PLQ management race | Pablo Rodriguez: from asylum seeker to aspiring Prime Minister

This is the first school year in Pablo Rodriguez in Quebec. In turn, the students must spell their names. When hers comes, the 8 -year -old boy arrived from Argentina a few weeks earlier, hesitates, then starts: “Rodri”. He stops. “Is that all?” Asked the teacher. “I was not able to say the G,” he recalls today.

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“I said yes, then I got ready. That year, my last name, it was Rodri. »»

Fifty years later, Pablo Rodriguez will be appointed Lieutenant du Québec by Prime Minister Justin Trudeau. Today he creeps the leadership of the Liberal Party of Quebec (PLQ).

A journey that may seem out of reach for a young man from an immigrant family, but who does not surprise the people who have known him.

Upon his arrival in Canada, Pablo Rodriguez’s father warns his son, “Canada is a country full of opportunities. You can do everything, but please do not make politics, ”will tell the deputy for years later, on the antenna of the 98.5 FM.

The principal interested contextualizes. “He survived torture, imprisonment, the death of many people he knew well, that he loved. […] After having survived it all, it is a normal instinct to say: do something else. »»

An explosion

Political opponent in Argentina in the 1970s, Julio Rodriguez did not make friends. The military junta suffocates the country.

As he campaigns to become governor of the province of Tucumán, two bombs broke into the family home. All are injured. Pablo Rodriguez’s younger sister will not talk about for two years.

The family asks for political asylum in Canada.

The young Pablo learns the habits and customs of Quebec by playing hockey – where he notably rubs shoulders with the son of Bernard Landry – and listening to the classics of Quebec culture, including the songs of Paul Piché.

The family lives in an “full of Coquerelles” parcrension apartment, remembers Pablo Rodriguez.

His father works in a textile factory on Chabanel Street while studying sociology at UQAM. He will later obtain a lecturer at the University of Sherbrooke, where he will move his family.

Initiated early

The evening of the victory of the Parti Québécois, on November 15, 1976, Julio Rodriguez dragged his 9-year-old son to the late Paul-Sauvé center to hear the speech of René Lévesque and his famous: “We are perhaps something like a great people! »»

The young Pablo is therefore immersed very early in politics. From the primary, where he was elected class president when he does not speak French, then in high school and in the student association of Cégep de Sherbrooke.

In the early 1990s, he joined the Youth Commission of the Quebec Liberal Party then led by Mario Dumont.

Roxane Larouche, who militates with him at the time, remembers “his strength to convince”.

“No matter with whom he sat, he managed to convince him. If it was taking an hour, it took an hour, if it took two, it took two, “she says.

The PLQ is then in full swing. The Allaire report, which recommends a new round of provincial-feedral negotiations on the basis of a list of claims, then a referendum on sovereignty in the event of failure, divides.

The choice of Canada

“Canada is our first choice,” said Robert Bourassa in front of 3000 delegates gathered in Montreal.

A position that Pablo Rodriguez supports, unlike Mario Dumont, who slammed the party door in November 1992, a month after the Charlottetown referendum.

Pablo Rodriguez supports his friend Maryse Harvey in the race to succeed him, but the latter bowed to Claude-Éric Gagné, who will later become deputy director of operations at the office of Prime Minister Trudeau.

It is partly this defeat that pushes him to separate from the PLQ, he says today.

Meanwhile, he worked within the club 2/3, which he later merged with Oxfam-Québec. He will then become president of the Quebec wing of the Liberal Party of Canada where he will play a key role in the organization in Quebec.

It is also to “reward him” that Paul Martin has in store for him the castle of Honoré-Mercier, in the east of Montreal, writes The press One May 2004.

Pablo Rodriguez will be re -elected three times. Among his feats of arms at the time was the adoption by the House of Commons of a law of his vintage to force Stephen Harper to respect the Kyoto protocol on the reduction of greenhouse gases.

Then the orange wave comes, in 2011. The PLC is almost swept from the electoral card in Quebec. Pablo Rodriguez is one of the victims.

He then turned to the private sector, where he was hired at the head of Ecolomondo, a young shoot Montrealer who specializes today in the treatment of hydrocarbon waste, including old tires.

La reconstruction

He stayed there until 2013, when a certain Justin Trudeau turned to him to rebuild the party in Quebec.

He also involved in this operation, the former chief of staff of Robert Bourassa Rémi Bujold testifies to the magnitude of the task.

“There was no candidate, downright. You have to recruit, you have to find people, ”he says. Hence the interest of recruiting Pablo Rodriguez, then seen as a “working”. “It was his trademark. »»

But this is a full -time task. Pablo Rodriguez must therefore choose: his job or the party. Slight detail, given the PLC finances, they are not offered a salary.

He therefore empties his registered registration of retirement savings (RRSP) and signs for a room of credit. “For two and a half years, I lived on my money,” he says.

“You had to believe it,” said Rémi Bujold.

Pablo Rodriguez will meet nearly 400 people, 75 of whom will become party candidates in the province. Among them, well-known figures of the Trudeau government, including Mélanie Joly, François-Philippe Champagne and Jean-Yves Duclos.

His hard work is rewarded. From 6 seats, the Quebec deputation of the PLC increases to 40 elected officials.

A feat that he will try to repeat if he wins the PLQ race on June 14.