Olivier Dumais, Conservative candidate in Beauce-Nord, admitted to having broken the health rules by finding himself with five of his friends in a chalet, in the winter of 2021, when the whole province was classified in the red zone.
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This is what MaBeauce.com revealed late Thursday afternoon, quoting the July 25 episode of Garage Podcastsattended by Mr. Dumais who is also mayor of Saint-Lambert-de-Lauzon.
“We were six guys. We’re going on a Ski-Doo trip. We are the day after, it pops on my phone: Oh, meeting of mayors of the MRC (of New Beauce) in Zoom, ”he describes.
He then adds this: “I’m going to plug. I forget that we are in the red zone everywhere in Quebec. You don’t even have the right to see your neighbour. The rest of us went six guys on ski-doos to my chalet”.
When his MRC colleagues hear noise in the background, Olivier Dumais serves them a lie. “We are five-six guys (…) I said here we are in the orange zone, we are correct. But it was a red zone everywhere in Quebec (…) They swallowed that. They didn’t ask too many questions,” he adds, laughing.
Olivier Dumais represents one of the main hopes for gains of the Conservative Party of Quebec (PCQ). A survey by the firm Segma Research, published today, even gave him a lead over his CAQ opponent.
“The triple deep of the trash can”
Called to comment on this story, Éric Duhaime strongly counterattacked by strongly attacking the CAQ. “Today, we will not accept being intimidated by bully that way. The CAQ’s smear campaign is enough, ”he got carried away.
According to him, there are at the CAQ “a lot of people who rummage through our garbage cans. There, they are returned to the triple deep of the trash. He is criticized (candidate Dumais), several months ago, for having been in a red zone, when he himself admitted it because he made a mistake and he himself made a joke over it”.
Visibly angry, the Conservative leader added that “Ms. (Geneviève) Guilbault, three days ago, was on a plane, no mask (and) against government instructions. Did a journalist ask Mr. Legault a question about his own minister? Absolutely not. They are digging through the trash cans. At some point, the double standard will do.”
On the merits of the story, Éric Duhaime affirmed that it was an “oversight” of his candidate and not a deliberate attempt to violate the law. “Whoever has never fished throws the first stone at him,” he said. What I heard is that he forgot. To forget is not in bad faith.
Cédric Lapointe, the Conservative leader’s press secretary, responded by way of a statement. “Mr. Dumais is an excellent candidate and a mayor present in his community. We are lucky to have him on our team. We do not encourage civil disobedience,” he wrote.