Fellow Québec solidaire MNA Christine Labrie said she’s questioning whether Haroun Bouazzi should stay in caucus.
QUEBEC CITY — The controversy around Québec solidaire MNA Haroun Bouazzi’s comments isn’t going away.
Bouazzi, who made allegations of racism at the National Assembly, has drawn the rebuke of both QS co-spokespersons. The three other parties will each submit motions on Tuesday denouncing his comments.
The Coalition Avenir Québec motion calls on Bouazzi to withdraw his comments and apologize to all the members of the National Assembly “who were targeted by his racism accusations.”
The Parti Québécois motion holds that no National Assembly member “is motivated by racism or the negative or inferior construction of the ‘Other’ and strongly condemns any remark to that effect.”
The Liberals’ motion calls on the National Assembly to “dissociate itself from any declaration suggesting that this Assembly and its members are racist.”
Fellow QS member Christine Labrie questioned Tuesday morning whether Bouazzi should stay in caucus.
“Haroun will make his own decisions,” she said. “What I can say is that his comments make me extremely uncomfortable. I don’t share (his point of view).
“The notion that National Assembly members are racist, we don’t believe that in Québec solidaire,” she added.
“God knows I see every day in the National Assembly the construction of this ‘other,’ this ‘other’ who is Maghrébin, who is Muslim, who is Black, who is Indigenous, and of his culture which is, by definition, dangerous or inferior,” Bouazzi had said at the gala.
Several QS delegates supported Bouazzi at the party convention Sunday, including 11 riding associations and the union and women’s wings of the party.
Following the vote, QS co-spokesperson Gabriel Nadeau-Dubois said the issue had been resolved.