The new solidarity duo wants to put “butter on the table” of Quebecers

François Carabin

Published at 0h00

• Québec

The new spokesperson duo for Québec solidaire (QS) intends to keep the party on its “pragmatic” trajectory, while staying away from the “identity bidding war” being waged by the PQ and CAQ in the National Assembly. Between now and the 2026 general election, the solidaires will be busy proposing ideas to put “butter on the table” of Quebecers, while speaking to their “hearts.”

Saturday will be an important day for the future of the left-wing political party. At a virtual convention to reform their statutes and regulations, the solidaires activists will also decide whether they want to elect MNA Ruba Ghazal as co-spokesperson, along with Gabriel Nadeau-Dubois. The Montreal elected official is the one and only candidate in the race, which in principle assures her of winning.

Since QS stopped accepting candidates in October, Mr. Nadeau-Dubois and Ms. Ghazal have formed an unofficial spokesperson duo. And the Mercier MNA intends to take advantage of her first weeks alongside the former student leader to put her mark on the party, she told Devoir during an interview with her new sidekick on Thursday.

“I want us to stay strong on the issues that I call bread and butter on the table. […] That is our strength, at Québec solidaire,” she maintained, naming in passing the recent positions of her party to combat the rising cost of living: a universal school food program, free menstrual products, or even a law to protect vulnerable senior tenants from evictions.

“But I also want us to be strong on issues of the heart. That's being Quebecois, but also being open to people who come from elsewhere,” emphasized the woman who proudly describes herself as a “child of Bill 101.”

As spokesperson, Ruba Ghazal wants to revive a “nationalist” message that has “been heard less on the left in recent years.” “I remember when I arrived in Quebec in the late 1980s, there was a very open nationalist discourse, of love for Quebec, of protection of French,” she recalls. “Seeing immigrants and people who come from elsewhere, [we said to ourselves] that it was a wealth. »

« Identity escalation »

Even though they are preparing to put the national question at the top of their list of priorities, the new spokesperson duo wants to avoid participating in increasing tensions on the identity theme, stated Gabriel Nadeau-Dubois, Thursday, a few hours after having to deal with controversial comments on racism by Solidarity MP Haroun Bouazzi.

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“We are currently witnessing in Quebec a bidding war between two parties, the Parti Québécois and the CAQ [Coalition avenir Québec] on the themes of identity, immigration, secularism. And this bidding war is taking up a lot of space,” maintained “GND”, who says he accepts the reduced space his party has occupied in the public arena in recent months.

“Maybe if we got involved in this bidding war, we would generate more clicks, but that is not the choice we are making. We are choosing to continue to fight the economy, the fight against the cost of living crisis,” he added.

Boasting of having held “jobs for about fifteen years in factories,” Ruba Ghazal maintains that it is this type of proposal that will allow her party to get out of its stagnation in the polls. The day after the publication of a poll by the Léger firm which places QS at 13% in voting intentions, far behind the Parti Québécois, at 35%, she opens the doors of her party to the “working class”.

“The middle-class carpet is being pulled out from under the feet of many people who work, who work every day, but who are hungry, who find it extremely expensive to buy groceries, and who have to go to food banks,” she listed.

“I think that [our proposals] could speak to them, but perhaps because of the perceptions, images or clichés that we have of Québec solidaire, these people may think that we are not speaking to them,” added the Montreal MNA.

A “pragmatic” shift well underway

Six months after calling for a “pragmatic” shift within his party, Gabriel Nadeau-Dubois still believes that it is by taking this path that QS will be able to escape its torpor. “I have always believed in this important process. I believed in it last spring and I wanted to breathe new life into this sail by saying: this is an important project for the future of Quebec. That is what I did. I still believe in it,” said the male Solidarity co-spokesperson.

Last May, a few days after the resignation as spokesperson of former Solidarity MNA Émilise Lessard-Therrien — who notably deplored the centralization around her colleague — Mr. Nadeau-Dubois called in a long press scrum for a “modernization” of his party. This will be achieved, he said, by a more “pragmatic” approach based on more moderate positions in certain sectors, such as industry and agriculture, in particular.

This statement did not go down well with QS. In the following weeks — and in anticipation of a national council meeting in Jonquière — several criticisms were leveled at the solidarity co-spokesperson, some from former party leaders.

Six months later, can we say that members have been “unfair” to Gabriel Nadeau-Dubois ? “A little bit, yes,” Ruba Ghazal says after a short silence.

Optimistic, she says she is convinced that the new pair she forms with “GND” will convince the supportive activist base. “Like in all good families, there are arguments, but after that, we move on.”