the riding.
Not only is De Santis is not from the neighbourhood, he said, but she sat on the same board of governors Beauchamp fined $2 million earlier this year as punishment for handing out generous severance packages to administrators who quit their posts.
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“We can see that the Liberals are completely disconnected and they have no values,” Prosper said.
He was formerly a Royal Canadian Mounted Police officer, but quit to become a filmmaker.
Prosper was one of the founders and a spokesperson for the Montréal-Nord Républik, the group that lobbied for a public inquiry into the 2008 shooting death of Fredy Villanueva.
He is also a vocal opponent of racial profiling and has been targeted by police himself.
During the news conference, Khadir commented on remarks made Friday by Gilles Duceppe.
The former leader of the Bloc Québécois attacked Khadir’s commitment to sovereignty, saying his party’s existence splits the sovereigntist vote.
Khadir said he found it “sad” that Duceppe made the comments, saying that he didn’t see the need for personal attacks.
He suggested that he wasn’t the opponent Duceppe should be targeting.
“I invite him to concentrate on the real adversaries in our society. I invite him to unite his voice with Québec solidaire, the only party with the courage to stand up to the elite, the one per cent … that want to dictate the behaviour of our society.”
With its left-wing perspective, are you ever tempted to vote for Quebec Solidaire?
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