Antoine Dion Charest was born into the corridors of power. In 1995, he was only 7 years old when the referendum on Quebec sovereignty took place. That didn’t stop him from organizing his own little No Camp Committee in his childhood bedroom in Godino. A kind of baptism of politics that never left him again.
When we arrive at his apartment in Montreal’s Cote-des-Neiges district, Mr. Dion Charest greets us from the top of his balcony, this cool autumn morning. Facing the entrance, a few floors up, he apologizes for displaying his instructions in English on the dashboard to open the door. He has already complained to the building manager and swore at the man who describes himself as a nationalist.
30 years ago, when the No camp won by a few thousand votes, Antoine Dion Charest was too young to understand the issues his father, Jean Charest, then leader of the Progressive Conservative Party in Ottawa, was championing. player.
But today, 35, facing an upswing in the Parti Québécois (PQ) in the polls and struggling Liberals on the provincial political scene, the doctorate in philosophy and member of the Committee for the Revival of the Liberal Party of Quebec (PLQ) wants to have a say.
Freedom first
A member of the PLQ Political Commission since 2018, a box of ideas of sorts that provides political orientation to liberal activists, Antoine Dion Charest has distinguished himself at party conventions in recent years. Themes dear to him are back on the agenda: interculturalism, Quebec’s constitution, but above all his attachment to personal liberties. The ideas at the heart of the Committee’s report on the revival of the Liberal Party.
Photo by Robert Skinner, The Press
Antoine Dion Charest says he is proud to bear the name Charest: “I am proud of it and I am very proud of the achievements of my father’s government. Today, I speak my mind, I give the truth, I do not hide. »
Before Dominic Anglade was crowned party leader in Drummondville in May 2019, he was already influencing the debate. State Secularism Act By declaring that “for us, liberals, individual liberties are non-negotiable.” In the same city last October, she was surprised by her enthusiasm, even as journalists recognized the speech and posture of her father, leader of Quebec’s Liberal Party from 1998 to 2012, through one of his magazines.
Asked if the Liberals were still haunted by the ghosts of the scandals that led to the commission of inquiry into the awarding and management of public contracts in the construction industry, he replied that the housekeeping was done and the time was right. The media must change the “cassette”.
“I am proud to bear the name Sarst. […] I am proud of it, I am very proud of the achievements of my father’s government. Today, I say my opinion, I give the right time, I do not hide,” he tells us, sitting in his room while serving coffee for a long interview on his journey, but above all his ambitions. .
“Music geek. Coffee lover. Devoted food scholar. Web buff. Passionate internet guru.”
