Poilievre would be a ‘catastrophe’ for Quebec, argues Duclos

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OTTAWA – Quebec Premier François Legault should think twice before asking for a change of government in Ottawa if he still wants money for his projects, warns Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s Quebec lieutenant.

“We know that a Conservative government would be very damaging not only for Quebecers but for the government of Quebec,” said Jean-Yves Duclos in an interview.

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Duclos accused Poilievre of being against several agreements and transfers favourable to Quebec in daycare, innovation, the Quebec tramway project and a transfer of $2 billion in housing.

Poilievre has indeed promised to scrap the multi-billion dollar tramway project that has been making headlines in Quebec for years. He has also announced that he will tackle housing affordability by reducing the GST on home purchases under $1 million and that he will fund this project by cutting the Canada Housing Infrastructure Fund and the Housing Accelerator Fund.

He has not, however, promised to scrap the childcare program passed earlier this year, from which Quebec will receive a total of $6 billion over five years because it already has a provincial program.

“It would be a catastrophe for the Quebec government if a Pierre Poilievre government were elected,” Duclos said.

Duclos gave a year-end interview to the National Post before his colleague Chrystia Freeland resigned from cabinet on Monday, sparking a new crisis among the Liberals.

During the interview, Duclos spoke about the Liberal meltdown in Quebec in 2024, but also about his relationship with the Quebec government.

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Because while Duclos was named Quebec’s point person to the Quebec government on Sept. 19, Premier François Legault asked the PQ leader “to have the courage today to ask his Bloc Québécois comrade to back down, not to support the Trudeau government” in a confidence motion presented by the Conservative Party.

In Ottawa, the Liberals couldn’t believe their ears. In 2021, Legault had made a similar request by inviting Quebecers to oust Trudeau’s Liberals from power and to support Erin O’Toole’s Conservatives. But Quebecers brushed that suggestion aside and went on to elect a majority of Liberal MPs and a handful of Conservatives.

Having just replaced his colleague Pablo Rodriguez who had resigned from cabinet to run for the leadership of the Quebec Liberal Party, Duclos couldn’t believe Legault was once again attacking his party.

Today, he thinks Legault understands that it was a mistake. Because at the time, Pierre Poilievre hadn’t yet said he was going to cancel the housing agreement.

“Eight thousand social housing units, what a disaster it would be for homelessness and housing in Quebec if the Quebec government lost this $2 billion agreement. He didn’t know it in September, now he knows it,” he said.

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As a Quebec City MP and minister of the public services and procurement department, Duclos regularly deals with his provincial counterparts in a relationship that has its “ups and downs.”

This year, there have been many downs. In Ottawa, many Liberals were tired of being Quebec’s easy target.

Especially when it came to the asylum seeker file, which was at the heart of Legault’s outburst in September.

As it turns out, a letter from intergovernmental affairs and immigration ministers Dominic LeBlanc and Mark Miller about the federal government’s plan to address the problem has clarified the situation for Quebec.

Things have been looking more positive lately, but Duclos admits that dealing with his home province’s government isn’t easy. Quebec is constantly at odds with Ottawa on many issues, including immigration.

Under an agreement between the province and the federal government in 1991, the Quebec government manages the volume of entries of its future permanent residents and economic immigrants. The province is also responsible for ensuring their integration and francization.

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The federal government must take care of welcoming refugees, family reunification and all issues related to citizenship.

For years, the Legault government has been asking Ottawa for more powers. Earlier this year, Trudeau was clear: “No, we are not going to give more powers (to Quebec) in terms of immigration.”

“Maybe we don’t have everything we want with a Liberal government, but it would be much worse for the Quebec government to have a Pierre Poilievre government with everything we know now,” said Duclos.

National Post
atrepanier@postmedia.com 

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