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PQ backtracks on promise to present budget plan for independent Quebec before election

St-Pierre Plamondon blames inflation for changing the financial picture.

Author of the article:

La Presse Canadienne

La Presse Canadienne

Stéphane Rolland

Parti Québécois leader Paul St-Pierre Plamondon speaks to the media during an election campaign stop in Longueuil on Saturday, Sept. 24, 2022.
Parti Québécois leader Paul St-Pierre Plamondon speaks to the media during an election campaign stop in Longueuil on Saturday, Sept. 24, 2022. Photo by Graham Hughes /The Canadian Press

LONGUEUIL — The Parti Québécois will not present a “Year 1 budget” as leader Paul St-Pierre Plamondon had promised two weeks ago.

On Saturday, St-Pierre Plamondon was vague when asked if the party would publish a document representing Quebec’s finances as an independent country.

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Inflation has forced the party to review its figures, he said. But he had told Le Devoir that the document would be filed before the election debates.

“I think a lot of people will read this with a lot of interested,” he told the newspaper. “Including François Legault,” who had prepared a Year 1 budget in 2005.

Though the inflation situation has not changed much in the past two weeks, St-Pierre Plamondon said it has changed the picture by “several billion dollars” and the party is working to revise its plan.

He said the election campaign is an occasion to focus on the “essential.”

The PQ leader did not campaign on Saturday, and was awaiting the result of a PCR test he took after developing flu symptoms. Rapid tests had come up negative for COVID-19.