The Parti Québécois are making another attempt to woo anglos with a new campaign, which includes a new video in English on social media.
The campaign is called Dare to Rethink the PQ, and it's calling on anglos to take another look at the separatist party as an alternative to the Couillard Liberals.
The short video, which runs just under two minutes, shows PQ leader Jean-François Lisée with his chief consultant, Paul St. Pierre Plamondon, introducing the campaign.
"The vast majority of Quebecers agree that we deserve better," Plamondon says on the video. "We deserve a government that is honest, that is competent, that brings prosperity to all Quebecers, and at the same time, some people feel that they don't have their place in the Parti Québécois. So the initiative...is to engage in a conversation so that the Parti Québécois reflects better the ideas and aspirations of all Quebecers."
Plamondon joined Leslie Roberts on CJAD 800 on Thursday to flesh out what's behind the campaign.
"I think the purpose is not really to sell membership cards, or get support all of a sudden from people who've been very far from the Parti Québécois over the past years," Plamondon says, "but it's rather to reconnect the party with the aspirations, with the ideas of all Quebecers."
The Leslie Roberts interview comes on the heels of a new poll from the CROP organization which suggests support for the PQ is stalled at 25 per cent among Quebecers, with Anglophones continuing to overwhelmingly support the Liberals. The poll also shows fully 7 in 10 Quebecers would plan to vote No if a third sovereignty referendum were held today.
The Parti Quebecois must come back to fundamental values at the core of the party, one of which is to be progressive and to be democratic," he says. "You need to be listening to everyone...so that there is trust."
Plamondon didn't offer any specifics, however, on any concrete measures the party would institute aimed at overcoming anglos' well-entrenched antipathy toward the party, thanks to its linguistic policies and its main objective — taking Quebec out of Canada.