By Beryl Wajsman and Joel Goldenberg
The Suburban

Beryl Wajsman: A Léger poll showed that with Pablo Rodriguez at the head of the QLP, the Liberals are at 31, 32 percent, and is ahead of the PQ with the CAQ at just 16 percent. Any other candidate, the numbers basically stay the same with the PQ in front. Is there a challenge for you with your supporters to keep the pressure up on them to make them understand they can’t sit back and relax?

Pablo Rodriguez: This shows that people want to get rid of the CAQ, but even now [in other polls],when people want to get rid of the CAQ they’re voting PQ. In this case, for the first time, we have a shot. This is what puts a smile on my face and also among the Liberals across Quebec. It shows that when you have someone that’s perceived as a strong leader, we can beat the CAQ and the PQ.

BW: The party has certain challenges. Not the language issue — we understand that the QLP has been the voice of non-francophones on language rights. The party has had trouble not so much from the CAQ, but in major ridings like Verdun, St. Henri-Ste. Anne, the QLP is not representing those voters on the question of basic economic justice. Is that something that is important in your campaign and that you have top of mind?

PR: This is extremely important. It’s what I did all my life as a minister, I won six elections and I was in cabinet four times. This is part of my signature. You know, they say, “francophone Quebec, the regions are a challenge for you guys.” Well, it is. But there’s a difference now. People are ready to listen to us. That doesn’t mean they’re ready to vote for us, but at least they’re ready to listen. This allows us to present what we’d like to do. That’s a big difference. Also, I want to stop what Legault is doing, dividing Quebecers. For me, a Quebecer is a Quebecer is a Quebecer. And the first job of a premier is to unite people. I’m a strong promoter of French, I love French. I learned it when I was a kid. I didn’t speak a word of French or English. But you don’t do that (divide) against another community. You don’t say immigrants are a threat. You have to change that kind of speech and I think Quebecers are there today.

BW: We understand that unfortunately, too many politicians, too many parties, if they see their numbers going down, they bring in the question of language, the politics of division. They think that by putting the language issue forward, it gets them more points. It hasn’t helped the CAQ in the past year.

PR: It did help in the beginning in some regions and they did it twice. Now they did it again. They brought another bill on secularism.

BW: Secularism and language are two different things.

PR: I know but but they’re just trying to divert. We have a $14 billion deficit. We have hospitals falling apart. We have kids dropping out of school. We have one of two teachers that quit within five years. Did they present bills for that? No they said, we have to do something more for secularism or identity issues. Why? They don’t want to talk about the deficit or the fact that they are a really bad government.

BW: Money has to be found somewhere. We have problems in health, in education. A staggering statistic, 58 percent of French boys in French public high schools drop out. And yet there’s never talk about cutting non-essential programs, the whole multiculturalism complex. Is there any thought being given to that? It’s a hard thing to do, but to say to Quebecers, we’ve got an emergency. We’ve got to turn things around. We don’t want to tax you more. So we’re going to have to cut some of the goodies.

PR: You can’t tax Quebecers more than what it is now. We have to become more competitive. There’s a lot of things we have to do. The regions feel left out. They don’t feel respected. We have to invest in productivity, artificial intelligence, automation and all of that to increase the productivity of our businesses and bring in more money. At the same time, you have to increase the productivity of the government. Do you know what the problem is? We don’t know how productive the government is because there’s no numbers. One of the first things we’re going to do is work with research centres and universities to be able to evaluate how the government is delivering their services. I’m pretty convinced we can do more with less.

BW: What’s your message to non-francophone Quebecers, in Montreal, which has been such a big base of Quebec Liberal support? What do you want them to know today?

PR: We’re there for you. We’re not going to try to be everything to everyone, like sadly we’ve been in the past. We have to be honest, we have to be true to ourselves and true to our values. People know who we are. We’re Liberals. Let’s not pretend we’re something different. Let’s be inclusive. We’re there for francophones, we’re there for immigrants, we’re there for anglophones, we’re there for everyone and that makes you a strong society.

BW: I get a lot of mail and a lot of calls from and about seniors. Quebec has a particular problem with seniors. Canada has a particular problem with seniors. Seniors are the biggest growing bloc. By 2030, they will represent one-third of the Quebec population and the Canadian population. They’re serious voters. They’re regular voters. Yet 40 percent of Canadian seniors — and the same is true in Quebec— have neither private pensions nor RSPs. Yet our pensions keep them below the poverty line. Is there a message you want to get across to them?

PR: They’re more than voters. Before being a voter, they’re humans. They’re the people that built this society. We owe them everything. We have to do way more, especially in terms of health care. For example, investing in home care. Not only because it’s good for health, it’s good for their mental health. Where do they want to be? Where do they want to stay? Do they want to go to a residence or stay home? They want to stay home. Where they live, close to their family and friends. They know the surroundings. We have to be able to increase the capacity to do some home care, which means to also involve the social economy because if you want to treat people at home you also have to make sure that you take the snow away, that you clean the house. I have a very detailed program on that for seniors. It’s a way of respecting them and also to keep people outside of the hospital, so it allows people who are really sick and really need the hospital to go there.

BW: I have to ask you this question because it concerns not only the Jewish, but the Montreal urban community. Would a Liberal government encourage a new Mayor of Montreal to start applying fundamental laws and stop the demonstrations that we have on our streets — we’re not talking about what people are saying, but they are physically stopping people from being able to locomote downtown.

PR: It’s also what people are saying.

BW: It’s also what people are saying, the hate speech is there. But the police are not being allowed to apply three sections of the Criminal Code that would stop them.

PR: We’re looking for a balance. People have a right to demonstrate in a free and democratic society. What I have a problem with is some of the things that are said during those demonstations— those are hate speech. That’s extremely serious. And we can’t let that happen. But that starts also sometimes in the streets, sometimes on the internet.

BW: The Mayor controls the police, elected authority federally controls the army and security authority responds and is responsible to the elected authority. Would you use moral suasion? I believe what a leader says means a lot.

PR: You use what’s in the law. You make sure that they respect the law and they apply it. I just want to go back to the Web. What starts there goes down in the street. Online hate is real hate and hate doesn’t stay there, it goes to the street. We have to make sure that we have those kinds of control in the street, but we also have to hold the big tech giants responsible. We have to! n