MONTREAL—The leader of the third-place party in the Quebec election race says the province’s youth need to spend less time pursuing “the good life” and take a lesson from their hard-working Asian counterparts.

The comments from Coalition Avenir Québec leader François Legault were neither a bid to win ethnic votes nor an effort to polarize student voters, but came in a casual conversation with an elderly voter in Quebec’s Beauce region. The comments brought about swift criticism from Legault’s political opponents.

While Legault was shaking hands at an event, Renaud Bilodeau, 85, remarked on the poor work ethic of young people these days. The CAQ leader said the problem is that Quebec’s youth expect the world, but aren’t prepared to put in the hard work.

That’s contrary to the norm in Asia, Legault added, where parents all want their children to become engineers.

In some cases parents drive their progeny to the brink of breakdown in the push for success. In South Korea, the government has cracked down on students who study after 10 p.m.

“I always say to my self that in the long term there is a danger,” Legault said. ‘If the Asians are always working and we say that we only want the good life, it’s going to be a rude awakening one day.”

Asked Tuesday about the remark, which comes at the end of a six-month school boycott by students seeking a freeze of their tuition fees, Legault was unapologetic.

“If you have kids they’ll tell you (the Asian students) are always first in class. One of my sons was telling me, ‘Yes, but they have no life,’” Legault said. “There’s maybe an extreme there but, here, in some cases we’re a little bit at the other extreme.”

Claude Roy, a former Action Democratique du Québec politician running on behalf of a local radio station, apologized last week after saying the province had erred in admitting immigrants from French-speaking countries who become taxi drivers over richer and more entrepreneurial Asian immigrants who create economic value and never complain.

In Legault’s case, the comments were in line with campaign promises to raise college and university tuition fees, institute a 9-5 school day that better matches the schedule of working parents, bring government spending to heel and pay down the debt.

There were also echoes of a 2006 call to action from high-profile Quebecers such as former Parti Québécois premier Lucien Bouchard for the province to increase productivity to match that of the United States and other Canadian provinces.

Still, Legault’s political opponents were quick to attack Tuesday.

At a morning news conference in Quebec City, Liberal leader Jean Charest said the comments were based on stereotypes and recalled a quote from October 2011 in which Legault said Quebec’s colleges are a great place to learn how to smoke drugs.

“It’s frankly well beneath what we would expect from a person in public life,” Charest said.

PQ leader Pauline Marois, whose education promises include a freeze on tuition fees, new rules to bolster the teaching of Quebec history in schools, and a “secular charter” that would see new immigrants conform to the province’s norms, said she disagreed with Legault’s assessment.

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Young Quebecers are succeeding in all spheres and domains, she said, while also saluting the determination that led students to take on the Liberal government’s plan to hike tuition fees.

“I’m not worried about what’s ahead,” she said.

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