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 policy convention in Quebec City late last month that environmental issues must be the ballot question when Quebecers go to the polls in October 2022, The Canadian Press reports.
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.
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 C$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.
The provincial Liberals aren’t the only ones talking nationalization. Earlier in November, a Québec Solidaire convention called for the “greenest electoral platform in history,” CBC reports. Key planks would include a 55% emission reduction target for 2030, a ban on fossil fuel development, a new electrified rail network to carry passengers and freight, an end to planned obsolescence in consumer products, and a plan to nationalize wind and solar companies.
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. The province’s next provincial election is set for October 3, 2022.
The main body of this report was first published by The Canadian Press on November 27, 2021.
