Quebec Liberal Party redefining itself, will focus on environment in October election

QUEBEC — As the Quebec Liberal Party seeks to redefine itself less than a year before a provincial election, Leader Dominique Anglade wants the environment to be its main focus.

The leader of the province’s Opposition told Liberals at a weekend policy convention in Quebec City that environmental issues must be the ballot question when Quebecers go to the polls in October 2022. 

Anglade wants Quebec to fight climate change by creating government-owned green hydrogen production capacity, something she said should not only be a central plank of the Liberal platform but a key element of the next election campaign. 

“I hope it will be the issue of the next election,” she told reporters at the policy convention Saturday.

Anglade said she thinks the Coalition Avenir Québec government of François Legault isn’t credible when it comes to fighting climate change. 

“It’s quite clear that the CAQ has decided that this won’t be a key issue for them,” she said.

Nationalizing the production of green hydrogen, which uses renewable energy to extract hydrogen from water through electrolysis, would be one of the pillars of a larger $100 billion environmental plan that Anglade said she’d put in place if the Liberals win Quebec’s next election. 

Anglade said green hydrogen could replace fossil fuels used in trains, planes and boats and help reduce Quebec’s use of hydrocarbon fuels.

Anglade, who has led the Liberals for 18 months, said the party is in a process of redefining itself under her leadership. 

Recent polls have shown the Liberals in a distant second place behind the governing Coalition Avenir Québec.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 27, 2021. 

The Canadian Press

Note to readers: This is a corrected story. A previous version said the Liberal environmental plan would cost about $100 million. It is, in fact, estimated to cost $100 billion.