Pablo Rodriguez targeted as Quebec Liberal leadership debate gets heated

Montreal Gazette

23-05-2025

Quebec Politics
By
QUEBEC — After three relatively tame debates, the candidates vying for the leadership of the Quebec Liberal Party upped their game on Thursday and candidate Pablo Rodriguez was the target of most of their hits.
Even though Rodriguez is selling himself as the only candidate with enough experience to beat Premier François Legault, candidates Charles Milliard and Karl Blackburn honed in on him as not being nationalist enough to woo back francophone voters.
Everyone shook hands at the end, but it was Rodriguez's past as a federal Liberal cabinet minister that came back to haunt him.
'Pablo, you more often defended Ottawa's policies in Quebec than Quebec's policies in Ottawa,' Blackburn fired across the stage at Rodriguez in the fourth leadership debate held in a theatre at Université Laval before 400 Liberals.
'That is to not know me,' Rodriguez responded. 'I have always stood up for Quebec. I will always stand up. I don't need any lectures.'
Officially, the theme of the debate was government services, with all five candidates saying the Coalition Avenir Québec government has broken a social contract with Quebecers by providing such poor services in health and education despite high taxes.
Using the theme, Milliard tossed questions at Rodriguez about his vision.
'According to you, what is the role of the federal government in health and education?' Milliard, the former president of the Fédération des chambres de commerce du Québec, asked Rodriguez.
'To support the work of the provinces,' Rodriguez responded before Milliard jumped in to correct him.
'The right answer is none,' Milliard said.
Beauce farmer and economist Mario Roy also waded in, accusing Rodriguez of being part of a 'Trudeau-Rodriguez' government that destroyed the Quebec economy and closed off markets.
Later, meeting reporters, both Blackburn, a former Liberal MNA from Saguenay—Lac-St-Jean who says he is the candidate to woo nationalist voters back, and Milliard said they wanted Liberal voters to have a better idea of who Rodriguez is before they vote for a new leader to replace Dominique Anglade.
Milliard said he thinks the Liberals have to return to the 'essence of Canada,' which in his mind are sovereign provinces with their own jurisdictional powers, with Ottawa offering common services in the country.
'In the last 10 years, the government Mr. Rodriguez was part of has wavered on this,' Milliard said. 'I like Ottawa, but Ottawa has nothing to do with health and education. Period.
'If I am asking questions, it is because I am worried.'
Blackburn was blunter, saying Rodriguez seems to 'talk a lot about the federal government' and the government he was part of.
'It's as if he misses the Liberal Party of Canada,' Blackburn said. 'I have only ever had one political family, it is the Liberal Party of Quebec.'
Rodriguez brushed off the criticism, saying he has what it takes to negotiate with Ottawa because he knows how the place works and still has contacts there, which can be an advantage for a Quebec premier.
'I know most of the members of the (Carney) cabinet and they know me, too,' Rodriguez said.
He added: 'It is the priority of a premier of Quebec to defend its jurisdictions, to go defend loud and clear what we are as a nation; this is what I did as the Quebec lieutenant (of former prime minister Justin Trudeau).
He said he delivered the goods for Quebec on housing, internet connections and health care financing.
'A politician who goes to Ottawa goes as a Quebecer above all and he fights for Quebec,' Rodriguez said.
The crowd seemed to relish in the more heated debate, a message picked up by candidate Marc Bélanger, an international trade lawyer who, by the luck of the draw, found himself at the middle podium on the stage.
'It took us four debates to thaw out,' Bélanger quipped at one point. 'I look forward to the next one.'
The next debate, the second-last one that is being organized by the Liberal Party youth wing, is Sunday in Trois-Rivières.
Liberals will start voting for their new leader on June 9, a process that leads up to the June 14 convention where the new leader is elected.
The next election in Quebec is in October 2026.