The Coalition Avenir Quebec (CAQ) may have found an antidote to appease its federalist activists, worried after the emergence of two candidates with a clear sovereigntist past, Bernard Drainville and Caroline Saint-Hilaire. François Legault is to announce the candidacy of Pascale Déry, an unconditional federalist, today in the riding of Repentance.
Posted at 12:00 am
Mme Derry, until recently a spokesperson for Air Canada, was the candidate of Stephen Harper’s Conservatives in the 2015 general election. She initially failed to secure the Conservative nomination in Mount Royal, where she lived, losing to former Equality member Robert Libman. Party in the National Assembly, then a member of the Montreal City Executive Committee until 2005.
Mme Déry was then parachuted in as a Conservative candidate in Drummond, where she finished fourth. Later, in early 2017, she served as a debate moderator for the candidates to succeed Stephen Harper.
Before falling out with the Conservatives, Mme Dery was a journalist at TVA for fifteen years, then head of antenna at LCN. We later find her as the Head of Communications at the Montreal Economic Institute (IEDM). During her visit, she spoke out against trade subsidies that “only displace jobs that would otherwise be created”.
For her, the government should eliminate “inefficient and excessive” subsidies and channel the money saved into tax cuts for all businesses. She also took a stand against the Quebec model of childhood centers (CPE), which she wrote in MEI’s publications, was unnecessarily expensive compared to private or family daycares.
In repentance, Mr.me Derry has not faced any accidents. CAQ won the riding in 2018 with Lise Lavallee announcing her decision not to seek a new mandate.
Christine Frechette replaces Daniel McCann
Another safe riding goes to a candidate with a certain notoriety on the municipal scene. Christine Frechette replaces Daniel McCann wearing the CAQ’s colors in Sanguine. Mme McCann was picked at the last minute in the 2018 election – François Legault had to find a credible healthy candidate, Gertrude Bourdon failed to win him over to the Liberals.
At the beginning of the pandemic, Mr.me McCann moved to higher education and was replaced in health by Christian Dubey. Another minister is pondering her future: Nadine Girault is undecided about her next election campaign. Elected Minister of International Relations in Bertrand, she was diagnosed with lung cancer in 2019. It seems that this constituency is expecting a woman with economic profile.
Christine Frechette is CEO of the East Montreal Chamber of Commerce for four years until May 2021. She resigned because she intended to support Denis Coderre in his campaign against Valérie Plante for mayor of Montreal. Mme Frechette used to be executive president, but she ultimately decided not to go into municipal politics.
In the Marois government, she was Jean-Francois Lisy’s press secretary, a post she gave up after publicly announcing that she could not accept the Charter of Values sponsored by minister Bernard Drainville.
Photo by Édouard Plante-Fréchette, La Presse Archives
Îles-de-la-Madeleine Mayor Jonathan Lapierre at a press conference with Minister Genevieve Guilbault in Cap-aux-Meilles in 2018
Another known candidate will announce himself for CAQ in the coming weeks. Magdalen Islands Mayor Jonathan Lapierre will run against PQ MP Joel Arceneau. It was a “fight to the end” for these two politicians; LaPierre defeated Arsenault for mayor of the islands in 2013. He is Vice-President of the Quebec Federation of Municipalities and a member of the Board of Directors of the Federation of Canadian Municipalities.
In another departure, the deputy of Chutes-de-la-Chaudière, Marc Picard, announced that he would not seek another mandate. He was elected in 2003 with Mario Dumont for Democratic Action of Quebec. Strategically, the CAQ decided to wait as long as possible to make this announcement; This is a potentially fertile area for the Conservative Party. CAQ strategists did not want to give Eric Duhaime time to identify a candidate.
