Quebec Premier Christine Fréchette walks in a news conference at a pre-session caucus meeting in Rivière-du-Loup, Que., Friday, May 1.Jacques Boissinot/The Canadian Press
In case they did not already know it, Christine Fréchette used her first National Assembly speech as Premier to remind Quebeckers that their government is under new management.
Not once. Not twice. But 18 times during her inaugural speech on Tuesday, Ms. Fréchette referred to her Coalition Avenir Québec administration as Quebec’s “new government.”
While her cabinet is made up of the same ministers, many in the same jobs they held under François Legault, Ms. Fréchette has accomplished a remarkable rebranding exercise since winning the CAQ leadership on April 12 and replacing the party’s founder as premier.
With summer break and fall election looming, Quebec’s new Premier tries to make her mark
In less than a month, she has set a fresh new tone at the top, dispensed with a series of files that had bedevilled her predecessor and undertaken a charm offensive to woo back voters who fled the CAQ for the Parti Québécois or the Quebec Liberal Party.
She quickly reached a new salary deal with medical specialists, ending a months-long dispute with doctors that had badly damaged Mr. Legault. She successfully sought to rebuild bridges with labour unions upset over proposed legislation that would constrain how they spend member dues. She cut small business taxes and slashed land-transfer fees for first-time home buyers. She freed up $700-million for badly needed renovations on a major east-end Montreal hospital that had been stalled for years under Mr. Legault.
The new Premier also made productive trips to Ottawa to meet with Prime Minister Mark Carney and to Washington to meet Donald Trump’s trade czar, Jamieson Greer. Breaking with Mr. Legault, she signalled she has no intention of picking new fights with Ottawa as Quebeckers look to Mr. Carney to reach a new trade deal with the United States.
Prime Minister Mark Carney meets with Quebec Premier Christine Fréchette in his office on Parliament Hill in Ottawa on April 17.Sean Kilpatrick/The Canadian Press
“With our new government, Quebec has a new vision, new ambitions,” Ms. Fréchette said in her inaugural speech, the Quebec equivalent of the Speech from the Throne delivered by the lieutenant-governor in other provinces. “Today, I am presenting our new government’s plan to allow our nation to take charge of its future.”
As only the second woman to become Premier – the PQ’s Pauline Marois held the job for 18 months between 2012 and 2014 – Ms. Fréchette also underscored the accomplishments of other Quebec women who have blazed trails in their respective fields. The gesture was likely not lost on female voters. Nor was her promise to adopt legislation to enable women to access police information about a partner’s history of intimate-partner violence.
While the odds are clearly against her as the CAQ remains mired in third place in the polls, it would be a mistake for her rivals to underestimate Ms. Fréchette. She has succeeded in putting them on the defensive.
Besides, current support for the PQ and Liberals is wobbly at best.
Under Leader Paul St-Pierre Plamondon, the PQ remains hell-bent on holding another sovereignty referendum that at least two-thirds of Quebeckers do not want. Under Charles Milliard, the Liberals are caught between satisfying their base in English-speaking Quebec and their desperate need to rebuild support among francophone voters beyond Montreal.
Mr. Milliard stumbled out of the gate last month by vowing to use the notwithstanding clause to protect language legislation from a constitutional challenge, only to reverse course after blowback from Liberal MNAs who represent majority-anglophone ridings. He subsequently suggested he would use the clause “if necessary, but not necessarily.”
Quebec Liberal Party Leader Charles Milliard is introduced during a luncheon in Montreal on May 1.Christopher Katsarov/The Canadian Press
Ms. Fréchette seized on the discord among Liberals to announce her plan to renew the use of the notwithstanding clause on Bill 96, the CAQ’s language legislation adopted in 2022, a full year before its application is set to expire in 2027. (Under the Constitution, legislatures are allowed to invoke the clause for only one five-year period at a time.)
With her announcement, Ms. Fréchette sought to establish her nationalist credentials with francophone voters and put Mr. Milliard’s Liberals on the defensive as the issue comes to a vote in the National Assembly. The party’s MNAs voted against Bill 96 in 2022.
The PQ and Liberals both accused Ms. Fréchette of resorting to a “political tactic” to distract attention from the CAQ’s record in office. Still, her move demonstrated a keen sense of political timing that could serve her well in the weeks ahead.
The legislative session that opened on Tuesday is set to end on June 12. Ms. Fréchette faces a series of legislative hurdles before then, not the least of which is the adoption of a proposed Quebec constitution championed by the CAQ’s nationalist MNAs but which is virulently opposed by non-francophones and Indigenous groups.
Less than five months before the next election, scheduled for Oct. 5, Ms. Fréchette has scrambled Quebec politics in unpredictable ways. And she may just be getting started.