CAQ creates website to promote Bill 61 following 'spread of false information'

Opposition criticizes fast-track project plan There is more criticism for the Quebec government’s new Bill 61 that would fast-track more than 200 infrastructure projects.

MONTREAL — The Coalition avenir Québec party launched a website on Tuesday evening that aims to promote Bill 61, which was introduced by the government and quickly denounced by the opposition parties.

The website, "pl61.ca" claims to want to separate fact and fiction in regard to the province’s economic recovery plan that has been widely criticized by the opposition parties.

"Since the start of the pandemic we have prioritized the spread of the right information. Following the false information circulating on social networks, we have separated what is true and what is false," reads the website’s homepage.

"Currently, we’re facing a double challenge: to revive the economy without reviving the pandemic. Help us spread correct information," the document continues.

The website was put online by the political party and not by the government of Quebec. The metadata linked to the pl61.ca domain confirms the website was launched on behalf of Denis Joannette, a senior executive of the CAQ and not a member of the government.

On Twitter, Québec solidaire co-spokesperson Gabriel Nadeau-Dubois described the website as the CAQ’s attempt at "damage control."

"This is what I call being defensive," he said.

Parti québecois leader Martin Ouellet also took to Twitter to compare this move to the Liberal party’s strategy to defend its reputation during the Charbonneau Commission.

"It is precisely to avoid reliving that dark era that the CAQ shouldn’t give itself disproportionate powers," Ouellet said.

The pl61.ca page lists a series of statements identified as "false," but doesn’t indicate where they came from or who allegedly made them. The CAQ also lists a series of statements identified, by them, as facts.

The public committee to follow up on the recommendations of the Charbonneau Commission warned the government against the content of pl61.ca, which it says creates conditions that are "extremely favourable to the emergence of corruption, collusion and other embezzlement."

Opposition parties are criticizing François Legault’s government for trying to take advantage of the COVID-19 pandemic to flout the democratic process.

A section of the website also invites citizens to consult projects in their regions on the preliminary list of government infrastructure projects.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published June 10, 2020.