New Democratic Party Sciortino ran for the
New Democratic Party of Quebec (NDP) in the
1985 provincial election in the predominantly
Italian Canadian division of
Viau. During the campaign, he was designated as the Quebec NDP's spokesperson for the province's cultural communities. The New Democratic Party did not have a strong presence in Quebec during this period, and Sciortino finished third. In 1987, Sciortino strongly criticized the Canadian government's decision to prevent eighty-five Chilean refugees stranded in Argentina from gaining access to Canada. When interviewed on the matter, he said that the Chileans wanted to come to Canada to escape the "terrifying dictatorship" of
Augusto Pinochet. Considered as one of the party's strongest candidates in Quebec, Sciortino openly sympathized with
Quebec nationalism and expressed his support for the province's
Charter of the French Language. Late in the campaign, he took part in a press conference called by NDP candidate
Jean-Paul Harney to support using the
notwithstanding clause of the
Canadian Constitution to protect Quebec's francophone culture and restrict the use of other languages. This press conference was not endorsed by the NDP leadership and some believe that it cost the party support among
Quebec's anglophones. Sciortino finished a fairly strong third on election day, amid a rise in NDP support among Montreal's francophone voters.
Parti Québécois Sciortino later left the NDP and affiliated with the
Quebec sovereigntist Parti Québécois (PQ), serving on its national executive. The PQ has traditionally had only limited support among Quebec's cultural communities, and Sciortino was one of its most prominent members from the Italian community. In 1992, he wrote a public letter defending PQ against charges that it was based around a narrow
ethnic nationalism. The following year, he called for a "new linguistic agreement" that would protect the spirit of Quebec's Charter of the French Language while also recognizing the concerns of other linguistic communities. In the buildup to the
1994 provincial election, Sciortino sought the PQ nomination for the east-end Montreal seat of
Mercier. His candidacy was widely regarded as an important development for the PQ in building a support base among non-francophone voters. Sciortino initially won the nomination in a close contest over
Robert Perreault, but the result was annulled due to voting irregularities. The first round of balloting at the first nomination meeting saw Perreault receive 245 votes, compared with 114 for Sciortino, 89 for retired civil servant Claude Bernard, and 71 for
Jean-Louis Hérivault. Perreault's opponents joined forces, and Sciortino was elected by fourteen votes on the second ballot. The results were annulled when it was discovered that at least fifteen of Bernard's supporters had given improper addresses. Despite receiving an endorsement from party leader
Jacques Parizeau, Sciortino was defeated by Perreault at a second meeting. The nomination contest was very divisive; Sciortino has said that Perreault's supporters smeared him as a communist and attacked him on the basis of his ethnic background. The PQ won a
majority government in the
1994 provincial election and Sciortino initially remained a member of the party's executive. He supported the sovereigntist option in the
1995 Quebec referendum and, after its narrow defeat, acknowledged that the PQ's outreach efforts to minority communities had not been successful. He resigned from the PQ executive in April 1996 and largely withdrew from party activities after this time. On the night of the 1995 referendum, PQ
premier Jacques Parizeau delivered a speech that blamed the sovereigntist defeat on "money and the ethnic vote." Sciortino later described this as a "wretched phrase ... pointless, and objectively false" and "not what one would expect from a statesman, from a democrat, as many, myself included, consider or considered Jacques Parizeau to be."
Italian community activism In October 1996, Sciortino joined with other federalist and sovereigntist Italian Quebecers to issue a manifesto that recognized the right of all Quebecers to determine their future, called for reform in the Quebec Italian community's political culture, and encouraged the PQ to fully accept Quebec as a pluralistic society. Four years later, he led a movement to have the
Papineau-Leblanc Bridge between Montreal and
Laval named after the late
Canadian Senator Pietro Rizzuto. Sciortino indicated that he did not agree politically with Rizzuto, who was a
Liberal, but nonetheless believed that his contributions to Quebec should be recognized. The name change ultimately did not take place, due it part to opposition from others in the PQ. ==Death==