Quebec independence back on agenda after nationalist party’s election comeback

Luke James

Independence is back on the agenda in Quebec – but not before Donald Trump leaves the White House.

The Parti Québécois, which secured referendums on secession from Canada in 1980 and 1995, is back in power for the first time in 14 years after this week’s elections.

The centre-left nationalist party is set to form a minority government after winning 59 of the 127 seats in the National Assembly of Quebec.

The Liberal party is the main opposition with 40 seats, the Conservative party of Quebec won 19 seats and left-wing Quebec Solidaire won 9 seats.

It represents a remarkable comeback for the party which won just three seats in the last election.

“Some might say that it’s too much to ask for the same things as other countries in the world,” its leader, and the soon-to-be premier of Quebec, Paul St-Pierre Plamondon said in his victory speech.

“[But] almost everyone in Quebec was predicting the death of the Parti Québécois.”

Its victory came despite a difficult context for a pro-independence party.

The trade war unleashed on Canada by US President Donald Trump this summer strengthened both the case for remaining part of a larger state and the popularity of Canada’s Liberal Prime Minister Mark Carney.

That has contributed to support for independence falling to 30%, compared to 40% when Trump won the 2024 US Presidential election.

The Parti Québécois nonetheless campaigned on a pledge to deliver a referendum during the next four years.

The vote will only be held after Trump’s second term in the White House ends in 2028, said St-Pierre Plamondon.

“An issue as crucial as the political future of Quebec requires conditions that allow for an informed and calm debate,” he wrote in August.

“It must not be hijacked by the ups and downs of American politics, nor by the outbursts of an unpredictable president, nor by fear-mongering campaigns.”

St-Pierre Plamondon is himself a relatively recent convert to independence, having previously described himself as a federalist and donated funds to the Liberal party.

In a 2014 book, he wrote that the “obsession with holding and winning a referendum harms the progressive cause.”

That year was a low point for the Parti Québécois. After forming a minority government two years earlier, its leader Pauline Marois called a snap general election in the hope of winning a majority but lost her seat and 23 others.

That began a slide towards near electoral oblivion. Caused largely by one of its own former members, François Legault, who left to form the Coalition Avenir Québec (CAQ), a populist centre-right nationalist party which did not support independence.

Seven years after its foundation, Legault’s CAQ won the 2018 general election, relegating the Parti Québécois to third place for the first time ever.

Worse was to come in 2022, when under St-Pierre Plamondon’s leadership, the Parti Québécois slumped to just three seats as Legault won a second term.

The parties’ fortunes were completely reversed this week as CAQ lost every one of their 90 seats to the benefit of the Parti Québécois.

“Legault was a popular premier for several years but, after the landslide victory of the CAQ in 2022, things started to unravel and his popularity declined gradually,” Professor Daniel Béland of Montreal’s McGill University told Nation.Cymru.

“Legault resigned earlier this year but, by that time, the party was highly unpopular and his successor Christine Fréchette ultimately failed to turn things around for the CAQ.

“Paul St-Pierre Plamondon did an excellent job in criticizing the CAQ government while the official opposition Liberals struggled without a permanent leader for a couple of years.
As the CAQ’s popularity started to decline, many Francophone voters returned to the PQ.”

Without a majority, St-Pierre Plamondon will need the support of Quebec Solidaire’s nine MPs to take forward his plans for a third referendum.

‘Incurable allergy’

The left-wing party is committed to independence, but one newspaper this week describes its supporters as having an “incurable allergy” to the Parti Québécois.

That has been exacerbated by emphasis put on stronger immigration controls by the Parti Québécois’, which it says is important to preserving the French language in a “sea of anglophones.”

Ruba Ghazal, who won praise for leading a successful campaign for Québec Solidaire’s despite its loss of two seats, said it had “stayed true to its values” while “all of our rivals have turned to the right.”

Cost of living

While four of the Parti Québécois’ six priorities for its first 100 days in government are measures to tackle the high cost of living, the party has also campaigned on stronger immigration controls and reductions in government “bureaucracy.”

On those issues, St-Pierre Plamondon finds himself more closely aligned with the Conservative party, which promised to “tax less, make the life of business people easier, and manage public money with rigour.”

Its leader Éric Duhaime said his party would provide “constructive opposition” but has ruled out supporting an independence referendum.

After turning round the fortunes of his party in four years, St-Pierre Plamondon now faced another four walking the tightrope of minority government.

Michel David, a columnist for the Le Devoir newspaper, wrote: “The average lifespan of minority governments suggests that another election could take place in Quebec before the White House welcomes a new occupant.”

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