A month after mentioning leaving Quebec, businessman Andrew Lutfy returned to the fray with his criticism of the Legault government.<\/p>\n
\u201cLet\u2019s not forget all the big bets of recent years, which ended in failure and cost us Quebecers billions of dollars,\u201d he said Monday at a conference before the Canadian Club of Montreal. \u201cFor me, it\u2019s mind-boggling.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen Fran\u00e7ois Legault responds by saying \u2018there are too many immigrants in Quebec,\u2019 frankly, I have a hard time understanding him,\u201d he said, parodying the premier\u2019s voice. \u201cHe doesn\u2019t get it.\u201d<\/p>\n
The head of retailer Groupe Dynamite and shopping centres Royalmount and Dix30 had mentioned leaving Quebec because of immigration policies that prevented him from recruiting the skilled employees he needed. He made a plea in several media outlets at the end of September to make \u201chis despair\u201d heard.<\/p>\n
Lutfy added fuel to the fire Monday with some very harsh words for the premier. \u201cI apologize, I know that he (Legault) worked in business at one point, but he has zero business sense and zero empathy for Quebecers,\u201d he said during a press scrum on the sidelines of his conference.<\/p>\n
During his presentation, he criticized \u201call political parties\u201d that promise to reduce the administrative burden on businesses, while other issues are more urgent, in his opinion.<\/p>\n
The CAQ could still be an interesting political vehicle, but Legault would have to not run in the next election, he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cIn principle, it\u2019s a coalition,\u201d he emphasized. \u201cYou never know who could become leader of the CAQ. Maybe overnight, we could say, \u2018Wow, that looks good.\u2019 You change the three or four most important ministerial positions.\u201d<\/p>\n
Lutfy also expressed concern about the economic repercussions of a third referendum on sovereignty if the Parti Qu\u00e9b\u00e9cois, which is ahead in the polls, wins the next election.<\/p>\n
The businessman believes Quebec\u2019s economy has fallen behind because of the 1995 referendum.<\/p>\n
\u201cEven if it doesn\u2019t pass, the referendum will certainly make (business people) think that Quebec is too risky,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
\u2013This report by La Presse Canadienne was translated by CityNews<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A month after mentioning leaving Quebec, businessman Andrew Lutfy returned to the fray with his criticism of the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":245416,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[22],"tags":[49,48,295,66],"class_list":["post-245415","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-environment","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-environment","tag-science"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/245415","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=245415"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/245415\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/245416"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=245415"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=245415"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=245415"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}