“I would not hesitate to give advice to any elected officials who ask me for my Quebec perspective” – André Fortin
“I would not hesitate to give advice to any elected officials who ask me for my Quebec perspective” – André Fortin
Pontiac MNA André Fortin was the subject of criticism from Premier Legault during the opening of the parliamentary term. François Legault’s support for the Conservative Party of Canada marked the re-entry into Parliament at the National Assembly, but members of the CAQ also underlined the proximity of André Fortin and Justin Trudeau, which they described as embarrassing. Fortin helped Prime Minister Justin Trudeau prepare the recently televised debates between the federal party leaders.
Fortin, who occupies the position of parliamentary leader within the PLQ, defended himself, saying that he will not hesitate to give his Quebec perspective to elected officials who ask him. He said that Legault was trying to deflect from his open support for the federal conservatives.
“I’ve never hidden the fact that I did work with the federal Liberal Party in the past, and so I don’t think it was any big news to anybody that I still had many friends in that party but at the same time I think it serves the premier’s interest to kind of change the tune from what he asked Quebecers to do. So to me, it came up, but mainly so we wouldn’t talk about other things in the house and that’s just the good old political game,” he said.
In an article written by journalist Geneviève Lajoie in the Journal de Québec, some of André Fortin’s colleagues didn’t appreciate this intervention by the member for Pontiac. Fortin told CHIP 101.9 that he did not hear any comment from his Liberal colleagues to this effect.
“Nobody said anything to me, in the least. When these things happen, we usually handle it as a team. Until I hear about it, it’s not something that worries me. If we have conversations to have, we will have them between us,” he said (translated).
The English portion of the interview with Fortin is available here.
