The Bloc Québécois' House leader says he is resigning from the post because ofand inability to communicate with party leader Martine Ouellet -- and because of their "differences in views on parliamentary work in Ottawa."
"I think it is essential that there is a special bond of trust, a kind of communion of ideas, between the leader and their House leader and this is unfortunately not the case," Joliette MP Gabriel Ste-Marie said in a statement Sunday night.
A meeting between Gabriel Ste-Marie and Martine Ouellet was scheduled for Monday morning. A press secretary for Ste-Marie said he did not to "discuss the situation with the media."
The relationship between the leader of the Bloc Québécois and the now-former house leader does not seem to have been easy.
In June 2017, Gabriel Ste-Marie and six other Bloc MPs stated that their trust with Martine Ouellet had been shaken and that she had to work to restore it.
They reproached their leader for having appointed Louis-Philippe Dubois as chief of staff, a person who "did not have the confidence of the deputies".
Some time later, Ouellet had to fire Louis-Philippe Dubois, who according to the "Huffington Post" had openly wanted to harm a member of the party, Rhéal Fortin. The Bloc caucus then seemed to finally settle behind its leader.
According to his biography on the Bloc's website, Gabriel Ste-Marie taught economics at Cégep régional de Lanaudière in Joliette. He is also a researcher at the Research Institute of Contemporary Economics and a lecturer at UQAM.