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From The Gazette:
Kevin Dougherty, CanWest News Service
Published: Friday, February 02, 2007
PARIS - Quebec Premier Jean Charest appeared to be road-testing two election campaign themes Thursday when he arrived in Paris as the guest of French President Jacques Chirac at a conference on environmental governance.
Charest told reporters his Liberal government is committed to sustainable development, reduction of greenhouse gases and development of wind energy and hydro power.
But Charest also wanted to talk with Chirac and others he will meet in Paris about his proposal, unveiled last week in Davos, Switzerland, for a Canada-European Union free trade agreement.
Charest raised the free trade issue, which appears aimed at stealing the thunder of the Parti Quebecois in a provincial election that is expected this spring, at a meeting with Laurence Parisot, president of the Mouvement des entreprises de France, equivalent to Quebec's employers' lobby.
The premier said he told Parisot that free trade between Canada and Europe would be especially interesting for France, offering new opportunities in trading and investment relations between France and Quebec.
He will also bring up free trade at a private meeting with Chirac today and at breakfast with Nicolas Sarkozy, the candidate of Chirac's conservative Union pour la majorite presidentielle party in France's May presidential election.
Scheduling conflicts, Charest said, did not permit a meeting with Sarkozy's Socialist rival Segolene Royal.
''It didn't work,'' Charest said of prospects for a meeting between Royal and himself.
Royal made a diplomatic faux pas last week when Parti Quebecois Leader Andre Boisclair was in France.
After meeting the PQ leader she said she favoured the ''sovereignty and liberty of Quebec,'' before backtracking to the classic French position of ''non-indifference and non-interference'' in Quebec's affairs.
Chirac has organized a conference in Paris with the goal of creating a United Nations agency for environmental governance, to make environmental concerns part of government decision making.
Charest said that if such an agency is established, Quebec will have to be part of it.
Wonder who, of Royal or Charest, wanted to avoid the meeting?
On a related note, I had never heard of talks about a Canada-EU free-trade zone being discussed at this level.
Kevin Dougherty, CanWest News Service
Published: Friday, February 02, 2007
PARIS - Quebec Premier Jean Charest appeared to be road-testing two election campaign themes Thursday when he arrived in Paris as the guest of French President Jacques Chirac at a conference on environmental governance.
Charest told reporters his Liberal government is committed to sustainable development, reduction of greenhouse gases and development of wind energy and hydro power.
But Charest also wanted to talk with Chirac and others he will meet in Paris about his proposal, unveiled last week in Davos, Switzerland, for a Canada-European Union free trade agreement.
Charest raised the free trade issue, which appears aimed at stealing the thunder of the Parti Quebecois in a provincial election that is expected this spring, at a meeting with Laurence Parisot, president of the Mouvement des entreprises de France, equivalent to Quebec's employers' lobby.
The premier said he told Parisot that free trade between Canada and Europe would be especially interesting for France, offering new opportunities in trading and investment relations between France and Quebec.
He will also bring up free trade at a private meeting with Chirac today and at breakfast with Nicolas Sarkozy, the candidate of Chirac's conservative Union pour la majorite presidentielle party in France's May presidential election.
Scheduling conflicts, Charest said, did not permit a meeting with Sarkozy's Socialist rival Segolene Royal.
''It didn't work,'' Charest said of prospects for a meeting between Royal and himself.
Royal made a diplomatic faux pas last week when Parti Quebecois Leader Andre Boisclair was in France.
After meeting the PQ leader she said she favoured the ''sovereignty and liberty of Quebec,'' before backtracking to the classic French position of ''non-indifference and non-interference'' in Quebec's affairs.
Chirac has organized a conference in Paris with the goal of creating a United Nations agency for environmental governance, to make environmental concerns part of government decision making.
Charest said that if such an agency is established, Quebec will have to be part of it.
Wonder who, of Royal or Charest, wanted to avoid the meeting?
On a related note, I had never heard of talks about a Canada-EU free-trade zone being discussed at this level.
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