The Parti Québécois is pitching independence — in English

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QUEBEC – In what is a first for the party, the Parti Québécois is launching a pro-independence television advertising campaign in English.

The party has bought time on two of the English networks, CTV and the CBC, with the advertising spots to start Tuesday. It is the English version of a campaign it launched over the long weekend on the French networks.

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The ads feature party leader Paul St-Pierre Plamondon walking and talking through various backdrop scenes and urging Quebecers, all Quebecers, to think of the advantages of sovereignty and the negative side of remaining within the Canadian federation.

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“Our commitment in the PQ is to create a country,” St-Pierre Plamondon said in a statement issued Tuesday. “This is why we are investing each extra dollar we raise in the promotion of independence involving all Quebecers.”

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It notes that an English campaign of this nature has never been launched in the long history of the PQ.

But St-Pierre Plamondon adds the country the PQ wants to create is “for all those who live on its territory including citizens of the historic anglophone minority.”

“It is important to recall we are all in the same boat, all united by the same citizenship and the same destiny,” he said. “The fiscal asphyxiation of the provinces and the resulting underfunding of services to the population which follow affect all Quebecers including anglophones.”

“The federal government is wasting an immense amount of money while offering very few direct services to the population. We are convinced that by repatriating all the tax dollars in Quebec instead of sending them to Ottawa we could invest where it really matters in our lives.”

In the television spot, St-Pierre Plamondon uses the figure of $82 billion, the amount the PQ says Quebec would have at its disposal in the event of independence and if it no longer sent money to Ottawa.

He draws the figure from a document produced for the PQ in October 2023. The so-called ‘Year One” Quebec budget concluded an independent Quebec would be financially viable and one of the world’s richest countries.

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Independence would also mean the end of Ottawa stepping into areas of provincial jurisdiction and full control over areas like immigration and the French language, he adds.

“What if I told you we could keep this $82 billion here in Quebec,” St-Pierre Plamondon says in the ad. “Imagine what we could do with that amount: improve the services in our schools, in our hospitals, protect the French language, invest in the quality of our environment.

“That’s what independence is all about: reclaiming the money that belongs to us and spending it where it really matters. It pays off to be independent.”

The campaign makes no mention of what the PQ would do to protect the rights of English-speaking Quebecers, but the party does have a chapter on this theme in its program. The PQ regularly translates its political programs in other languages.

While English ads are a first for the PQ, it is not the first time a political party had tried to appeal to anglophones in English ads. Quebec’s Liberals have done this for years.

And before the 2018 general election, the Coalition Avenir Québec aired its “Join Us” campaign, in which Premier François Legault appealed to anglophones to break with their habit of voting Liberal.

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St-Pierre Plamondon, a bilingual graduate of McGill University, has reached out to the English-speaking community before. In January, he made an appearance on the popular chat show The Corner Booth.

pauthier@postmedia.com

twitter.com/philipauthier

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