Criticized for his absence from a summit on Monday in Ottawa between premiers and Indigenous representatives, Paul St-Pierre Plamondon is set to meet with representatives of the Assembly of First Nations of Quebec and Labrador (AFNQL) on Wednesday. A spokesperson for the new PQ government made the announcement on Monday. Last week, St-Pierre Plamondon’s team had suggested that he would not attend Monday’s federally organized meeting because the timeline was too tight, given the transition currently underway in Quebec City since the Oct. 5 election. In a social media post, the leader of the official opposition, Charles Milliard, criticized the premier for “leaving Quebec’s seat empty,” even though he had promised to “collaborate with the rest of Canada.” However, this was a “deliberate and well-considered” decision, countered the new Minister of Relations with First Nations and Inuit, Simon-Pierre Savard-Tremblay. “The Quebec government meets with Indigenous nations directly, nation to nation, on our territory,” rather than “at a table organized by the federal government,” according to “its framework, timeline, and parameters, which remain very vague,” he wrote on social media, noting that the premier of Alberta and the newly elected premier of British Columbia were also absent. - This report by The Canadian Press was first published in French on Oct. 26, 2026
