The PQ is back. The rest of Canada will need to brace for that

Open this photo in gallery:

Four years ago, as the Coalition Avenir Québec rolled over the competition to win 90 of the National Assembly’s then 125 seats, the Parti Québécois looked like a spent force.

The sovereigntist “party of a generation” had its worst election result since its founding in 1968 by René Lévesque – the ruffled, chain-smoking everyman who charmed baby-boomer francophones – taking just three seats.

Its then rookie leader, Paul St-Pierre Plamondon, only won his seat because the far-left Québec Solidaire candidate was forced to pull out of the race after being caught removing her rival’s campaign literature from a home mailbox.

Now, Mr. St-Pierre Plamondon is a household name, known by most as PSPP, and, after Monday’s provincial election, set to become Quebec’s next premier.

Parti Québécois projected to form government in Quebec

The PQ is back. Like it or not, Canada will need to brace itself for another rocky chapter on the unity file.

To be sure, without a majority of the legislature’s current 127 seats – the PQ was leading or elected late Monday in 59 ridings – Mr. St-Pierre Plamondon will need to tread carefully as he pursues his separatist agenda.

His pledge to hold a third referendum, after years of strategic ambiguity on the issue under his predecessors, may have placed a cap on PQ support in this campaign. Most Quebeckers remain opposed to another plebiscite after rejecting independence in 1980 and 1995.

Still, Quebec has a history of major political swings. It would be a mistake to dismiss sovereigntists’ chances in a future referendum based on current polling. PSPP will seize on any real or perceived grievance with Ottawa to boost his cause.

Mr. St-Pierre Plamondon appears determined to follow through with his promise, and hardliners within the PQ will seek to hold him to it. He has vowed to put off a referendum until after U.S. President Donald Trump leaves office, presumably in 2029. But other considerations could change his political calculus between now and then.

A Supreme Court of Canada ruling on the CAQ’s secularism law, expected this fall, is one of them. A court decision that limits Quebec’s use of the Constitution’s notwithstanding clause to suspend religious rights could produce a political backlash that bolsters support for sovereignty.

If that doesn’t do it, PSPP has also promised legislation to eliminate the role of the lieutenant-governor, the representative of King Charles III whose signature is required to give effect to legislation passed by the National Assembly. Such a blatantly unconstitutional move would set up a clash with Prime Minister Mark Carney’s government.

Of course, Mr. St-Pierre Plamondon’s own credibility with voters will hinge on how well he is able to govern Canada’s second-biggest province as it grapples with a trade war, an overburdened health system, a housing shortage, crumbling infrastructure and stretched public finances. His well-documented reputation for being soupe au lait, or hot-tempered, has repeatedly got him into trouble in the past.

He has promised deep public service cuts, and the creation of a Secrétariat à l’efficacité gouvernemetale et à l’allègement réglementaire charged with reducing bureaucracy. The agency’s name sounds inauspiciously similar to that of Donald Trump’s ill-fated Department of Government Efficiency, and the initiative could similarly backfire.

PSPP has also vowed to abolish Santé Québec, the arm’s-length agency that the CAQ government created to oversee the health system. The move threatens to create more disruption than it is worth, politically speaking.

PSPP has shifted his historically left-of-centre party sharply to the right to contend with the rise of the Quebec Conservative Party. That could be an impediment to the creation of a pro-sovereignty alliance with Québec Solidaire, the only other party that advocates independence.

Until Monday, no Conservative had been elected to the National Assembly since 1935, when the party was led by Maurice Duplessis. Under Éric Duhaime, who took over the then-moribund party in 2021, the Conservatives appeared set to sweep the Quebec City and Beauce regions.

But Mr. Duhaime will need to tightly control his ragtag caucus if he is to avoid the fate of Mario Dumont, whose populist Action Démocratique du Québec formed the Official Opposition in 2007 only to implode soon after amid a series of embarrassing gaffes by inexperienced MNAs.

Quebec comes out of this election deeply fragmented, with four parties winning seats in the National Assembly. That has put electoral reform, which the CAQ promised but failed to deliver, back on the agenda.

Mr. St-Pierre Plamondon has promised to introduce a “dose” of proportionality into the system. But he could soon hit the same roadblocks the CAQ did as rural regions and MNAs push back against any changes that reduce their electoral weight.

For now, PSPP has already accomplished what seemed impossible only four years ago. He may be just getting started. The rest of Canada will need to get used to that.