Le Carne de Carne: Rep. Saul Zanetti hopes to sit until Quebec becomes independent

Every week, author and journalist Karine Gagnon invites you to an important interview with a prominent figure from the Capitale-Nationale.

Several years ago, before he ran for election, Saul Zanetti was saying that he would like to remain elected until Quebec's independence. Although many mocked his ambition, this option has returned to the forefront, and the supportive MP believes in it.

Member Jean Lesage, who was a professor of philosophy before his election in 2018, has long been a convinced separatist.

During a previous interview, he gave me a copy of his work The book that makes you say yes. He wrote it while participating in the National Choice Party, a party founded by Jean-Martin Ossan and led for four years.

It explains the implications of self-determination in modern Quebec on various aspects of our collective lives. The work has been distributed in more than 45,000 copies.

He continues to distribute them when he meets young people, for example, to talk to them about independence. He recently presented his 72nd^H Conference on this topic at Laval University. “I'm counting down,” he said, promising to celebrate the 100th anniversary^H In a special way.

Unity is strength

If this trend continues, as Saul Zanetti rejoices, “we are two and a half years away from holding pre-referendum elections. When we look at that, there are two sovereign parties committed to holding a referendum in the first term, so that will be the issue,” says the man who sees his commitment Politics is not as a profession, but as a mission.

As Chairman of National Option, he approved the merger with QS. He was also involved in discussions with the AKP at that time.

“The DNA of parties is to be in confrontation with each other, so it is counterintuitive to make them talk. But I think it (the merger of sovereign parties) can happen the day when in civil society and among the activists concerned there is a movement pushing for it (.. .) And they will find that the issue is very urgent.”

Italian roots

He explains that Sol Zanetti, who was born in Sainte-Foy, in a one-story house, also had an entire Italian family living in northern Italy, near Trento. He does not speak perfect Italian without an accent, but he made a point of learning it at the age of 12 using cassette tapes and books.

Fascinated by the people, as well as the mountain views and Dolomite landscape, he returns to visit there “every few years.” His father arrived in Quebec in the 1960s, several years before he was born.

When he was younger, Saul Zanetti first thought about becoming a journalist. But he was quickly drawn to philosophy. He holds bachelor's and master's degrees in philosophy, and taught for several years on the campus of Notre-Dame du Foy.

Except for intensive marking periods, he is occasionally absent from teaching.

“When you're a philosophy teacher, you often start with a couple of takes, because the world says, 'Oh, I'm not going to like that.' It's a bit abstract, we don't really know what it is, we just know that a lot of people don't like it,” he says.

But he made it his duty to search for young people according to their field of study and areas of interest. “I tried to take a really concrete approach and think of Socrates (…) in the public square with the pot sellers and vegetables and all that. I said to myself: we have to launch the students into the work, and get them immersed in it by asking the questions that interest them most.”

Elected official privilege

It is noted that the teacher expressed great appreciation for the exchanges “with the attentive, interested and good-natured students,” and the atmosphere in which we were not in battle but in the common search for the truth. “This is not always what we see in Parliament,” he said.

“I think everyone in Parliament is philosophizing, meaning they ask themselves questions, but once they decide what their positions are, it becomes confrontational, and no one convinces anyone else.”

If Saul Zanetti has jumped into this political arena, it is precisely because he believes he can present ideas and provoke thought. “Not necessarily with the opposite people, in government,” he explains.

He considers this possibility to put proposals into practice, and change the public debate, as a privilege. “It also pushes us back in our collective minds, preventing what is possible,” he says.

Many challenges

He says the MP, a father of a three-year-old daughter, enjoys the balance between work and family, which is a “wonderful, difficult and exhausting” idea in politics.

His partner is an actress, so their schedules are atypical. During discussions on Health Reform Bill No. 15, which continued throughout the night, he pinned his toddler to his desk. He set up a small tent for her with small lights. “I got stuck, and we had to try to put some magic into it,” he says.

He strives to maintain a certain balance while politics is “so alienating.” “You have to say to yourself: 'I must give as much of myself as possible, but I must also remain a balanced human being, to represent people well' (…) and if you are no longer like that, then you are no longer yourself, and what good will you do in Parliament? You no longer have any reference points.”

Don't miss it, Wednesday evening at 8:30 pm, on MAtv (Channel 9 [Hélix et illico]609 d [Illico]), the offer Karen's notebook About Saul Zanetti.