Christine Fréchette on the defensive over CAQ record during Quebec debate
Coalition Avenir Québec Leader Christine Fréchette was the main target in the first debate of the provincial election campaign on Tuesday as the five main party leaders sparred over the economy, Quebec sovereignty and immigration.
Party leaders to face off again Wednesday in 2nd debate of 3
Morgan Lowrie · The Canadian Press
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Coalition Avenir Québec Leader Christine Fréchette was the main target in the first debate of the provincial election campaign on Tuesday as the five main party leaders sparred over the economy, Quebec sovereignty and immigration.
From the first moments of the debate, Fréchette's rivals criticized her party's last eight years of governance.
Parti Québécois Paul St-Pierre Plamondon said his party would end years of “CAQ waste,” while Quebec Liberal Leader Charles Milliard said Fréchette’s party hadn’t taken care of the economy and businesses, and “doesn’t in any way represent the changes Quebecers need.”
Fréchette took no time in distancing herself from her predecessor and former premier.
“I am not François Legault. I am Christine Fréchette, and I come with my own way of doing things,” she said.
Conservative Leader Éric Duhaime and Québec Solidaire's Ruba Ghazal were also on the stage for the two-hour debate, hosted by Quebec's TVA television network.
Host Paul Larocque urged the leaders to stay respectful as the debate got underway.
The debate focused on three main themes: the economy, taxes and public services, and the future of Quebec.
It also featured a head-to-head format, with two leaders being paired off to debate most of the questions.
St-Pierre Plamondon, Milliard and Duhaime accused the Coalition Avenir Québec government — and Fréchette as a minister and more recently premier — of having presided over ballooning state spending and a growing debt, as well as scandals around the now-defunct Northvolt electric battery plant project and cost overruns at the province’s auto insurance board.
Fréchette said her government could create stability and predictability, and touted deals such as the recent tentative energy agreement reached with Newfoundland and Labrador.
In one testy exchange, Fréchette said Duhaime’s plan to cut $47 billion in state spending over the next five years would hurt working mothers.
“It seems that for Mr. Duhaime, financial independence stops at women because he doesn't actually want to increase the number of spots in [daycares],” she said.
Duhaime shot back, saying he was only proposing what amounted to a five per cent spending cut.
“Five per cent, people who are listening at home do that every week.”
On sovereignty
St-Pierre Plamondon also faced criticism over his promising a sovereignty referendum in the next four years if his party forms government.
Fréchette said a Parti Québécois government would focus on sovereignty rather than other priorities such as health.
“We see that their priority, in fact, is to create a new Quebec currency, to create a Quebec army, and wait, a Quebec space agency. So I would like to say to Mr. Plamondon: come back down to earth and work on real priorities," she said.
The Parti Québécois leader, in response, targeted Fréchette's refusal to say whether she'd vote yes or no in a sovereignty referendum, and her attempts to distance herself from her party's past.
"You can ridicule, Ms. Fréchette, if you want, the aspiration of a people to go toward more equality and more respect between people. Me, I’m in politics, I don’t hide my convictions, I don’t hide the name of my party," he said.
Milliard also criticized Fréchette's refusal to say how she'd vote in a referendum, saying she had people in her party supporting both sides of the sovereignty debate and describing her position as "unworthy" of leadership.
On immigration
The leaders were also questioned on their stances on immigration. Ghazal criticized St-Pierre Plamondon for earlier comments linking immigration to overcrowded schools and the decline of the French language.
"This really touches me because I have six nieces and nephews who are second-generation Quebecers, and they aren't the ones causing schools to overflow," she said. "The reason our schools are overcrowded is underinvestment."
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St-Pierre Plamondon said Ghazal was twisting his words.
"You're falsely implying that I blamed children. Obviously, I didn't do that. I was talking about the CAQ's immigration thresholds."
Tuesday's debate was the first of three involving the main party leaders. They return for a second debate Wednesday, and a third on Sept. 23.
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