With the Quebec election nearly a week away, leaders are hitting the ground running on day 31 of the election campaign. The general election is on Oct. 5. Key details: Follow along for the latest updates: Milliard says he spoke with several PQ members who are “uncomfortable” Liberal leader Charles Milliard does not believe Paul St-Pierre Plamondon, who claims that no candidate or party member has asked him to tone down his rhetoric on immigration. “I don’t believe that for a second,” Milliard said during a press scrum on the sidelines of the Quebec Federation of Municipalities convention in Quebec City on Friday. “Mr. St-Pierre Plamondon knows very well that there are municipal officials, business owners, (...) and there are members of his party and candidates who are uncomfortable with this situation.” The Parti Québécois (PQ) proposes to reduce the permanent immigration quota to 35,000 and cut the number of temporary immigrants in the province in half. The PQ candidate in Sherbrooke, Gabriel Pallotta, caused quite a stir this week when he stated that his party needed to “clean up” its rhetoric on immigration. He claimed that a group of “30 or 40” PQ candidates shared his sentiment, only to later retract his statement, claiming he had “made up” the whole story under “pressure.” Charles Milliard did not name the people he spoke with, but he asked how the candidate in Pointe-aux-Trembles, Stéphane Paquet, could support the PQ’s proposal. The Canadian Press Milliard dontinues to defend candidate Hudon Liberal leader Charles Milliard is standing by his candidate in Vanier-Les-Rivières despite new allegations of inappropriate behavior against him. According to a report released by Le Journal de Montréal on Friday, Charles Hudon allegedly engaged in “abusive” behavior while he was chief of security at the National Assembly. He also allegedly made a series of inappropriate and intrusive comments to an employee who eventually resigned from her position. This report, dated 2022, had been commissioned from a law firm by two unions, including the Quebec Government Special Constables Union. At a press conference in Quebec City on Friday, Milliard argued that his candidate had been in charge of security at the legislature during an “extremely difficult” period. He was referring to the COVID-19 pandemic. “Since then, his employer has given him further promotions; he had his employer’s trust,” he argued. “Charles Hudon denies the facts set out in the report. (...) So, based on the information I have at this time, he is still my candidate and he has my trust,” added Milliard. The Canadian Press Voting system reform: Parti Québécois A PQ government would push through electoral reform in Quebec, even if it does not have the support of all the parties represented in the National Assembly. That is what Parti Québécois (PQ) leader Paul St-Pierre Plamondon suggested during a press conference Friday in Quebec City. The Quebec Liberal Party (QLP) has in the past opposed efforts to reform the current first-past-the-post system, but a potential PQ government, if it holds a majority, would move forward anyway, because it is part of its platform, the PQ leader said. In the spring of 2018, the three parties that then formed the opposition—the Coalition Avenir Québec (CAQ), the PQ, and QS—had formally committed to carrying out such a reform if any of them came to power. Only the PLQ opposed it. In 2019, François Legault’s CAQ government introduced an ambitious reform—Bill 39—to implement a mixed-member proportional representation system. Under this system, 80 members of the National Assembly would have been elected to represent a smaller number of ridings—80 instead of 125—while the remaining 45 members would have been elected in proportion to the support received by the various political parties in each region, based on a list of candidates provided by each party in order of priority. The aim was to reduce the distortions caused by the current voting system and electoral map, so that the number of members of each party represented in the Assembly would more accurately reflect the percentage of votes received. However, the government backtracked in 2022 and abandoned its reform. Currently, Quebecers vote for a party’s candidate in a riding, and the party that succeeds in electing the most members of the National Assembly is called upon to form the government. In the 2022 election, the three opposition parties received similar results, ranging from 14 to 15 percent of the vote, but the will of the people was in no way reflected in the distribution of seats in the National Assembly. The PLQ won 21 seats, QS 11, and the PQ, 3. The Conservative Party (PCQ), which received 13 per cent of the vote, won none. As for François Legault’s CAQ, it took the lion’s share, winning 90 out of 125 seats—72 per cent of the total—with 41 per cent of the vote. The Canadian Press The leaders
