There are still about 300 days until the next provincial election, but the political parties are in full campaign mode. Since the CAQ and Liberals both held party conventions last weekend, they’ve been taking pot shots at each other’s campaign promises.
“The battle is on,” said CAQ leader, François Legault.
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Legault isn’t trying to hide it — he’s gearing up for the election, even if it’s still ten months away. He said his rival is too.
“I think yes, when you look at the tone of Mr. Couillard Friday night. He repeated my name six times.”
On Tuesday, MNA’s began a two-week intensive session, but so far, the debate has had nothing to do with the legislation they’re studying.
Legault questioned why, if the Liberals think they can afford to build a high-speed monorail from Montreal to Quebec City, the premier doesn’t have the cash to invest more in education?
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The government says it’s actually the CAQ that has its spending priorities wrong. The liberals say the CAQ’s promise to reinstate fully funded in vitro for couples struggling with infertility is too costly.
“Many, many things that the CAQ is promising is not feasible,” said Health Minister Gaetan Barrette.
If the debate seems to be mostly between the Liberals and CAQ, the Parti Quebecois (PQ) leader said he isn’t worried this will turn into a two-party race.
“We had a big conference back last September and the other parties were left out that weekend, so this was their weekend,” said Jean-François Lisée.
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The PQ will not campaign around the issue of a referendum, but on Wednesday, they did revert to an old language debate, citing a new Statistics Canada report that French in the workplace was slightly in decline. Lisée also said store owners should greet customers in French only.
“‘Bonjour/Hi’ is an irritant,” he said.
The PQ accused the government of being soft on protecting the French language, while the government accused the PQ of fear-mongering. All of this suggests the tone the election campaign could take for the months to come.
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