3 PQ members leave party

Good for them. Governments today don't even try to hide their corruption.

Three influential Parti Québécois members of the national assembly are leaving Quebec's sovereigntist party, largely because of a controversial bill to protect the provincial capital and its management deal on the city's new hockey arena.

Louise Beaudoin, the member for Montreal's Rosemont riding, Pierre Curzi, who represents Borduas, and Lisette Lapointe, the member for Crémazie and the wife of former PQ leader Jacques Parizeau, announced Monday morning that they will sit as independents committed to sovereignty.

Their decision was triggered by a private member's bill sponsored by PQ member Agnès Maltais to protect the City of Quebec after the multimillion-dollar deal it made with media giant Quebecor to operate the future arena.

The bill would declare the arena deal legal even though the city bypassed the public tender process.

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Independence by other means than referendum: PQ

Don't trust the PQ on this issue, they *will* fuck you over on it.

Pauline Marois is betting her young leadership of the Parti Québécois on her ability to push the province closer to independence without resorting to a referendum.

A bellicose Marois announced Wednesday she will ask PQ members to free the party from a commitment to hold a referendum soon after an election win.

A PQ government would instead adopt a policy of "national governance" to gradually free the province from Ottawa's grip.

"I am freeing myself from shackles in proposing … that we suspend the obligation to hold a referendum in the first part of a mandate," Marois told reporters in Montreal.

Read more here.