bit much,” Beauchamp said as he watched the results roll in at the Montreal rally. “Maybe he scared a lot of people.” Beauchamp, 31, said the entrance of Peladeau, one of the most powerful media moguls in Canada, might have been the turning point in the PQ campaign. The party will have to decide how to proceed now that secession – its dream – has proven so hazardous to its political fortunes. “Yes, certainly we have our answer tonight,” said Beauchamp, when asked if sovereignty had become toxic for the PQ. Peladeau, meanwhile, won his seat Monday in Saint-Jerome, north of Montreal. With his entry into the national assembly, he will likely become a contender to succeed Marois. Following his victory in Saint-Jerome, Peladeau was asked whether his pro-independence enthusiasm during that inaugural speech may have hurt the PQ. “Listen, I joined the Parti Quebecois, I joined a sovereigntist party – I am a sovereigntist,” said Peladeau, who also laid what could be the groundwork for an eventual leadership run. “I will make every effort, all my energy to work for economic development. I really believe that in the 21st century Quebec is a nation. “It must increase its wealth, it must maintain this capacity that are our values and we do it with the solidarity that has accompanied it.” PQ supporters who gathered at Marois’s rally fell silent after media outlets began to project a convincing Liberal win, mere minutes after polls closed Monday night. Inside the Old Montreal hotel, small Quebec flags were handed out to the crowd. The mood, however, was sombre and few people bothered waving the fleurde-lis at all. Some people consoled each other with hugs and pats on the back. A few in the crowd rubbed their red eyes. The audience booed loudly when a TV screen showed an image of Liberal Leader Philippe Couillard and announced he had defeated a PQ incumbent. However, the crowd came alive with chants when Peladeau, Lisee and Drainville took the stage. Lisee told the audience of
several hundred people that at 90,000 members, the PQ has a bigger membership than all the other parties combined. “And this Parti Quebecois that Rene Levesque created, it survived the Bourassa years and it took power, it survived the Charest years and it took power, and it will survive the Couillard years and will take power,” Lisee said, drawing booming applause. Security was particularly tight inside and outside the hotel, strengthened following the deadly election-night shooting during Marois’s 2012 victory celebration. Police cruisers were parked in front of the building, as well as in a back alley. Bags were searched and attendees had to pass through an airport-style metal detector to gain access to the rally, which was on the 11th floor. On election night September 2012, gunshots rang out behind
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the Montreal club that held Marois’s election-night rally, killing stagehand Denis Blanchette and wounding his colleague David Courage. Marois timed the snap election to try to take advantage of rookie leader Couillard’s lack of experience and, more importantly, so she could capitalize on a boost in the popularity of the PQ, thanks to its secularism charter. Support for the party appeared to reach new heights on the back of the charter, a controversialyet-popular project introduced last fall that would have banned public employees from wearing overt religious symbols in the workplace. Polls suggested the charter was popular with a majority of Quebecers, but surveys also found that most people in the province considered issues like immigrant integration to be far from a prior-
ity, well behind more pressing issues like health care, fighting corruption and job creation. The PQ campaign struggled to gain traction with the charter and continued to be haunted by its sovereignty talk. Following Peladeau’s proclamation, Marois spent several days talking about how an independent Quebec would operate – complete with talk of open borders with Canada and the continued use of the loonie in Quebec. It was a surprising strategy, considering how polls have for years suggested that most Quebecers oppose secession from Canada. The PQ has long been forced to walk a fine line on the subject of independence, still a priority for hardcore supporters. For days, Marois’s rivals attacked her on the referendum issue. Journalists peppered her
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