Parti Quebecois refuses invite to Fete nationale concert to protest choice of host

The Parti Quebecois has turned down an invitation to address the crowd at a major concert marking the province's national holiday in protest over the choice of host.

The Parti Québécois has turned down an invitation to address the crowd at a major concert marking the province's national holiday in protest over the choice of host.

In a letter published online Monday, party spokeswoman Méganne Perry Mélançon accused the organizers of lacking judgment when they named singer-songwriter Émile Bilodeau as host of the Quebec City concert on the Plains of Abraham the evening before the June 24 holiday.

"When you want to bring people together, the first thing to do is to show respect for others," she wrote. “In recent years and particularly in recent months, Émile Bilodeau has, on many occasions, showed disrespect toward the Parti Québécois, its staff, its leader, its members, its supporters. He has also shown very little respect for anyone who advocates for state secularism," she wrote.

The 26-year-old Bilodeau, an award-winning artist whose fifth album is due out in September, has been a vocal critic of the province's secularism law, known as Bill 21, which he described in 2020 as "misogynistic, Islamophobic and degrading.” The law prevents civil servants deemed to be in positions of authority from wearing religious symbols — including hijabs and turbans — on the job.

Bilodeau has also mocked the Parti Québécois and its leader as "whiners" and suggested the party should die out to make way for a better sovereigntist option.

Perry Melançon wrote that while Bilodeau has a right to his opinions and that she wasn't calling for his removal, she said she didn't feel comfortable attending the pre-concert ceremony. She also accused the group organizing the show of violating its principles of non-partisanship when it selected Bilodeau as host, noting he has campaigned for rival sovereigntist party Québec solidaire.

The concert on the Plains of Abraham is among the signature events marking the Fête nationale, which is also known as St-Jean-Baptiste Day and is associated with the Quebec sovereignty movement.