En français s’il vous plait.
Well, not if you’re the Parti Québécois’ new advertising campaign.
The party’s latest pro-sovereignty ad is fully in English. It’s being called a first in PQ history.
The ad features PQ Leader Paul St-Pierre Plamondon walking and talking directly to the camera – to English-speaking Quebecers – about the benefits of independence.
“It pays off to be independent,” is the video’s tagline.
“There’s this idea that English-speaking Quebecers don’t feel as Quebecers,” St-Pierre Plamondon told reporters at the National Assembly Wednesday morning. “Not only they’re Quebecers, but they feel on many, many topics, they see the reality in the same way as Quebecers. They are fully Quebecers and the topic of that ad is very important.”
In the video, St-Pierre Plamondon reproaches the federal government for taking money from Quebec taxpayers without providing any services.
“Each year we send to Ottawa $82 billion of our money. But what do we get in return?” the leader says in the video. “Hardly any significant direct services for our people. On top of that, Ottawa oversteps in our areas of jurisdiction, and imposes an immigration policy that far exceeds our capacity to integrate newcomers in terms of housing, French language and delivering quality services to everyone.
“What if I told you we could keep this $82 billion here in Quebec?”
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St-Pierre Plamondon echoed the message of the campaign when speaking to reporters Wednesday.
“The Government of Quebec is not having the financial means for the important and expensive missions it has such as health care, education, social services, and the question as to whether we get our money’s worth when we send $82 billion to Ottawa,” he said.
The $82-million figure comes from the PQ’s own October 2023 study on the theoretical financial situation of Quebec post-independence.
“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,” the leader continues in the campaign.
“That’s what independence is all about, reclaiming the money that belongs to us and spending it where it really matters.”
WATCH: Parti Québécois English ad campaign
The campaign emerges against the backdrop of the Parti Québécois doing extremely well in opinion polls, with a recent one suggesting the separatist party has enough support to form a majority government in the next election.
And St-Pierre Plamondon has repeatedly promised an early referendum on sovereignty if elected.
PQ language critic Pascal Bérubé said the campaign is about uniting Quebecers.
“Every single individual living on the territory of Quebec is a Quebecer,” said Bérubé, the MNA for Matane-Matapédia. “That’s all. And we want to make a country for everyone: the French-speaking population, the English-speaking population, the First Nations, people coming from everywhere in the world. This is about a country for everyone.
“So we have a an English minority in Quebec, and they deserve to have our ad as well. We need to explain to them what is our project and what’s the consequence for everyone.”
Reaction from Ottawa
Federal ministers in Ottawa reacted Wednesday to the English ad campaign amid the political environment in Quebec.
“They want to bring back that old topic once again that divided Quebecers,” said Quebec Lieutenant and Transport Minister Pablo Rodriguez. “I think as a society, as Quebecers, we have to work on other priorities, which is the economy and the well-being of all Quebecers.”
“I think we always have to be mindful that this has been part of our history and at one time there was a strong separatist and independence movement in Quebec,” added Environment Minister Steven Guilbeault. “So I’m not going to be dismissive about this. I think we have to continue, always to continue to show what are the advantages of having a unified Canada.”
Randy Boissonnault, the federal minister of employment and official languages, called the ad campaign an “approach to winning votes.”
“This is a matter that Quebecers will have to deal with in the next election,” he told CityNews. “These are the kind of tactics that are used by parties in different parts of the country to get attention before a provincial election.”
Boissonnault said he is not worried about the revival of the PQ, or what it means for the cohesion of the country.
“Not at all,” the cabinet minister said. “My job as minister of official languages is to make sure that we protect linguistic duality in every part of the country, and as minister of jobs is to make sure that we have good paying jobs in every part of the country. And we’re doing that in Quebec, we’re doing that in the rest of the country.”