William Twolan - Canadian Party of Quebec

Name: William Twolan

William (Will) Twolan was born and raised in the Pontiac riding. He served on CEGEP Heritage College’s academic senate and was the vice-president of the student association before graduating from the social science program with honours. He is currently a student at the University of Ottawa and is studying a joint communications and political science program.
He is passionate about education and believes more concrete action should be taken to repeal Bill 96, which he sees as limiting students' ability to choose where and what they want to study. He is committed to working towards establishing more equal language rights in the province.

Party: Canadian Party of Quebec (CaPQ) / Parti Canadien du Québec (PCaQ)

Political spectrum: Centre

View on Quebec sovereignty: The Canadian Party of Quebec is against separation and considers Quebec an integral part of Canada.

Opinions on:

Healthcare:
Twolan said that one of the first steps to improving healthcare in the region is to re-establish the boards of healthcare institutions that were abolished under Bill 10. “I will ensure that local boards come back to health institutions, to allow boards to make decisions and request resources based on their own needs …. I will also ensure Quebec can no longer ignore the Pontiac and the needs of rural Quebec. I am committed to bringing better healthcare to Pontiac and want to work with local bodies closely, and hear from the people actually dealing with the issues at hand, not regional boards and complicated ladders of bureaucracy.”
In order to ensure quicker access to family doctors for Quebec residents, Twolan said that he would work to do away with the Plans régionaux d'effectifs médicaux (PREM) permit system for doctors and replace it with a new approach to distributing doctors that would be faster and more effective. He said that he will work to ensure that local healthcare in Pontiac and across rural Quebec will have adequate funding. He is also committed to improving emergency services by reducing wait times and improving access to ambulances.

Environment:
Twolan said that he and his party will be a strong force for climate action in the National Assembly. He said that reducing greenhouse gas emissions is the highest priority for the party’s climate action plan, which will be made public this week. CaPQ is also committed to improving the quality of and access to public transportation. Twolan sees climate change as the “number one existential threat to life on Earth” and views the current target to reduce greenhouse gas emissions to 36.5% below 1990 levels by 2030 as not going far enough.  He said that the CaPQ is committed to taking much larger and faster steps towards their goal of full carbon neutrality by 2050.

As features of his party’s climate action plan, Twolan explained that CaPQ will enshrine environmental protection in Quebec’s Charter of Human Rights and Freedoms, place levies on hydro-Quebec’s annual earning to fund climate research, integrate the UN definition of sustainable consumption into all major policy initiatives, and create more government initiatives and selective public-private partnerships with carbon-neutral and carbon-negative industries to benefit public good.
He said that his party also supports the rapid adoption of more sustainable agricultural practices and regulations that are consistent with the UN’s annual State of Food and Agriculture reports.

Education:
Twolan said that he would work closely with local school boards and school service centres in the province in order to truly understand their needs. “I'd love to hear from them and to hear what would benefit them the most. I don't want to tell them what they need, I want them to tell me what they need.”

He is also committed to improving the quality of life and beauty of the region to make the Pontiac riding a more attractive place for teachers to live, and he said that part of this will involve closer collaboration with tourism Quebec.
Twolan said that CaPQ is a staunch defender of students having the right to study in their language of choice.

Language and Diversity (Bill 96 and Bill 21):
Twolan said that he is committed to completely repealing Bill 96. He feels that the Bill is discriminatory and targets minorities in Quebec. He believes that Quebec should be a bilingual province and that people should be able to access all public resources in both official languages of Canada. He said that Bill 21 is discriminatory as well as Bill 40, and believes that they should likewise be completely repealed. “We will scrap these bills and stand with minority rights,” he said. “We want to give the choice back to the people on what they wish to speak. We propose a bilingual Quebec to allow access to resources in both official languages of Canada, and we will respect our Canadian constitution.”