Photo: Jacques Boissinot La Presse canadienne Bernard Drainville a profité de sa prise de parole en période des questions mercredi pour prendre à partie Gabriel Nadeau-Dubois.
The Blue Room took on the air of a schoolyard on Wednesday, after the Minister of Education, Bernard Drainville, accused the spokesperson for Québec solidaire (QS) Gabriel Nadeau-Dubois of “draping himself in the great virtue” about the three-speed school despite his private education.
Questioned by solidarity MP Ruba Ghazal on the costs of remedial courses in secondary school, M . Drainville took advantage of his speech during question period to take on “GND”, which had spent several minutes following up on Prime Minister François Legault on the “three-speed” school system.
“Little comment on private schools, here: the head of QS, who went to private school, do you have any comments to make on that ?” he asked -he asked from his side of the House. “I’m going to quote: “Private school, the head of Québec solidaire caught up in his past.” Well yes, it went to Regina Assumpta. »
I have nothing to blame my parents, who made the choices they made 15 years ago
— Gabriel Nadeau-Dubois
Remarks which aroused the ire of the main person concerned. Furious, Mr. Nadeau-Dubois even got up behind his desk to scold the Minister of Education. After a new intervention by Mr. Drainville, the President of the National Assembly, Nathalie Roy, had to intervene to calm things down.
In a press scrum a few minutes later, the supportive MP agreed that he had “been lucky in life”, before criticizing Mr. Drainville for having engaged in “small personal attacks” at the Salon bleu . “I have nothing to blame my parents, who made the choices they made 15 years ago based on the values they held,” he said. I'm proud of where I come from, I'm proud of the choices my parents made for me. »
Although he found that the minister's comments were “not up to par” with his role, the parliamentary leader of Québec solidaire did not requested an apology from him.
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“It made me react, because I find that it is a very small way of distracting from a social debate which is important for Quebec,” he added. I will not attack Bernard Drainville or any of the CAQ ministers on the choices they made for the education of their children. I would expect the Minister of Education to be able to respond on the subject. »
Interviewed before a meeting of the Council of Ministers, Mr. Drainville did not want to answer questions from the parliamentary media.
In 2012, when he was a minister in the PQ government of Pauline Marois, Bernard Drainville himself confirmed through a press officer that he had made “the free choice to send [his] children to private”, like the Minister of Education, Pierre Duchesne. The latter had also been criticized for not following the duty of “exemplarity” set by his boss, Ms. Marois, during the previous electoral campaign, namely to “send his children to public school”.
Québec solidaire calls for an end to public subsidies to private schools. Last week, Ruba Ghazal also demanded an end to selection based on grades, behavior or money to access special programs in public schools.