Pierre Poilievre to meet with François Legault Thursday afternoon

Just days before the federal election is called, Conservative leader Pierre Poilievre will meet with Quebec Premier François Legault on Thursday afternoon.

The meeting, which was added to the Premier’s  public schedule early Thursday morning, is scheduled for 3:30 p.m. in Quebec City, with no further details.

For his part, Poilievre, who does not share his schedule, simply called journalists to a press briefing in Jonquière, in Saguenay-Lac-Saint-Jean, in the morning.

During the previous federal election, in 2021, Legault gave implicit support to Erin O’Toole, Poilievre’s predecessor.

Legault explained at the time that O’Toole was the only federal party leader who could form a government open to Quebec’s demands.

He noted that his first choice was the election of a minority Conservative government.

However, Legault’s relationship with the two Conservatives is far from similar. For comparison, it took eight months after Poilievre was elected Conservative leader for him to meet with Legault, compared to three weeks after O’Toole took office.

In September, Legault nevertheless appeared to side with the Conservatives by bluntly asking the Bloc Québécois to vote with Poilievre’s troops to overthrow Justin Trudeau’s government, on the pretext that Ottawa was not doing enough on the immigration file.

He later attempted to correct the situation by indicating that he could support a federal party if it met his demand to commit to reducing temporary immigration to Quebec by half.

–This report by La Presse Canadienne was translated by CityNews