Haroun Bouazzi regrets the “clumsiness” of his remarks on the National Assembly

Photo: Jacques Boissinot The Canadian Press Quebec MPs had a lot to say Tuesday about comments made by Haroun Bouazzi, who said earlier this month that he witnessed the “construction of the Other” in the National Assembly on a daily basis.

Québec solidaire (QS) MP Haroun Bouazzi expressed regret Tuesday for the “clumsiness” of his comments about alleged racism in the National Assembly. He will remain a member of the Solidaire caucus.

Discussions surrounding Mr. Bouazzi’s future as a Solidarity elected official continued Tuesday morning, at the very moment when the main person concerned was facing a group of attacks from the three other parties represented in the National Assembly.

Expected with bated breath in parliament, Mr. Bouazzi appeared before a Solidarity caucus that was also far from being sold on his cause. At the end of the week, several members of the left-wing party had expressed their “disagreement” with his speech. On Tuesday, the Sherbrooke MNA, Christine Labrie, in turn wanted to “denounce” her colleague’s speech, which has rained down a series of criticisms on Québec solidaire since last week.

“We’re having a lot of discussions in the caucus right now. “It’s still ongoing,” she said, before isolating herself with her eleven colleagues for a meeting that lasted more than an hour.

At the end of this exchange, around noon, MP Bouazzi delivered a long message on the X network to assure that he “does not consider the National Assembly and its members to be racist.”

“I would particularly like to assure my parliamentary colleagues Lionel Carmant and Christian Dubé of my esteem. The examples that concern them and that I spoke about during my interview on Tout un matin were certainly clumsy. I apologize for this clumsiness that overshadowed the substance of my remarks and my thoughts,” he wrote, without saying a word afterwards to the parliamentary press, who were waiting for him at the exit of his meeting.

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During an interview on Radio-Canada radio last Friday, the Solidaire MP suggested that the speech by Mr. Carmant and Mr. Dubé on immigration contributed to the “construction of an Other” whose culture would be, by definition, “dangerous and inferior.”

On this day that promises to be difficult for the parliamentary wing of Québec solidaire, I would like to take the time to say some important things. First, I reaffirm my commitment to working alongside my colleagues in the solidarity caucus, in the service of our…

— Haroun Bouazzi (@HarounBouazzi) November 19, 2024

Request for apology

Back from a week of parliamentary recess, elected representatives from other political parties had a lot to say about Mr. Bouazzi's speech, which has been in hot water since excerpts from a speech he gave earlier this month appeared in the media. It was in this speech that he first spoke of a “construction of the Other.”

In a motion that he plans to table later this afternoon, the Coalition avenir Québec government will formally ask him to withdraw his remarks and “apologize to [the] Assembly and all its members who were targeted by his accusations of racism.”

“I am shocked that an elected official is walking around the community and not building bridges, trying to divide us,” lamented the Minister responsible for the Fight against Racism, Christopher Skeete, on Tuesday morning.

Two other motions are expected to be tabled, by the Quebec Liberal Party and the Parti Québécois respectively. They both state that the National Assembly is not racist. In the morning, both Liberal MNA Marwah Rizqy and PQ MNA Pascal Bérubé demanded a mea culpa.

“The institution cannot tolerate that a parliamentarian who sits there, who has every opportunity to denounce situations that are problematic, decides to say such a thing,” Mr. Bérubé stressed. “Let Québec solidaire govern itself accordingly, but when we do not dissociate ourselves from the words of an elected official who is part of a caucus, it means that we are contributing to damaging the reputation of democracy, of the people's house,” said Ms. Rizqy.

This weekend, at the convention, Québec solidaire members supported a resolution also maintaining that Quebec MNAs were not racist.

With Dave Noël

Read also

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