PQ sticks with byelection candidate Alex Boissonneault despite his ‘error of youth'
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QUEBEC — The Parti Québécois is standing by the candidate it has chosen for a byelection in the riding of Arthabaska despite his association in the past with a radical left movement and arrest in 2001.
In a statement published Tuesday on social media, PQ leader Paul St-Pierre Plamondon said the party's candidate for the byelection, former journalist Alex Boissonneault, was up front and disclosed the errors of his youth during the screening process to become candidate.
And the party decided to let him run despite the attacks of one of his opponents, the leader of the Quebec Conservative Party, Éric Duhaime, who questioned his character. Duhaime is also running in the yet-to-be-called byelection in the riding in central Quebec.
'Alex Boissonneault obviously indicated, in all transparency from the start, that he had been arrested at the age of 22 in 2001,' St-Pierre Plamondon said. 'Contrary to what Éric Duhaime has stated, he was never sentenced to prison but was followed in a community work program.'
Boissonneault, who until last week was the Radio-Canada Quebec City radio morning show host, was part of a radical left cell known as Germinal, which plotted to break open the fences set up by police in the Quebec City downtown to protect dignitaries during the 2001 Summit of the Americas.
He spent 40 days in prison before being sentenced to six months of community work. In 2011, he applied for an received a full pardon.
'His error of youth was to have had in his possession a smoke device, that is to say an object to produce smoke, but not a object to injure, St-Pierre Plamondon said. 'Contrary to what Duhaime said, he was never in possession of a weapon or steel balls.
'In fact, there was never any question of wanting to hurt anyone whatsoever with or without the device.'
St-Pierre Plamondon was reacting to comments made by Duhaime after the Boissonneault candidacy became public Monday. After initially welcoming Boissonneault as a fine person he was anxious to debate with, Duhaime issued a blistering statement about his past later in the evening.
'Was the Péquiste leader, Paul St-Pierre Plamondon, aware that his new candidate in Arthabaska was arrested for possession of explosives a few days before the Summit of the Americas?
'Is Mr. St-Pierre Plamondon at ease with a candidate arrested with hoodies, baseball bats, shields, sling shots and military equipment including smoke bombs, gas masks and steel balls (to be used as projectiles)?'
But St-Pierre Plamondon defended his decision to pick Boissonneault who grew up in the riding which includes the City of Victoriaville. The announcement of his candidacy will be made Wednesday morning in the riding.
'I note that he obtained a pardon in proper form in 2011 and that he has done exemplary work as a journalists for the last 18 years,' St-Pierre Plamondon wrote. 'He not only has an exemplary professional record, recognized by his peers and the greater public, but also an exemplary record as a citizen since this incident.'
St-Pierre Plamondon notes Radio-Canada was aware of Boissonneault's past when it hired him, first to work at parliament and later on Première Heure (the name of the Quebec City morning show).
Boissonneault's decision to seek a seat in the National Assembly took his colleagues by surprise. Until last Friday he was still hosting the morning show. Designed to diffuse Duhaime's accusations of the PQ parachuting in a candidate, Boissonneault was born in Saint-Ferdinand, a city in the riding of Arthabaska.
His arrival sets the stage for an intense three way battle for the riding between the PQ, Conservatives and Coalition Avenir Québec. The CAQ currently holds the riding but it was left vacant when the MNA, Eric Lefebvre, won a seat in the House of Commons with the Conservative Party in the April 28 federal election.
Premier François Legault has until September to call the byelection.
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