Depleted Parti Québécois to run candidate in SSMU VP External by-election
In what some pundits are already calling a political masterstroke, the Parti Québécois (PQ) is currently going through the process of making 59-year-old party member Miles Saltmarche eligible to run in the Students’ Society of McGill University’s (SSMU) upcoming by-election for its vacant Vice President (VP) External 2015-2016 position.
The PQ, whose minority government was replaced by a Liberal majority in last April’s provincial election, retained only 30 of its 54 seats in the National Assembly of Québec and hopes that this move will begin to turn the party’s fortunes around.
“We’re very grateful that this wonderful opportunity fell into our laps,” said interim party leader Stéphane Bédard. “We feel that having Miles in office at SSMU will allow the PQ to better represent student interests; and with his wealth of experience in the Québecois political landscape, he’ll be a perfect fit to handle the demands of the VP External portfolio.”
Although Saltmarche is currently not enrolled as a McGill undergraduate student and thus ineligible from entering the race, Bédard is confident that his candidate’s status will be amended before the nomination period opens on March 18.
“We’ve been working extremely hard to ensure that Miles is registered as an Arts student and in good standing with the faculty as quickly as possible,” Bédard explained. “He’ll be in all the most advantageous classes—Art of Listening, Classics in the Modern Media, World of Chem, etc.—well positioned to get his GPA up to speed in no time with minimal effort.”
If Saltmarche is elected, reports indicate that the PQ may push for a referendum question as early as Fall 2015 in the General Assembly regarding whether the university should secede from Canada, to which one American student says he is “D for”.
The PQ, whose minority government was replaced by a Liberal majority in last April’s provincial election, retained only 30 of its 54 seats in the National Assembly of Québec and hopes that this move will begin to turn the party’s fortunes around.
“We’re very grateful that this wonderful opportunity fell into our laps,” said interim party leader Stéphane Bédard. “We feel that having Miles in office at SSMU will allow the PQ to better represent student interests; and with his wealth of experience in the Québecois political landscape, he’ll be a perfect fit to handle the demands of the VP External portfolio.”
Although Saltmarche is currently not enrolled as a McGill undergraduate student and thus ineligible from entering the race, Bédard is confident that his candidate’s status will be amended before the nomination period opens on March 18.
“We’ve been working extremely hard to ensure that Miles is registered as an Arts student and in good standing with the faculty as quickly as possible,” Bédard explained. “He’ll be in all the most advantageous classes—Art of Listening, Classics in the Modern Media, World of Chem, etc.—well positioned to get his GPA up to speed in no time with minimal effort.”
If Saltmarche is elected, reports indicate that the PQ may push for a referendum question as early as Fall 2015 in the General Assembly regarding whether the university should secede from Canada, to which one American student says he is “D for”.