The PQ and the PLQ want to denounce Haroun Bouazzi's remarks

Photo: Francis Vachon Le Devoir Haroun Bouazzi is at the center of a controversy because of the comments he made at the Fondation Club Avenir gala last week.

Thomas Laberge – The Canadian Press in Quebec City

Posted at 9:59 p.m.

• Québec

While Québec solidaire (QS) wants to move on, the controversy surrounding the comments made by Solidaire MNA Haroun Bouazzi regarding alleged racism in the National Assembly will continue this week. The Parti Québécois (PQ) and the Quebec Liberal Party (PLQ) will each table a motion on Tuesday to denounce the comments made by the Solidaire member.

The text of the PQ motion aims for elected members to affirm that none of the members of the National Assembly “is motivated by racism and the negative or inferior construction of the ‘Other’ and strongly denounces any comments in this sense.”

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The PLQ's motion demands that the Quebec parliament “dissociate itself from any statement suggesting that this Assembly and its members are racist.”

These motions are intended to force the members of Parliament in solidarity to take a position on the statements made by the member for Maurice-Richard.

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Haroun Bouazzi is at the center of controversy because of the comments he made at the Club Avenir Foundation gala. “God knows I see this in the National Assembly every day, the construction of this Other, this Other who is North African, who is Muslim, who is black, who is indigenous, and whose culture, by definition, is dangerous or inferior,” he declared at the time.

He was called to order by the party's two co-spokespersons, Gabriel Nadeau-Dubois and Ruba Ghazal, who said his statements were “clumsy, exaggerated and polarizing.”

Despite everything, Mr. Bouazzi persisted and signed during an interview on Radio-Canada radio Friday morning, targeting, among others, ministers Christian Dubé and Lionel Carmant as well as PQ leader Paul St-Pierre Plamondon.

This controversy overshadowed the QS convention this weekend. The party finally adopted an emergency resolution in an effort to put the controversy behind them.

The solidarity motion states that the party “does not support and has never supported that the National Assembly and its members are racist.” It also reaffirms the party’s desire to fight against “systemic racism” and “strongly condemns the threats, violence and smear campaign directed against MP Haroun Bouazzi.”

Clearly, this was not enough to calm the discontent of the other two opposition parties.