In her complaint, Legrand documented dozens of Cotton\u2019s Facebook posts critiquing the PQ\u2019s alleged rightward shift on issues including immigration and what Cotton called the use of \u201cTrumpist vocabulary.\u201d Legrand said the frequency of Cotton\u2019s posts against the party and leader Paul St-Pierre Plamondon was \u201cproblematic.\u201d<\/p>\n
Blais, the PQ candidate in Maskinong\u00e9 riding, and Brillant, who is running for the sovereignist party in Rosemont riding, submitted a joint complaint against Cotton, alleging she used \u201cpsychologizing language\u201d against the pair, who are a couple. The complaint further said Cotton deemed public comments by Blais examples of \u201cTrumpism\u201d and suggested Blais herself was an advocate of the Great Replacement theory, the belief that Jews and certain Western elites are engineering the replacement of the white race with people of non-European descent through immigration. <\/p>\n
In his 2023 complaint with the Coll\u00e8ge, Lis\u00e9e alleged that Cotton \u201cmade a public diagnosis\u201d of him when she critiqued Lis\u00e9e\u2019s take on sex education in the province. <\/p>\n
Lis\u00e9e\u2019s complaint stems from Cotton\u2019s response to his 2023 column in Le Devoir<\/a> and subsequent radio interviews, in which Lis\u00e9e denounced the province\u2019s sex and gender education for teaching children as young as four that \u201cthe sexes don\u2019t exist.\u201d Cotton, an expert on LGBTQ+ education, accused Lis\u00e9e of expressing retrograde views on sex education \u201cworthy of a 1960s conservative.\u201d<\/p>\n In his complaint, Lis\u00e9e asked that the Coll\u00e8ge sanction Cotton, that it be made public, and that Cotton be required to publish the sanction on her personal Facebook page.<\/p>\n The Coll\u00e8ge dismissed all three complaints against Cotton. Legrand, Lis\u00e9e, Blais and Brillant appealed the Coll\u00e8ge\u2019s decisions, which were also dismissed. The Coll\u00e8ge received a fourth complaint from an anonymous member of the PQ, the Amnesty International report said. It, too, was rejected. The Coll\u00e8ge wouldn\u2019t comment on the complaints against Cotton.<\/p>\n Legrand, Lis\u00e9e, Blais and Brillant did not return The Gazette\u2019s requests for comment on the Amnesty report. In a post on his Facebook page published after Amnesty International released its report, Lis\u00e9e criticized the Coll\u00e8ge, saying it chose to protect Cotton \u201ceven though a reading of the code of ethics leads any reasonable person to conclude that several violations were committed.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s political intimidation, because if I had made mistakes, if I had lied or said things that weren\u2019t true, they could have sued me for defamation. The PQ isn\u2019t claiming that I said anything false. That\u2019s why they can\u2019t sue me for defamation, and they know it,\u201d Cotton said to The Gazette.<\/p>\n The complaints were stressful and caused her to self-censure as she awaited the Coll\u00e8ge\u2019s decisions, Cotton said. \u201cAre Legrand and the PQ going to keep sending complaints as long as I express myself publicly? And what if the party is elected? Just how far will it go?\u201d <\/p>\n Amnesty International has been looking into Cotton\u2019s case for roughly a year, said Amnesty International Canada Francophone executive director France-Isabelle Langlois, adding that other individuals have complained about the PQ. <\/p>\n \u201cThese individuals felt targeted on social media in a co-ordinated manner by people or accounts that were allegedly manipulated or co-ordinated by a political party \u2014 in this case, the Parti Qu\u00e9b\u00e9cois \u2014 but there were also complaints filed with professional orders and employers,\u201d Langlois said. <\/p>\n As for precedent, Langlois said Amnesty International last received these types of complaints during Stephen Harper\u2019s tenure as prime minister. \u201cThere are increasing attempts to control civil society and shrink the space available for dissent,\u201d Langlois said. \u201cIt is not a huge surprise, but it\u2019s a major disappointment.\u201d<\/p>\n \t\tEditor\u2019s Picks\t<\/p>\n
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