Leader of the Parti Québécois Paul St-Pierre Plamondon makes a speech after winning his election to become the next premier of Quebec, in Montreal on Oct. 5.ANDREJ IVANOV/AFP/Getty Images
The election of a minority Parti Québécois government in Quebec on Monday is not just any political event. The PQ has vowed to hold a referendum on independence during its four-year mandate, adding itself to the short list of provinces, Alberta being the other, that is flirting with separation.
All of this is happening as Canada fights a trade war with the United States and is standing up to President Donald Trump’s repeated threats to annex its neighbour. Unity is what the country needs and suddenly it has more disunity than ever. Or so it might appear.
The fact is that, while the PQ’s victory is disturbing on the surface, it is in no way an enthusiastic endorsement of the party’s referendum dreams. If the election reveals anything at all, it is that Quebec voters are ready to support parties that are right of centre and focused on improving the province’s economy.
On the 50th anniversary of the PQ’s historic first election to power in 1976, PQ leader Paul St-Pierre Plamondon has delivered the party’s weakest victory ever.
At its peak in the 1970s, ’80s and ’90s, social-democratic PQ governments would win over 40 per cent of the popular vote and hold solid majorities in the National Assembly.
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Since then, the party first led by René Lévesque has had little success as Quebeckers’ desire for independence has waned.
It last formed a minority government in 2012 with 31.95 per cent of the popular vote.
Mr. St-Pierre Plamondon took the PQ to a new low Monday. His party received just 27.9 per cent of the popular vote, the lowest of any party forming government in the province’s history, let alone the PQ’s. He won 59 seats, five short of a majority.
While this is a step forward for the PQ, which held seven seats going into the election, it cannot reasonably be called a mandate to hold something as consequential as another referendum.
Nearly six out of 10 Quebeckers (58.2 per cent) cast votes for the three parties explicitly opposed to another referendum: the Liberals, the Conservatives and Coalition Avenir Québec.
Even Mr. St-Pierre Plamondon knew that independence wasn’t top-of-mind for voters. He softened his position just prior to the campaign to say he would only call a referendum after Mr. Trump leaves office in January, 2029.
If voters were hungry for anything, it was change. The incumbent CAQ, which formed two majority governments in a row, didn’t win a single seat.
Voters instead spread their ballots across four parties, including the left-wing, pro-independence Québec Solidaire. That party saw its seat count drop by two and its share of the popular vote fall three points.
The Conservatives, meanwhile, went from one seat to 19, while the business-oriented and avowedly federalist Liberals went from 18 to 40.
The parties that benefited most from the collapse of the CAQ can be said to be right of centre, albeit to different degrees, the (formerly left-leaning) PQ included.
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All three promised to restrain government spending, balance budgets, shrink the bureaucracy, cut regulatory red tape and lower taxes – especially business taxes. The Liberals and PQ targeted small and medium-sized businesses, while the Conservatives pitched a whopping across-the-board corporate tax cut of 59 per cent.
All three parties also promised to reduce permanent and temporary immigration to the extent that the province can do that. And two of them – the PQ and Conservatives – pushed hard on crime and public safety, promising to hire more police officers and prosecutors.
The real take-away from the election is that the vast majority Quebeckers put their faith in parties that will address the province’s economy and other issues from the right of centre. Less than one-third of them also put their faith in a party that wants to hold another referendum – a figure that aligns with polling that shows support for independence is perennially mired at about 30 per cent.
Mr. St-Pierre Plamondon is stuck with his promise to hold a referendum some time in 2029. Most Quebeckers, with more pressing issues on their minds, would seem to prefer it if he didn’t bother.