Jean-François Lisée has told the Parti Québécois faithful that he thinks they "won" last month's provincial election campaign, in which his party placed fourth and lost nearly two-thirds of their caucus.
The party's outgoing leader made the remark at a special party conference in Montreal on Saturday to assess the party's disastrous showing in this fall's election.
The PQ won just 17% of the vote and saw just 10 of its candidates elected — a number that initially looked even lower on election night, before a recount in the seat of Gaspésie returned the seat to the party's column. Jean-François Lisée was among the 18 PQ MNAs that lost their seats on October 1st, coming in a distant second-place in Rosemont to Québec Solidaire's Vincent Marissal.
Though most of the discussions at Saturday's conference were held in private, Lisée told reporters that he doesn't think any mistakes made by him or the party cost them at the ballot box, saying that his party actually "avoided the worst".
Lisée claimed that his attack on Québec Solidaire co-spokesperson Manon Massé during the final leader's debate actually helped his party shore up its base, though it raised plenty of eyebrows among even supporters of the PQ at the time.
Lisée added, "We can always do better."