After a surge in the polls, the Parti Québécois faces dissidence, turmoil and an expulsion

OTTAWA — Express your opinions at your own risk in the Parti Québécois. The separatist party may be leading the polls in Quebec, but internally, one of its members and potential candidate has been suspended because he is a dissident.

Vincent Boulay was born a separatist. He became a member of the PQ as soon as he was old enough, then became more and more involved to the point of being elected by party members to the very influential policy commission.

“I think that in Quebec’s case, there is an important foundation that is diverse from the rest of Canada. Whether it is the language, the culture, the values that make us worthy of aspiring like Catalonia or Scotland to be independent,” said Boulay in a long interview with the National Post earlier this week.

Next, the 31-year-old Quebec City lawyer wants to be candidate in a Quebec City riding in the 2026 provincial election.

But that may not be possible. Boulay’s future in the party is in limbo. For the past week, he has been facing expulsion proceedings before party authorities. On Friday, the party’s executive committee, on which the leader sits, unanimously suspended him from the policy commission and from all elected roles for a period of two years.

The trouble for Boulay started when another member filed a complaint against him for “breach of the code of ethics” and the “communications policy.” He was accusing of sharing confidential information to the press. He vigorously disputes the accusations. But the party found him guilty.

The party indicated that it had “observed substantial breaches of the duty of loyalty and a breach of confidentiality that are incumbent on elected officials of the Parti Québécois authorities.” It confirmed that Mr. Boulay was still a member of the party.

Boulay told the National Post on Friday that he was “extremely disappointed” with his party’s decision and that it demonstrated a “lack of tolerance for the right to dissent.”

“This is a great demonstration of a lack of leadership on the part of the leader who will certainly have had a great influence on the decision and who, unlike Justin Trudeau who had fought to keep Joel Lightbound in the party despite his dissent, will have preferred to sacrifice a lifelong militant,” he told us.

Boulay suspects that what’s really at play is that he has annoyed the party by writing numerous op-eds in Quebec media about immigration and secularism.

Each time, he said, his articles were in line with party policies. However, he thinks his writing did not go over well at party headquarters.

“I felt each time a reluctance from the party,” he said. The party said it could not comment on this matter for “reasons of confidentiality.”

Then came an Oct. 24 letter to the Journal de Montréal in which he appeared to be at odds with Parti Québécois Leader Paul St-Pierre Plamondon.

A few days earlier, St-Pierre Plamondon had declared that Quebec schools were subjects of “religious entryism” and Islamist rhetoric.

Boulay wrote that “we cannot argue that we are witnessing the ‘Islamization of public schools’ or ‘religious entryism… Nuance sometimes gives way to sensationalism and we must denounce it when it concerns subjects as sensitive as identity.”

He did not mention the name of his leader or that of his party. But between the lines, the reference seemed clear.

“I support my party and I support my leader,” Boulay said in an interview before the decision was released.

Within the party, he has clearly expressed his opposition to some policy positions, but says he has rallied to the wishes of the majority.

The party apparently didn’t like the letter. And Boulay told a political analyst on the radio that discussions took place after it was published and, by doing so, he might have breached ethic rules.

He then received a letter from the PQ informing him that his place within the party was under review.

“Once the authorities have taken a position and the debate is settled, the rules also provide for a duty of reserve and a duty of loyalty. The party has an obligation to apply the rules when it is alleged that there has been a breach,” wrote PQ communications director Laura Chouinard-Thuly.

She confirmed to the National Post that there had been a complaint from a PQ member and that the party had then launched proceedings.

Last week, Boulay presented a written defence in which he argued that “the duty of loyalty to the party does not mean having to repeat the same things on all platforms.” He vigorously denies any involvement in sharing confidential information.

Earlier this week, PQ Leader Paul St-Pierre Plamondon declined to provide details on the process. 

“One thing that is public and that seems clear to me is that the right to have a divergent point of view in the Parti Québécois is clear,” he said.

He added that he was “not involved in the proceedings” and that “we have an additional confidentiality obligation that means we really have to wait before commenting or speculating.”

But the turmoil has shone a spotlight on St-Pierre Plamondon’s leadership and his grip on the party. With only four members of the National Assembly, the PQ wouldn’t normally be subjected to much media scrutiny, but its position in the polls has changed that.

From 14 per cent of the vote in 2022, the PQ rose to 32 per cent in the latest Léger/Québecor poll, nearly ten points ahead of the ruling Coalition avenir Québec.

“There is an aspect of novelty with Paul St-Pierre Plamondon and with events like this, we learn about the reflexes and qualities of a leader,” said Éric Montigny, professor of political science at Université Laval.

St-Pierre Plamondon is also Quebecers’ favourite candidate to lead the province, with a six-point lead over Premier François Legault, less than two years before the next election.

“What we learn is that he wants to stay away from controversy. That’s what we see,” added Montigny.

Montigny has studied the separatist movement and the PQ for years and says this controversy is far from the first in its history.

In Quebec, the PQ is known for its heated internal debates. How to achieve independence? Should the PQ be a right-wing or left-wing political party? All these questions are loaded for a “coalition party.”

But Louise Harel, a former PQ MNA from 1981 to 2008 and a minister in the governments of René Lévesque, Jacques Parizeau, Lucien Bouchard and Bernard Landry, has never seen anything like this before.

“NEVER despite the disagreements, the lively debates, the public positions contrary to those of Mr. Lévesque, Mr. Parizeau, Ms. Marois, has there been any threat or expulsion from the PQ,” she wrote on social media.

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