Fifty-five per cent of Quebeckers would prefer Mark Carney as prime minister, compared with 20 per cent who would prefer Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre, according to a recent survey. Supporters of Mr. Carney wait outside of an event on April 3, in Montreal.Adrian Wyld/The Canadian Press
A red wave seems to be washing over Quebec – regardless of Liberal Leader Mark Carney’s repeated stumbles on the stump.
Many days in this federal election campaign in la belle province have brought a gaffe from Mr. Carney, along with more good polling news. The former central banker is now lapping the opposition in Quebec, despite his shaky French, misidentifying a notorious mass shooting seared into the provincial consciousness, staking an unpopular position on language laws and mistranslating the name of one of his flagship policies.
None of it has made a difference. Quebeckers appear to have decided that the threat of U.S. President Donald Trump is the most important issue in this election – and that Mr. Carney is the best person to manage it.
The polls have been shifting dramatically in his favour for weeks. The Liberals were in third place in Quebec as recently as the beginning of February, according to the poll aggregation website Qc125. The resignation announcement of Prime Minister Justin Trudeau in January and Mr. Carney’s entry into the Liberal leadership race abruptly turned the tide.
Now, 55 per cent of Quebeckers would prefer the Albertan recently employed as a Bay Street financier as prime minister, compared with 20 per cent who would prefer Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre, according to a CTV-Globe and Mail/Nanos Research tracking survey conducted between March 28 and 30 (a random poll with a 2.8 percentage point margin of error, 19 times out of 20).
The same survey showed the Liberals doubling up on their opposition in Quebec, with 49-per-cent support to the 22 per cent for each of the Conservatives and the Bloc Québécois.
“What’s actually happening on the campaign trail doesn’t seem to matter,” said Karl Bélanger, the president of consulting firm Traxxion Stratégies and the NDP’s principal secretary for Quebec during its fabled Orange Wave in the 2011 election.
The Liberal Leader’s inexperience on the stump “should come with a higher political price, in normal times.” But for Canadians, and especially for Quebeckers, these are not seen as normal times. “They feel he’s better placed to deal with Donald Trump.”
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The Bloc, which depends entirely on Quebec for its support, has been especially stymied by the Carney bump. The sovereigntist party is now polling in the same territory as 2011, when it was reduced to four seats. In the last federal election it won 32 seats, second only to the Liberals’ 35, with the Conservatives scoring 10 and the NDP one.
BQ Leader Yves-François Blanchet has relentlessly attacked Mr. Carney as out of touch with Quebec and its values, especially after he passed on a second French-language debate (the Liberals cited the required fee and the absence of the Green Party) and for saying he would intervene in a Supreme Court challenge of Quebec’s controversial Bill 96 language law.
“A temporary commercial conflict with the United States isn’t going to convince Quebeckers to stop being Quebeckers and stop speaking French,” Mr. Blanchet said this week.
But the Bloc’s usual strategy of positioning itself as the only viable defender of Quebec has not borne fruit, particularly when Quebeckers are facing a new, unprecedented threat in the form of tariffs and annexation talk.
In a Léger survey last week, 50 per cent of Quebec respondents said “the most important question in this federal election is who the best Prime Minister and Government will be to deal with President Trump and aggressive U.S. trade actions” – a higher share than in the rest of the country. (The poll surveyed 1,599 Canadians between March 21 and 23. Because the poll was conducted online, it can’t be assigned a margin of error.)
Concerns about Mr. Carney’s French and grasp of Quebec culture have failed to gain traction as a result, said Jean-Philippe Warren, professor of sociology at Concordia University in Montreal.
“The ballot box question isn’t Quebec-Ottawa but U.S.-Canada,” he said. “For Quebeckers, the enemy isn’t the cultural and political threat of the rest of Canada – or much less – but the economic threat of Trump.”
Even some traditional Bloc voters are planning to vote for the staunchly federalist Liberals this time around because of Mr. Carney’s perceived strength in the face of U.S. attacks, said Rodolphe Husny, a former Conservative candidate in Quebec and former adviser to the Conservative government of Stephen Harper.
“For the moment, nothing’s touching him.”
Of course, as Mr. Blanchet recently put it, there is still a lot of hockey to be played. Three weeks can be an eternity in the volatile politics of Quebec, and, with Canada receiving something of a reprieve from the worst of Mr. Trump’s trade war this week, Mr. Blanchet said he believes a more “normal” campaign can now resume.
There is also the matter of the French-language debate to be held April 16 in Montreal. Of the five party leaders slated to participate, Mr. Carney has the weakest French and the least experience in electoral politics.
It may be the best chance for the Conservatives to make an impression beyond their traditional stronghold in the Quebec City area; the NDP outside a few neighbourhoods in Montreal; and the Bloc more widely across the province.
“The debates for the opposition parties will be of the utmost importance – Mark Carney will be on the defensive,” Mr. Bélanger said. “Now you’ll have three leaders before him who will be fighting for their lives.”
Editor’s note: A previous version of this article incorrectly referred to the resignation of Prime Minister Justin Trudeau in January. At that time, Mr. Trudeau announced his intention to resign. This version has been updated.
The poll by Nanos Research, conducted for The Globe and Mail and CTV, surveyed about 1,264 Canadians from March 28 to March 30. It has a margin of error of 2.8 percentage points, 19 times out of 20. Respondents were asked: “Of the current federal political party leaders, could you please rank your top two current preferences for Prime Minister?” The full methodology for all surveys can be found at: tgam.ca/polls.
With files from The Canadian Press