Confirming his intention to create a new provincial political party in time for the fall election, Holness said that while he wants to run candidates in the regions of Quebec, his main focus will be Greater Montreal and, more specifically, west-end ridings held by the Liberals.
He named a few: D’Arcy-McGee (held by David Birnbaum), Westmount—Saint-Louis (Jennifer Maccarone) and Notre-Dame-de-Grâce (Kathleen Weil). In 1989, those were three of four ridings that swung to the newly formed Equality Party, which promoted anglophone rights.
Holness said he will not hesitate to tap into the same kind of anglophone angst, this time sparked by the Coalition Avenir Québec government’s legislative agenda, including Bill 96 on overhauling the Charter of the French Language and Bill 21 on state secularism.
