The CAQ 'is afraid of younger voters of Quebec,' QS's Nadeau-Dubois says

As party rises in polls, Québec solidaire says it would spur a 'transportation revolution' by investing $50M in car sharing across the province.

As two recent polls showed Québec solidaire pulling into second place in voter intentions, the party’s candidate for premier accused François Legault’s Coalition Avenir Québec of trying to discourage young people from voting in the Oct. 3 election.

“The CAQ is afraid of the youth vote and is trying to demotivate the youth vote,” QS co-spokesperson Gabriel Nadeau-Dubois said after meeting with Quebec City Mayor Bruno Marchand Tuesday afternoon.

He was responding to images circulating on social media of Québec solidaire flyers apparently found near advanced voting booths on the Université de Sherbrooke campus. Nadeau-Dubois said he has advised volunteers on his team not to campaign in or in front of buildings where advanced polling is being held Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday this week. But he said party leaders are not responsible for stopping voters from bringing such flyers into a building.

He said “spin doctors” for the CAQ are “trying to create confusion around the right to vote of younger voters. It is an illustration that this party is afraid of younger voters of Quebec.”

“For weeks now, the Coalition Avenir Québec has been trying to complicate things for younger voters,” Nadeau-Dubois said. “They are creating confusion about the fundamental right of students in Quebec, just like any voter, to make sure the address on the electoral list is their main residence.”

Students have been permitted to vote on their campuses for the past two elections, rather than having to travel to a riding where, for example, their parents live to vote. Earlier in this campaign, a QS flyer circulated in Sherbrooke urging students living there to change their home address on the electoral list to their Sherbrooke addresses, so they can vote for candidates running in Sherbrooke.

On Tuesday, Nadeau-Dubois reiterated that even though he asked his team to stop distributing those flyers, he sees nothing improper in students voting for candidates in ridings where they study, if they consider those ridings to be their home. Elections Quebec defines “home address” as “the place that you consider to be your principal residence and the address that you use to exercise your civil rights, for example on your income tax return, for your driver’s licence or social insurance.”

Nadeau-Dubois said he had a good meeting with Marchand and discussed the QS promise to create a climate fund for cities, and promises related to the housing crisis and public transit, as he had with Montreal Mayor Valérie Plante on Monday.

“When I speak to Valérie Plante and Bruno Marchand, what I realize is that beyond the false divisions that certain people try to create, Montrealers and people in Quebec City have many common challenges, notably the housing crisis, public transit and adapting to climate change.

He said the wave of younger mayors elected last year in Quebec, including Marchand, has seen a shift in municipal priorities. “What we have seen in Quebec over the last year is the emergence of a new wave of municipal politicians who say now is the time to solve these problems.”

Nadeau-Dubois welcomed a recent Léger poll that showed his party has nudged ahead of the Parti Québécois, the Conservatives and the Liberals to second place in voter intentions, but he said there is a week left to campaign and he is still hoping to form the government. The CAQ is still headed for a majority, according to that poll, with 37-per-cent support from voters polled, QS in second place at 17 per cent, followed by the Quebec Liberals at 16 per cent. The Conservative Party of Quebec and the Parti Québécois were tied for fourth with 15 per cent.

Meanwhile, an Ekos Research poll released Tuesday suggested QS is only 14 points behind the CAQ in voter intentions. That poll had the CAQ at 34.6 per cent, QS at 20.6 per cent, the PQ at 14.9, the Liberals at 14.3 and Conservatives at 12.3.

Earlier Tuesday, Nadeau-Dubois announced a $50-million commitment to expand car-sharing services to cities across the province if his party wins the Oct. 3 election.

“I am very proud to announce a new aspect of Québec solidaire’s transportation revolution: a historic investment in car sharing in Quebec,” Nadeau-Dubois said at a campaign stop in the Quebec City riding of Jean-Talon Tuesday.

A QS government would create a $50-million fund for municipalities to start or improve car-sharing services on their territories, he said, adding that is roughly four times the $13 million the CAQ government has invested in car sharing.

Each municipality would develop its car-sharing service according to its particular needs, with different types of vehicles available in different regions. Electric or hybrid pickups and vans could be made available in areas where they are required, for example, Nadeau-Dubois said.

He said the number of vehicles circulating on Quebec roads increased by 64 per cent in less than three decades, between 1990 and 2017, while the adult population grew only 25 per cent in that time.

“This is a problem. It can’t go on,” Nadeau-Dubois told reporters at the Centre de glaces de Québec. “One of the solutions is car sharing. We are giving people alternatives so that they either leave their car at home a few days a week, or they don’t buy a second car for their family.”

Montreal has had a car-sharing service, Communauto, for more than 25 years. In 2019, the Quebec government bought a 24-per-cent share in that service to help it grow and expand to other cities across North America. About 100,000 Quebecers are members of Communauto, which also operates in Quebec City, Gatineau, Sherbrooke and Trois-Rivières, as well as other Canadian cities and in Paris. 

Nadeau-Dubois said that in cities like Montreal, where such a service already exists, the fund could be used to add vehicles to the fleet, although the short-term priority would be to help smaller municipalities where no such service exists.

Nadeau-Dubois was also asked about a Radio-Canada report regarding the $6.5-billion “third link” project, quoting sources who said the government has had pertinent data about the project for over a year that would help the public decide whether it is necessary. Legault has so far refused to make public data provided by a group that has been studying the issue for four years, and has said feasibility data only exists on an earlier, six-lane version of the project. The CAQ government signed a $31-million contract last spring with a consortium to prepare the concept plan for a more modest four-lane tunnel project connecting downtown Lévis to downtown Quebec City, without making public any feasibility studies or reports.

Nadeau-Dubois called the CAQ’s third-link project “wacky” and “irrational,” and insisted Legault make public all studies the government has commissioned on it.

“Before investing billions of dollars into a project like that, the first thing you need to look at is: Is there data, is there science, is there a study somewhere that says this is a good project that will answer a need? … That does not exist when it comes to the third link. Maybe there is a study, but Mr. Legault is hiding it. That is not a rational way to invest billions of public dollars. I think that project is nonsense.

“What science actually shows is that when you add more highways, in the end, you actually end up with more traffic. So when a so-called solution worsens the problem you are trying to solve, it is the opposite of a pragmatic solution.”

Nadeau-Dubois appealed to all “progressives, indépendantistes and ecologists” in the Quebec City region to vote for QS as the only party able to “stop the folly of the third link.”

mlalonde@postmedia.com

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