Québec Solidaire's Manon Massé says words like "Marxist" are labels that get tossed around to scare people, and insisted she isn't one.
Speaking with two dozen of the party's candidates behind her at a downtown Montreal news conference, Massé insisted that Québec Solidaire is the only true progressive party in Quebec, and denounced her opponents' attacks as a desperate attempt by the "old political class" to stop votes from drifting away to the Solidaires.
"I'm not a Marxist and I no longer have anything to say on the question," she said.
She's had to sidestep questions about her supposed leanings ever since a CBC interview on Monday evening, where she insisted that the "revolution" Québec Solidaire wants to carry forward is one that puts people and climate change above just about everything else.
"If you call that socialism, of course we are," she said during the English-language interview. "If you call it...Marxism, yes, it is."
She later blamed the confusion on the fact that she is still learning English.
On Wednesday, she pointed out that in the early days of the Parti Québecois, it, too, was referred to as Marxist. "I consider it a compliment," she said.
She also says the PQ in the days of René Lévesque was visionary, and suggests that perhaps Québec Solidaire is the spiritual heir to that old party.