PQ’s Sonia Caron looks to switch from education to politics

Nunatsiaq News reached out to each candidate running in the Ungava riding ahead of Quebec’s Oct. 5 provincial election. Here’s what Parti Québecois candidate Sonia Caron had to share.

Sonia Caron said she never saw herself going into politics. Her decision to run for MNA in the Ungava riding came after four parties approached her.

“After a very long reflection, I decided to make the jump,” the Parti Québécois candidate said in an interview from Lebel-sur-Quévillon.

A lifelong supporter of the party from Chibougamau, Caron has spent the last 25 years working in education. She serves as the director of professional development at the Centre de services scolaire de la Baie-James, which oversees trades programs in northern Quebec.

She said her priorities are the lack of frontline health services and clean drinking water in many remote communities, issues that need to be treated with urgency.

“I told myself, ‘We have to do something,’ because our region is undergoing major upheavals, and public services are constantly deteriorating,” Caron said.

The current opposition party has promised to double the budget for medical travel reimbursements and a massive increase in funding for frontline care to be offered at community clinics.

Caron has long worked alongside economic leaders in Quebec as a member of the Société du Plan Nord, which advises the provincial government on economic and social development in the north, and as a board member of Quebec’s mining industry institute.

She is also the president of the Conseil régional des Partenaires du Marché du travail de la Jamésie, which advises the province on labour supply and demand.

She said that the party wants to work hand in hand with Cree and Inuit on economic and social development and that it wants communities to benefit from royalties from the mining industry.

“I’ve always cared deeply about the Inuit villages,” Caron said, adding that she worked as a high school French teacher in Inukjuak in 2003.

Caron is among five candidates running for Ungava in Quebec’s provincial election. Advance polls have been open since Saturday and will close Wednesday. Election day is set for Oct. 5.