Bloc Quebecois Leader Yves-Francois Blanchet speaks to supporters on election night.Christopher Katsarov/The Canadian Press
The Liberals made significant gains in Quebec at the expense of the Bloc Québécois on Monday as the province rallied behind Mark Carney as the best person to deal with Donald Trump’s tariffs and annexation threats.
Mr. Carney’s party was leading or elected in 43 Quebec ridings late Monday night, compared with 23 for the Bloc, 11 for the Conservatives, and one for the NDP.
The battleground suburbs and rural areas around Montreal – the so-called 450, after the local area code – seem to have been decisive for the Liberals.
The party was hoping to improve on its 35 seats won in 2021 with a red wave in Quebec. The Bloc aimed to save the furniture, and most of the party’s 32 seats from the last election, after its support plummeted.
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The sovereigntist party managed better than initially feared. In the newly redrawn riding of Gaspésie—Les Îles-de-la-Madeleine—Listuguj, the lawyer Alexis Deschênes defeated former Liberal cabinet minister Diane Lebouthillier, a significant pickup.
But the campaign was dominated by Donald Trump’s trade war, which has hit the province’s aluminum and forestry industries while threatening its heavily protected dairy sector.
The U.S. President’s threats to annex Canada and make it the 51st state also prompted Quebeckers to rally around the Maple Leaf, as Canadian patriotism surged in a province that has often felt conflicted about its place in Confederation.
The Liberals were the sole beneficiaries of the Trump effect, as they saw their poll numbers soar thanks to a perception that Mr. Carney’s credentials made him best suited to managing the turbulence.
The fact that his performance on the stump in Quebec was widely criticized hardly seemed to matter. The Liberal Leader’s French was limited, he made serious gaffes including misidentifying the Polytechnique massacre of 1989, and his interventionist stance on Premier François Legault’s controversial language law and the use of the notwithstanding clause raised nationalist hackles.
Mr. Carney’s opponents grew openly frustrated by his defiance of political gravity. Bloc Québécois leader Yves-François Blanchet resorted to pleading for a “normal” campaign as his party’s support fell, along with a decline in support for Quebec independence.
The French-language debate did little to slow Mr. Carney’s momentum, with his performance judged competent and Mr. Blanchet failing to land any decisive blows.
Even the hockey gods seemed to be on the Liberals’ side. A thrilling playoff run by the Montreal Canadiens, by a young and scrappy team, captured the province’s attention at a moment when the other parties were desperately trying to get a hearing from Quebec voters.
It was only the passage of time, and Mr. Trump’s relative lack of intervention in the final weeks of the campaign, that gave the Bloc some hope back. Mr. Blanchet seemed to gain some traction by arguing that, since the Liberals were likely to win anyway, Quebec voters should back his party to ensure a voice for the province in Ottawa.
The tightening in polls across the country as the shadow of annexation and tariffs dimmed for some Canadians largely benefited the Bloc in Quebec.
The Conservatives were left trying to preserve their historic stronghold of seats in the Quebec City region, while the NDP pinned its hopes on retaining the party’s single remaining Quebec riding in a left-leaning part of Montreal.
In Berthier–Maskinongé, a largely rural riding in central Quebec, Ruth Ellen Brosseau was hoping to revive memories of the Orange Wave of 2011, when New Democrats won a stunning 59 seats in the province. Once known derisively as “Vegas Girl” for visiting Sin City during that year’s campaign, when she was considered a pylon candidate, she has since won widespread respect in the riding and was re-elected in 2015, before losing narrowly to the Bloc in the past two elections.
A rare three-way race played out in Trois-Rivières, where the Liberals parachuted in a candidate from the Ottawa region and still stood a chance of winning the riding for the first time since the 1980s. Voters in the medium-sized city halfway between Montreal and Quebec City were drawn to Caroline Desrochers’s experience as a career diplomat in the face of Mr. Trump’s tariffs and threats.