Québec solidaire

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Québec solidaire
Image:QS symbol.png
Active Provincial Party
Founded February 4, 2006
Leader De jure leader: Benoit Renaud
Official spokespeople: Françoise David and Amir Khadir
President Alexa Conradi
Headquarters 7105, St-Hubert
bureau 304
Montreal, Quebec
H2S 2N1
Political ideology Democratic socialism, Alter-globalization, Feminism, Environmentalism, Quebec sovereigntism
International alignment None
Colours Orange
Website quebecsolidaire.net

Québec solidaire is a broadly left-wing and sovereignist political party in Quebec, Canada, that was created on February 4, 2006 in Montreal. It was formed by the merger of the left-wing party Union des forces progressistes (UFP) and the altermondialist political movement Option Citoyenne, led by Françoise David.

The party advocates sovereignty for Quebec. It also hopes to appeal to environmentalists, feminists and socialists.

Françoise David and Amir Khadir are the two spokespersons. Régent Séguin is the secretary general and will act as party leader for the purposes of the Loi électorale du Québec. Alexa Conradi was elected president. However, as with its predecessors, Option Citoyenne and the Union de Forces Progressistes, there is no "party leader" in this new party. Instead, the duties generally entrusted to the leader are instead divided among the president, secretary general and male and female spokespeople.

Like the UFP before it, QS includes activists drawn from the Rassemblement pour l'alternative progressiste (RAP), the Parti de la démocratie socialiste (PDS), the Parti communiste du Québec (PCQ), and the Quebec-based membership of the International Socialists, as well as anarchist, radical and pacifist tendencies.

The aim of QS is in part to widen the appeal and organizational structure of the UFP, and to give a formal political voice to altermondialist movements like Option Citoyenne. As such, QS aims to bring together progressive forces across the broad left wing of the Quebec political spectrum.

The party's declaration of principles specifically endorses social democracy, socialism or communism, and it includes certain activists and tendencies that do.

Quebec's Green Party, the Parti vert du Québec, had tried to avoid running candidates in ridings where there was a UFP candidate, although it reserved the right to run anywhere it wants to (even ridings with a UFP candidate). However, such an arrangement will not be renewed since the Green Party has taken a new direction.

QS presents itself as an alternative to the main three parties in Quebec: the Parti Québécois, the Parti libéral du Québec, and the Action démocratique du Québec, saying that all three are but different faces of the same right-wing ideology called neoliberalism. It also holds that its view of an independent Quebec is a completely different project than that of the PQ. Rather than working for independence for its own sake, QS works for an internationalist independentism - an independence based on principles of social justice. Independentism is, for QS, a means to an end, not an end in itself.

For several months after the party's formation, it had no official colour or logo. After more than an hour of discussion on the subject, the founding congress decided to postpone the vote on these questions until later, with a probable delay until the party's first National Council meeting 3 months later. An official logo was subsequently adopted, along with the colour orange.

Contents

[edit] Declaration of principles

The party does not yet have a political program or even a platform. However, it inherits the political content of the two merged political entities – UFP and Option Citoyenne. At the party's founding, the congress unanimously adopted a document called the Déclaration de principes which lays out the principles and values that led the two organizations to merge. They are:

  • "Nous sommes écologistes" ("We are environmentalists")
  • "Nous sommes de gauche" ("We are on the left")
  • "Nous sommes démocrates" ("We are democrats")
  • "Nous sommes féministes" ("We are feminists")
  • "Nous sommes altermondialistes" ("We are alter-globalists")
  • "Nous sommes d'un Québec pluriel" ("We are from a plural Quebec")
  • "Nous sommes d'un Québec souverain et solidaire" ("We are from a sovereign and united Quebec")
  • "Un autre parti, pour un autre Québec!" ("Another party for another Quebec!")

[edit] Hezbollah affair

In late July 2006 a controversy erupted when a local newspaper quoted one member of the party, Ginette Lewis, as declaring her "unconditional support for Hezbollah" at a Quebec City rally and welcoming Hezbollah's "fierce resistance" as a "sign of hope" (« résistance farouche », « signe d’espoir »).[1] Françoise David, the party's official spokeswoman, dissociated the party from Lewis's statements the following day, emphasizing that the QS is a pacifist party.[2] Lewis herself later claimed that she had been misquoted : "I never supported Hezbollah. I said that I was on the side of solidarity, justice and peace (...)"

[edit] Election results

Manon Massé campaign poster.
Manon Massé campaign poster.

Québec solidaire's first political venture was to field a candidate, Manon Massé, in an April 10, 2006, by-election in Sainte-Marie—Saint-Jacques. She received 22% of the vote.

On August 14, 2006, there were two by-elections (Pointe-aux-Trembles and Taillon) in which QS received 8% and 7% of the vote.

Québec solidaire contested the 2007 Quebec election. It won 3.65% of the popular vote and received 145,000 votes, 0.24% behind the Green Party of Quebec. They were also endorsed by the Montreal Central Council of the Confédération des syndicats nationaux which represents 125,000 members in Quebec. This is the first time a trade union in Quebec has endorsed a party more left-wing than the Parti Québécois.[3]

[edit] See also

[edit] External links

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