By Jan Ravensbergen and Kevin Dougherty MONTREAL - The dramatic exodus of three stalwarts from the Parti Québécois caucus in the National Assembly "is a shock, for sure," embattled PQ leader Pauline Marois said Monday.
"I am very sorry and I am very surprised," Marois added at a 10-minute news conference at her offices in Place Ville Marie. She said she was "shaken."
PQ MNAs Lisette Lapointe, Louise Beaudoin and Pierre Curzi resigned from the caucus Monday. The three are leaving over Marois's insistence that they support Bill 204, a private member's bill that would retroactively legalize an agreement for the management of the Quebec City's proposed hockey arena.
All three had been members of Marois's shadow cabinet.
Minutes before her 1:30 p.m. news conference was to begin, Marois was hit by another show of open defiance from within her diminished caucus. Claude Cousineau, PQ member for the Laurentians riding of Bertrand, announced he would also vote against the bill.
Cousineau also asked Marois for free vote on the bill.
"I don't think" other PQ National Assembly members will bolt the party, Marois said.
A PQ caucus meeting is to be held Tuesday.
As she was leaving the news conference, Marois didn't respond to a question about Cousineau.
Marois said she had offered the three departing MNAs the option of not attending a vote on the controversial Quebec City hockey arena, which brought the internal PQ split to a head.
Lapointe, wife of former PQ premier Jacques Parizeau, represents Montreal's Crémazie riding. Beaudoin is the MNA for Montreal's Rosemont riding, and Curzi represents Borduas riding on the South Shore.
All three said they would continue to sit in the assembly as independent sovereignist MNAs.
Bill 204 would legalize an agreement by Quebec City that allows Quebecor Media Inc. to operate a proposed $400-million multi-use amphitheatre that would also be the home of a National Hockey League team. The bill is sponsored by Agnès Maltais, the Parti Québécois MNA for the downtown Quebec City riding of Taschereau.
"There are others," Cousineau said in a telephone conversation from his riding. But he preferred not to give their names.
He recalled that the PQ pushed the Liberal Premier Jean Charest's government to adopt a code of ethics, and now a PQ MNA is proposing a bill to override the right to challenge an agreement negotiated without public tenders, a violation of Quebec's Cities and Towns Act.
Cousineau also objected to the way PQ members on a legislature committee hearing witnesses on Bill 204 tried to demolish the arguments of Denis de Belleval, a former city manager for the provincial capital and a one-time PQ minister.
Quebecor CEO Pierre Karl Péladeau is trying to persuade the National Hockey League to move a team to the capital.
"Maybe it is the daughter of a judge in me," Beaudoin said, explaining her objection to Bill 204. She added that the bill would set a bad legal precedent.
As well, Beaudoin criticized the adversial approach Marois has taken, aggressively attacking the Liberal government.
Lapointe was also generally critical of Marois's leadership, which Lapointe suggested was drifting away from the PQ's sovereignty goal.
Curzi said Bill 204 "breached the tolerance of my personal ethical threshold" and said the sovereignty goal can be pursued outside the PQ.
janr@montrealgazette.com
kdougherty@montrealgazette.com