Bloc Quebecois Leader Yves-Francois Blanchet, centre, followed by local candidates Alain Therrien and Patrick O'Hara, speak to patrons in a restaurant during a federal election campaign stop in La Prairie, Que., on April 23.Christinne Muschi/The Canadian Press
To hear Yves-François Blanchet tell it, the fear of U.S. President Donald Trump has receded just enough from Quebeckers’ minds to allow his Bloc Québécois some room in the election campaign.
Now Mr. Blanchet is making his closing argument. It looks like Canadians are going to choose Liberal Leader Mark Carney as prime minister, he said at a campaign stop in La Prairie, Que., and Quebeckers should give themselves a voice to protect their interests by voting for the Bloc.
There’s been talk about whether the election race is tightening, but there hasn’t been a ton of movement in the national numbers for the Liberals and Conservatives.
In Quebec, some pollsters found a small surge in support for the Bloc Québécois in the past week. Certainly Mr. Blanchet is out to make the most of it.
Even a modest late-campaign surge for the Bloc could shift a number of seats. It could lift Mr. Blanchet over the 29-seat target he has set. And if the Bloc Leader is right and Mr. Carney is headed for victory, a Bloc surge, even one that barely registers in the national poll numbers, could still be the difference between a Liberal majority and minority government.
The ring of suburbs around Toronto in the 905 area code have for a long time been the place where federal elections are won or lost. In the last week of this campaign, the 450 area code, the ring of outer suburbs around Montreal, is a key battleground, too.
On Wednesday, Mr. Blanchet was campaigning there, in ridings the Liberals have been targeting for gains.
He held a news conference in La Prairie, on Montreal’s South Shore, with Alain Therrien, the Bloc’s house leader in the last Parliament, who boasted of knocking on 5,000 doors, and Patrick O’Hara, who lost the neighbouring riding by 12 votes in 2021.
In the afternoon, Mr. Blanchet visited the Nova Bus plant in Saint-Eustache, north of Montreal, to campaign with three candidates in Bloc-held ridings.
That was mostly playing defence but not in the Bloc’s safest strongholds. Last week, Mr. Carney visited the same bus factory, when the local Liberal candidates were obviously bullish on their chances.
On that day, Madeleine Chenette, the former Canadian ambassador to the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development now running for the Liberals in neighbouring Thérèse-De Blainville, said in an interview that she had many former Bloc voters saying they would vote Liberal so Mr. Carney could field the trade-war threats of Mr. Trump. Some were so anxious they broke into tears talking about it, Ms. Chenette said.
Now a smiling Mr. Blanchet is telling reporters that the fear of Mr. Trump has subsided.
“Remember the beginning of the campaign. It was going to be a catastrophe,” Mr. Blanchet said. “We were going to be devoured by the Trump monster.”
Now, he said, some of the fear is being replaced by reason. “It has calmed down a bit, and the way people are thinking seems to have leaned more and more to the logic of their choice. What is good for us?”
Certainly, there is little doubt that fear was the driving emotion that had pushed Quebeckers to coalesce behind Mr. Carney. If it is easing, that could lead to some atavistically returning to the party they previously supported.
Mr. Blanchet is trying to nudge them with the argument that Mr. Carney will be prime minister, anyway and that Bloc MPs can defend Quebec’s interests. He argues Mr. Carney has created a fund for Ontario’s auto sector, but not for Quebec’s aluminum and aerospace industries.
The Bloc Leader is saying out loud that instead of gaining a few seats he’d rather lose a few but hold the balance of power in a minority government.
Is it working? It’s hard to tell from the public polls. But the political parties usually have more precise internal data.
Certainly, Mr. Carney continues to campaign in places in Quebec where the Liberals might pick up seats, including a stop on Tuesday in Trois-Rivières, where the Liberals came third is a three-way race in 2021.
But Mr. Blanchet certainly looks a lot happier than he did a few weeks ago. He’s not talking about finding a toehold in this campaign anymore. He’s saying he has it. Now he’s talking about prying it open a little wider and holding Mr. Carney’s Liberals to a minority.