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Lest his intentions remain unclear, his goal is to help eventually make Quebec a country, he stated in remarks during a campaign meeting in the city of Saint-Jerome, the district he will run in for member of Quebec’s National Assembly in the election on April 7.

Quebecor’s wireless business Videotron won licences for blocks of cellular airwaves in its home province as well as southern Ontario, British Columbia and Alberta all for the sum of just $233-million in the spectrum auction that concluded last month.

Industry Minister James Moore said the fact Quebecor was looking beyond its traditional footprint in Quebec would be a “big win for Canadian consumers,” although the company has said only that the airwaves give it a “number of options.”

“They do have spectrum, but there was never any indication as to what they were going to do with this,” said Gregory Taylor, principal investigator for Canadian Spectrum Policy Research, a research team at Toronto’s Ryerson University. “Given the events of the weekend, I would think that would be even more questionable. Péladeau says he’s going to put his shares into a blind trust but I’m not sure anybody believes it’s going to be fully hands off. Of course he’s going to have influence.”

Mr. Péladeau resigned as vice-chairman of Quebecor and Chairman of Quebecor Media and TVA Group on Sunday and said he would place his investments in a blind trust if elected. But during a news conference with Quebec Premier Pauline Marois Monday, he said flatly he would not sell his shares of the company even if the province’s ethics commissioner instructs him to.