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Parti Québécois calls on Carney to ‘remove’ Mark Wiseman from list of potential U.S. envoys
OTTAWA — The Parti Québécois is calling on the federal government to “remove” financier Mark Wiseman’s name from their list of potential Canadian ambassadors to the United States, arguing that he is “not a friend” to Quebec.
Prime Minister Mark Carney has said that he would be announcing his new pick to replace longtime ambassador Kirsten Hillman within days. For now, the person rumoured to take her place is Wiseman, a close friend of Carney’s and longtime business executive.
On Thursday, PQ member of the National Assembly Pascal Paradis said his nomination would be “unacceptable” for Quebec.
“The Parti Québécois will never accept the nomination of Mark Wiseman as Canada’s ambassador to the U.S. Why? Because Mark Wiseman is not a friend of the Quebec nation,” Paradis said in a press conference in Quebec City.
Wiseman is known as the co-founder of the Century Initiative, a controversial lobbying group which advocates for increasing Canada’s population to 100 million by 2100.
In 2023, he retweeted a Globe and Mail column calling for that dramatic increase in immigration levels to become federal policy “even if it makes Quebec howl.”
Even though those words were not his own but rather those of the title written by columnist Andrew Coyne, Paradis said Wiseman’s publication on X is reminiscent of an infamous quote from former prime minister, Sir John A. Macdonald, comparing Quebecers to dogs.
In 1885, Macdonald was purported to have said of Métis leader Louis Riel, who was seen as a folk hero and a martyr in Quebec because of his defence of the French language and his Catholic faith: “He shall hang though every dog in Quebec bark in his favour.”
Days after Riel’s execution, as described by historian Robert N. Wilkins in the Montreal Gazette , 50,000 people protested in the streets of Montreal and the Conservatives never fully recovered politically in Quebec until John Diefenbaker swept the province in 1958.
The PQ is adding its voice to a growing list of politicians in Ottawa who criticized Wiseman’s potential nomination this week because of his connection to the Century Initiative, but also because of past skepticism of the supply management system.
Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre said on Wednesday that Wiseman is “someone who has shown contempt for Quebec and who cannot negotiate on behalf of Quebec.”
“Why does the Prime Minister want to appoint him as ambassador to Washington?”
Bloc Québécois House leader Christine Normandin also took issue with the use of the word “howl” which she said is something dogs do.
As for NDP Deputy Leader Alexandre Boulerice, he said to have an ambassador in the U.S. that does not believe in supply management sends a “very, very bad signal” before the start of the review of the Canada-U.S.-Mexico trade agreement next year.
National Post calevesque@postmedia.com
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