attempting to muzzle him<\/a>.\u00a0<\/p>\nCarney countered by saying that the premier had chosen to leave an empty chair “yet again” \u2014 alluding to St-Pierre Plamondon’s absence from Monday’s meeting between Canada’s premiers and Indigenous leaders.<\/p>\n
Arriving at the National Assembly in Quebec City on Wednesday morning for a private meeting with Quebec Conservative Leader \u00c9ric Duhaime, the new premier urged Carney to reverse his decision.\u00a0<\/p>\n
“It’s never too late to do the right thing,” St-Pierre Plamondon said.\u00a0<\/p>\n
To bolster his case in recent days, the Parti Qu\u00e9b\u00e9cois leader leaned on the G\u00e9rin-Lajoie doctrine, which asserts Quebec\u2019s right to defend its provincial jurisdictions and interests on the international stage.<\/p>\n
Earlier on Wednesday, he added that Quebec’s negative trade balance with the European Union makes it vital for the province to have a seat at the table to correct course.<\/p>\n
St-Pierre Plamondon noted that while he is seeking a “productive relationship” with the federal government, it must also be based on mutual respect.\u00a0<\/p>\n
“However, it is disrespectful not to give a place to the Quebec premier at an event in Quebec where Quebec’s economic interests are being negotiated,” St-Pierre Plamondon added.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
Offer to welcome EU president<\/p>\n
Carney told reporters in Ottawa on Wednesday that his office offered St-Pierre Plamondon the honour of welcoming the president of the European Commission to Montreal, and that he hopes the Quebec premier will reconsider his decision to sit out the event.\u00a0<\/p>\n
“I myself invited him to dinner, at my table, with [the president],” Carney said. “In my view, this is a great opportunity, a very useful opportunity to have conversations and build relationships for him with the president of the European Union.”<\/p>\n
However, in the letter, St-Pierre Plamondon requests a separate, future bilateral meeting with European leadership in a “more opportune context.” <\/p>\n
Meanwhile in Quebec City, Duhaime took aim at federal Industry Minister M\u00e9lanie Joly’s argument that “geopolitics is under federal jurisdiction” \u2014 a comment she made to justify Carney’s decision not to allow the Quebec premier to make a speech at the event.\u00a0<\/p>\n
“I read the Constitution three times yesterday before going to bed, and I haven’t seen that anywhere,” Duhaime said, criticizing the Carney government’s “dominant” and “toxic” federalism.\u00a0<\/p>\n
However, speaking before the premier’s letter was released, Duhaime noted St-Pierre Plamondon should still participate in the event in order to advance Quebecers’ interests.\u00a0<\/p>\n
“You never win by leaving an empty chair and sulking in a corner,” Duhaime said.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Listen to this article Estimated 4 minutes The audio version of this article is generated by AI-based technology.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":949959,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[49,48,44],"class_list":["post-949958","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-canada","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/949958","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=949958"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/949958\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/949959"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=949958"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=949958"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=949958"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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