Marois to CAQ: anything you can do, I can do better

Photo by Scazon

François Legault wants you to know that the Coalition Avenir Québec has one leader: him.

Legault’s comment comes less than a day after he announced Quebec’s white knight, Jacques Duchesneau, would be riding into St-Jérôme as the only candidate in this election with a thirst for blasting corruption out of Quebec’s waters.

If the party takes over the Assemblée Nationale, The Gazette’s Monique Muise reports, Duchesneau will serve as the province’s deputy premier — but that title might not be enough for him.

As he told Paul Arcand on 98.5 FM this morning, he’d sooner see himself orchestrate a resounding anti-corruption chorus for the CAQ — even if it meant selecting the ministers in charge of related departments himself. The statement was swiftly met with Legault reminding Duchesneau — and the rest of Quebec — that there’s no “I” in “team.”

Regardless of Duchesneau’s gaffe, his appointment spurred an integrity arms race among the #qc2012 candidates.

The PQ’s Pauline Marois said that, while the newly nominated candidate is a principled guy and all, one anti-corruption crusader alone can’t rid Quebec’s political scene of all its unsavoury characters. Jean Charest, meanwhile, is already on the defensive, calling Duchesneau’s claims that the controversial Plan Nord is just a Liberal effort to line up jobs for the party’s pals “pure, pure, pure demagoguery,” The Gazette reports.

Don’t think this stuff affects you? Fair enough. Over at OpenFile, Benjamin Shingler examines the candidates’ stances on an issue that just might: public transit.