Claire Samson kicked out of CAQ caucus for allegedly donating to Quebec Conservatives

Claire Samson was elected to Quebec’s National Assembly in 2014. (Jacques Boissinot/The Canadian Press – image credit)

Claire Samson has been kicked out of the Coalition Avenir Québec caucus for making a donation to Quebec’s Conservative party led by Éric Duhaime.

The chair of the caucus, Mario Laframboise, announced the expulsion of Samson in a news release Tuesday evening. Samson was first elected in 2014 to represent the riding of Iberville in the Montérégie.

“While we have been asking Quebecers for more than a year to make considerable efforts in this fight against the virus, we cannot tolerate a member of our caucus financially supporting another political formation that challenges and rejects science and health measures in place,” said Laframboise in the statement.

Laframboise said the party will make no further comments.

Éric Duhaime, a radio host organized a demonstration against public health measures in August that attracted more than 1,000 people in Quebec City.

“To force me to wear a mask, to threaten me with $600 tickets — I’m sorry, we’re not in communist China here. We live in a democracy,” he said in a video ahead of his rally.

On social media, he regularly posts criticisms of the Legault governments’ handling of the COVID-19 pandemic that has killed thousands of Quebecers.

On Tuesday, he took to Facebook to accuse Premier François Legault of being the worst on the continent when it comes to confinement measures and of being the last to “give back rights and freedoms to his citizens.”

To the contrary, Samson has posted very little on her social media pages in several months. She could not be immediately reached for comment Tuesday evening.