Rosemont MNA Vincent Marissal slams the door on Québec solidaire

Rosemont MNA Vincent Marissal announced Saturday that he was leaving the Québec solidaire caucus and would now sit as an independent MNA until the next election.

The now-independent elected official confirmed his decision Saturday morning during a last-minute press briefing at his constituency office.

“I had firmly decided a few days ago to leave the QS caucus. I planned to announce it to my colleagues in the caucus on Wednesday,” Marissal explained.

“I’m just taking a different path. I’m not going to sit on my hands in that caucus and suffer, because I’ve been suffering for some time,” he said.

The caucus’s position during the Société de transport de Montréal (STM) strikes was the last straw.

The MP criticized the party for its firm stance in support of the unions, to the detriment of the population.

“I think we were on the wrong side of history. People were suffering in Montreal. They were sending us angry emails because they felt we had abandoned them. And I do think we abandoned them,” he said.

About fifteen minutes before Marissal’s announcement, Québec solidaire announced that its caucus had voted unanimously to suspend the Rosemont MNA.

QS said it had obtained information that Marissal had been in discussions with Parti Québécois leader Paul Saint-Pierre Plamondon with a view to leaving the QS caucus and running as a PQ candidate in the 2026 election.

“Vincent Marissal has been secretly negotiating with the PQ for weeks to plan the next step in his political career. He never told us anything,“ lamented Québec solidaire co-spokesperson Ruba Ghazal in a press release. ”That’s his right, but citizens also have the right to be able to count on members who respect the mandate given to them by voters. The only possible decision for me was to recommend his exclusion from the caucus.”

Marissal did not deny that he had approached the PQ leader and had discussions with him.

“Yes, I spoke to Paul St-Pierre Plamondon, whom I have known for years. There is nothing attached to it. I have no announcement to make in that regard at this time,” he acknowledged.

The resigning Solidarity member had harsh words for his former party, criticizing it in particular for being ungovernable.

“It’s a party that is paralyzed by its base, a party that is completely bogged down and unable to break free. There is a phenomenal distance between the caucus and the activist base,” he said.

“The problem is that we are unable to bring this party back to a more rational position,” he said.

Vincent Marissal was elected to the National Assembly in the 2018 election. Ironically, he defeated the then-leader of the Parti Québécois, Jean-François Lisée.

Four years later, he was re-elected, winning by a majority of more than 5,000 votes over CAQ candidate Sandra O’Connor.

“I need to find a way to do politics constructively again,” said the Rosemont MP. “My only regret is that I didn’t say so before. But I wanted to believe.”

–This report by La Presse Canadienne was translated by CityNews