'We need to acknowledge that there is a problem': PQ leader reflects on Charlie Kirk slaying in Alberta

OTTAWA — Parti Québécois Leader Paul St-Pierre Plamondon admits that the  assassination of U.S. conservative activist Charlie Kirk at a Utah university campus on Wednesday hit him extraordinarily close to home.

After all, Plamondon helped launch a group not too dissimilar from Kirk’s Turning Point USA as a young adult in the 2000s.

In 2007, he and two co-founders — now federal Industry Minister Melanie Joly and Stéphanie Raymond-Bougie — launched Génération d’idées : a civic organization dedicated to engaging 20 to 35-year-olds in the political process through healthy debate.

Plamondon moderated dozens of robust discussions on college campuses and other youth-filled venues across Quebec during his six years with the group.

Looking back, he acknowledges that the initiative is a relic of a lost era.

“I don’t think we could achieve today the culture of thinking and debating we had at Génération d’idées at the time, because it was a pre-social media period,” Plamondon told National Post on Thursday.

“The impact of social media, and socialization through social media … is it allows people to distort reality to fit their ideology and, afterwards, people who don’t agree become enemies,” said Plamondon.

Plamondon was speaking from Calgary, where he kicked off a two-day visit to Alberta with a talk at the University of Calgary’s School of Public Policy.

He said it was only fitting for him to open his remarks in Calgary with a nod to the bloodshed south of the border.

“It was important for me to mention that what happened to Utah was a stark reminder of how critical it was for me to be able to stand there at the University of Calgary and respectfully engage with a roomful of people who disagreed with me,” said Plamondon.

On the topic of higher education, Plamondon said that the corrosive effect of social media on our discourse goes hand-in-hand with the diminished emphasis on objective truth in certain corners of academia.

“If you’re not looking for the truth anymore, because you think the truth doesn’t exist or doesn’t matter, you can’t be a civilized and respectful environment for debate; it just doesn’t match,” said Plamondon.

Plamondon said that he hoped Kirk’s shocking assassination will be a wake-up call on both sides of the border.

“We need to acknowledge that there is a problem. And we need to acknowledge it right now, given what happened yesterday,” said Plamondon.

Plamondon said that part of his rationale for visiting Alberta was to engage with viewpoints that differed from his own.

“It struck me that Alberta is one of the most interesting places right now to answer questions about why Quebec’s sovereigntist movement is back and what we want,” said Plamondon.

“We might have differences as well, but that’s, in any case, very useful.”

National Post rmohamed@postmedia.com

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