‘I tried to stay,’ François Legault says of his decision to step down as premier
QUEBEC — Premier François Legault says he was serious when he said he wanted to win a third mandate in office, but the polls refused to budge so he left for the good of his party.
“I tried to stay,” Legault said in an end-of-term television interview Tuesday with Radio-Canada. “But I had been watching the polls for a while and I saw that the support (for the Coalition Avenir Québec) was not strong.”
He made a similar comment in another interview, on TVA.
“I tried all fall, right up to Christmas, saying the polls have to go up,” Legault told TVA. “It didn’t work. I stayed low in the polls. For the good of the party, I sensed people wanted change and one new leader would help.”
Legault’s comments follow his emotional farewell to the legislature last Thursday, his last day in the premier’s chair. Legault announced in January he was stepping down.
He plans to sit as an ordinary CAQ MNA representing his riding of L’Assomption until the October election.
On Tuesday, about 20,500 CAQ members started to vote for the new leader, who will be announced next Sunday. Legault has stayed neutral in the race, which has two candidates: Christine Fréchette and Bernard Drainville.
Legault’s comments explain the numerous times he stated in the last year that he wanted to seek a third term in office.
He said he was hoping until the end he could turn the ship around by shuffling his cabinet and delivering a new economic vision.
In both interviews, Legault insisted there is still place for a “third way” on the Quebec political scene; something between the separation option of the Parti Québécois and the federalism of the Quebec Liberals.
He said he remains optimistic the CAQ is that path.
“You have to take what the game gives you,” Legault said, quoting again a line often used by Montreal Canadiens head coach Martin St. Louis.
Quebecers, he added, “don’t want a referendum but they want a nationalist and economic party,” Legault said. “So I think the CAQ is in the right place.”
As he said in his parting speech Thursday, Legault said he takes pride in a few things he did over the two mandates Quebecers gave him.
One is that Quebec’s economy grew faster than that of the rest of Canada and that he was able to remind Quebecers to be proud of their identity.
He conceded, however, that he would have liked to have made more progress in prying more powers over immigration out of Ottawa so Quebec could better control its future.
In the 2021 federal election campaign, Legault went so far as to suggest Quebecers vote Conservative because the leader of the party then, Erin O’Toole, was willing to give Quebec those powers.
He was disappointed that Quebecers did not vote Conservative that year.
“Honestly I was disappointed that Quebecers didn’t make getting more powers over immigration a priority,” Legault told Radio-Canada.
To TVA, Legault added he believes there is more of a chance Quebec will get powers over immigration than win a referendum on independence.
Asked if he believes there is a future for the independence movement, Legault said “it will depend on the other alternatives.”
“The other alternative is whether a majority of Quebecers will oblige the federalist parties to get transfers to the Quebec government of powers over issues of identity; that is to say over immigration and culture and others,” Legault said.
“I think we have more of a chance of convincing a majority of Quebecers to demand a transfer over issues of identity than to go for all the powers; that is to say the independence of Quebec.”
Legault, however, did express regret for the way things ended with his former health minister, Christian Dubé, who quit just before Christmas in a huff after Legault ordered the rewriting of a bill imposing working conditions on Quebec’s doctors.
The two have not spoken since and did not shake hands Thursday when Legault made the rounds in the red room after his farewell speech.
“I don’t regret my decision (on the doctor bill) but I regret that things with Christian ended the way they did,” Legault told Radio-Canada.
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