FIRST READING: Parti Québécois leader alleges a vast, secret, federal conspiracy to stop him

Parti Québécois leader Paul St-Pierre Plamondon holds a press conference on April 16, 2026. Photo by John Mahoney / MONTREAL GAZETTE

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The leader of the Parti Québécois, Paul St-Pierre Plamondon, has alleged a vast, Ottawa-led conspiracy to undermine his separatist ambitions.

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And although he stated he couldn’t provide any evidence to this effect, the view was quickly endorsed by one of his political rivals.

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In a Tuesday press conference, St-Pierre Plamondon displayed his smartphone to reporters and declared in French that “if there is one consistency in the history of the Parti Québécois, it’s that the leader and influential elected members are spied on.”

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He added that such surveillance was “ridiculously easy” in the age of smartphones, as opposed to prior eras in which a spy would have to “tape a recording device to their stomach.”

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“We know our history, so we know that every decade, the Government of Canada has taken ethically and legally questionable steps to monitor the elected members of the Parti Québécois,” said St-Pierre Plamondon. He said the party makes a point of putting their cell phones in Faraday cages during sensitive meetings to block potential bugging efforts.

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When Quebec Justice Minister Simon Jolin-Barrette was asked about the accusations, he replied that St-Pierre Plamondon might indeed have cause for worry.

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“The fears of Mr. St-Pierre Plamondon are not necessarily unfounded,” he said. “When there are national issues on the future of Quebec, the rules are not respected by the federal government.”

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St-Pierre Plamondon told reporters several times that he had no evidence or “means to verify” his suspicions, at one point saying “we have information, but it won’t be aired in public.”

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Rather, he leaned on the fact that it’s something the federal government has done in the  past. Said the PQ leader, “I am obligated to presume that the federal government hasn’t changed.”

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The early days of the Parti Québécois were indeed dogged by aggressive RCMP surveillance and interference operations. But almost all of the known incidents occurred before St-Pierre Plamondon’s birth in 1977.

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In fact, St-Pierre Plamondon was born just three months before the start of the McDonald Commission, a four-year Crown inquiry held specifically to rein in the illegal activities of the RCMP, including its targeting of separatist politicians.

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One of the most controversial actions exposed by the McDonald Commission was Operation Ham, a 1973 police-orchestrated break-in that has been described as “Canada’s Watergate.” Security units broke into a Montreal data processing firm for the purpose of stealing computer tapes containing the names of PQ members.