Québec Solidaire leaders: Françoise David and Amir Khadir
Last Updated: Wednesday, November 12, 2008 | 11:47 PM ET
CBC News
Québec Solidaire may still be in its political infancy, but the provincial party says it is ready to win seats in this election, offering voters a viable, left-wing alternative to the Parti Québécois.
In the 2007 Quebec election, QS garnered 3.65 per cent of the popular vote, just behind the Quebec Green Party.
The party rules by consensus and rejects the traditional concept of a "leader," choosing instead to front two spokespeople, Françoise David and Amir Khadir.
QS was created in February 2006 with five governing principles: sovereignty, feminism, social equality, pluralism and ecology.
In this election, QS is focusing on family, the economy and sovereignty as three driving issues.
QS is calling for a major economic shift in the province, to reduce the influence of big banks and multi-national companies and foster locally based industries focused on Quebec natural resources.
The party wants to draw up a Quebec constitution and hold a referendum to resolve the sovereignty issue once and for all.
The party also supports nationalizing wind energy, raising corporate taxes and investing massively in public transit, among other policies.
Québec Solidaire is in favour of electoral reform, including proportional representation that allocates seats according to the popular vote.
QS is seen as a wild card in some swing ridings, especially in Montreal, where it poses a vote-splitting threat to the Parti Québécois.
David and Khadir are both prominent community activists who have worked on various social justice issues in Quebec over the last 20 years.
Françoise David: community organizer, feminist
David is best known as the past president of the Fédération des femmes du Québec, the province's largest women's organization, which she ran from 1994 to 2001.
David helped found the feminist political movement Option Citoyenne (Citizen Option) before assisting in the creation of Québec Solidaire in 2006.
She was instrumental in producing the 1995 Women's March against Poverty in Montreal and the 2000 World March of Women against Poverty and Violence, two events that drew tens of thousands of participants.
David ran as a QS candidate in the central Montreal riding of Gouin in 2007, finishing second, behind the PQ, with 26 per cent of the popular vote. David is running again in Gouin in the 2008 election.
Born in Montreal in 1948, David is the daughter of the late Paul David, a well-known Canadian cardiologist, founder of the Montreal Heart Institute and past Conservative senator, appointed by former Prime Minister Brian Mulroney.
David studied community organization at the University of Montreal and worked at Montreal's Social Services Centre until 1987. She was made a Knight of the National order of Quebec in 1999.
Amir Khadir: physician, social activist
Amir Khadir is an activist doctor and one-time Bloc Québécois candidate who has been involved in humanitarian causes for two decades.
Born in Tehran, Iran, in 1961, he immigrated to Quebec at the age of 10 with his family. He studied medicine and physics at the Université Laval, McGill University and the University of Montreal.
Khadir is a specialist in infectious microbiology who now practices at the Centre hospitalier Pierre-Le-Gardeur in Lachenaie, Que., a suburb east of Montreal.
The father of three has been actively involved in Médecins du Monde (Doctors of the World) and worked on projects in Afghanistan, Iraq, Nicaragua, Zimbabwe and India. He's also a member of the Coalition of Doctors for Social Justice in Quebec, which opposes private health care.
Khadir ran unsuccessfully as a federal Bloc Québécois candidate in Outremont in 2000.
He helped found the political party Union des Forces Progressistes in 2002, running under its banner in the 2003 provincial election in Montreal's Mercier riding, where he earned 18 per cent of the popular vote, well behind PQ incumbent Daniel Turp.
