OTTAWA — Parti Québécois Leader Paul St-Pierre Plamondon admits that he can’t help but feel personally devastated by the assassination of U.S. conservative activist Charlie Kirk at a Utah university campus on Wednesday.

After all, Plamondon helped launch a group not too dissimilar from Kirk’s Turning Point USA as a young adult in the 2000s.

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In 2007, he and two co-founders — now federal Industry Minister Melanie Joly and Stéphanie Raymond-Bougie — launched Génération d’idées : a civic organization dedicated to engaging 20 to 35-year-olds in the political process through healthy debate.

Plamondon moderated dozens of robust discussions on college campuses and other youth-filled venues across Quebec during his six years with the group.

Looking back, he acknowledg

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