The PQ will receive nearly $100,000 for votes raised by its two Islamophobic candidates.

Paul St-Pierre Plamenton’s Parti Québécois will have to donate $100,000 during the next mandate due to votes accumulated by two of its Islamophobic candidates who were expelled from the party days before the vote.

• Read more: PQ: PSPP excludes two anti-Muslim candidates

Quebec’s Chief Electoral Officer (DGEQ) confirms that candidate votes in Rousseau, Pierre Vanier, and L’Assomption, Catherine Prévost, will allow the PQ to receive a payout of about $25,000 this year.

This amount will be updated annually until the end of the mandate and will be adjusted according to the Consumer Price Index.

Next year, the DGEQ estimates that each vote will bring in $2.62 for political parties.

“If we calculate the share of the payment related to the two candidates, we arrive at $24,500,” said DGEQ spokeswoman Julie St-Arnaud Drolet, although she added that the amount will be indexed from 1.^R January 2023. The PQ will receive more than $100,000 over four years for these two rejected candidates.

Excluded from the party

Three days before the election, our Parliamentary Office published Facebook posts by two candidates between 2015 and 2016 in which they made numerous Islamophobic and reductive comments about women wearing the veil.

President Paul St-Pierre Plamondon had decided to expel them from the party, but did not ask them to withdraw their candidacy.

“They asked me to judge them as a whole [sur] 2015 onwards releases only. Also, I have accepted this request,” the PQ leader said.

Thus, the names of the candidates were not deleted from the ballot paper, but the name of B.K. was always attached to them.

The PQ leader promised to find a way to redistribute the payments the party receives. Ditto for the percentage of votes cast through universal suffrage.

The PQ won 14.61% of the vote. By subtracting the votes cast by Pierre Vanier and Catherine Provost, the formation should have actually received 14.38% of the vote.

Party expenses

In Rousseau, Pierre Vanier won more than 15% of the vote in Rousseau’s riding, which allows the party to claim back election expenses.

Amounts spent on Rousseau’s block will be added to PQ’s balance sheet, which will receive up to 50% back.

As of now, the amount is not known, but it will be revealed soon in the Election Expenditure Report filed by the Sovereign Party.

Therefore, “the party cannot deduct expenses incurred on both candidates: it has to declare all its election expenses under the Election Act,” Ms.^me Saint-Arnaud Drolet.