Anglophone minister denies rumours, insists she’ll run again

The MNA for NDG is shaking her head at rumours that she won’t run again in the next election.

Kathleen Weil, who is also the minister responsible for relations with English-speaking Quebecers, has been insisting for weeks she will run, but one Montreal radio commentator doesn’t believe her.

“I find it really quite reprehensible how people can speculate publicly about someone’s intentions,” Weil said.

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Last week, the politician said she has every intention to run in the October election. On Thursday, she said it again, but she’s frustrated the message doesn’t seem to be getting through.

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“People should accept that. People should just simply accept that,” Weil said.

For the last two days, political commentator, Bernard Drainville, has been speculating on which current ministers may or may not run again.

A former PQ minister, Drainville said there’s a possibility that Weil will step aside and the Liberal Party will give her riding to the higher education minister, Helene David. David’s current riding of Outremont is merging with Mont-Royal in the next election.

According to Drainville, Weil is keeping her plans to quit politics under wraps until closer to the election date. He says it’s part of a Liberal strategy to prevent the English-speaking community in NDG from finding another anglophone candidate to replace her.

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Drainville surmised that giving anglos too much time to get organized, would put the premier in a position where he would be obliged to accept the anglophone community’s candidate.

“Listen, where does that come from?” Weil said. “I really don’t know if this was all just invented by somebody, I have no idea.”

Drainville declined an interview with Global News on Thursday.

Weil said she is planning to declare her official candidacy at a special ceremony in May in NDG.

Until then, she’s working on tabling an action plan for English-speaking communities before spring.