Quebec election: Can the CAQ survive a resurgent PQ?

0:00A mid and ongoing trade war with the U.S. Quebec voters will head to the polls this fall. Will new CAQ leader Christine Freschef manage to repeat what Mark Carney did for the federal liberals renewing a longstanding government for a new mandate, or will the resurgent party Quebecois unseat the CAQ after eight years in government? I'm Dave Brekenridge and this is 10-3. Phil OTA, political correspondent with Montreal Gazette, joins me to discuss how the political landscape in Quebec has changed in the last eight years, how the trade war has factored into this race, and what a PQ win could mean when it comes to the debate around Quebec's separatism. Don't forget you can find us on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google, Amazon Music. I'd love it if you could leave us a rating, a review, and tell your friends about the show. So Phil, Quebec voters go to the polls in October, October 5th to be specific, and there

1:05are a number of new faces in Quebec politics, not the least of which is the new leader and current premier representing the CAQ. So I guess before we get into a bit about Christine Freschef and the race itself, people may be more familiar with Francois Lago, he was premier for a number of years, but why did he decide not to seek another mandate? Well I think after eight years in power, it was pretty clear that the government was worn out, and he went from, Mr. Lago went from a popular figure during the COVID crisis to a not popular figure after a bunch of promises were broken by the party, particularly in the Quebec City region. And he then lost a string of by-elections, and he kept trying to fight back. There was a great photo of him wearing boxer gloves at a party event where he said,

2:06I'm still here, and I'm not out the door yet. But then he decided after Christmas, he took a look at the polls, and he figured it was time to go, and basically his line was, I'm leaving for the good of the party, so it can be renewed and someone else can take the helm. And so yeah, he took one for the team, and he left. He stayed as an M&A in the legislature, right until the very end of June, and now he's basically retired. For people outside of Quebec, there are certain things that perhaps they'll remember Lago for, not the least of which, or some of the laws that were passed for which he invoked an always standing clause, including the secularism laws that prevented people in public sector careers from wearing religious symbols.

3:06What do you feel that Lago will be most remembered for perhaps from a Quebec perspective? Because I know that individual pieces of legislation aren't necessarily the totality of a legacy of a politician. Yeah, I think his legacy, it's pretty clear in my mind, after basically 40 years of fighting federalism versus sovereignty, he successfully peddled and successfully won politically by preaching what he called a third way, a different way of doing politics that was you were neither federalist or you were neither federalist or for independence, and he peddled a middle ground. Of course that played, you know, and it was successful because he played on the well-known ambiguity of Quebecers when it comes to this question. And he won, he won two majority governments in 2018 and 2022. So I think that's part of his legacy as well.

4:07And you know, he basically said, I'm putting the economy first and we'll leave these old sterile debates to the others and we're moving on, we're moving on. And remember, he himself was a PQ cabinet minister. So it was quite a shift for the guy. And I think his history will remember this, people have written books about this by the way now, and the viability of this option. That's a little bit about what this election is about too, is to see whether that viewpoint has legs and will survive beyond him. Because of course, as we've discussed here before on this podcast, you know, the CAC was very much about François Legault. So it's an interesting test, I find. Yeah, and we will get to a bit of, you know, whether this ambiguity is going away, whether we'll see some renewed talk of nationalism versus federalism in a little bit. But first, I do want to talk about Legault's replacement, Christine Frichette, who's still

5:10relatively new face in politics, having served only one term heading into this election. You know, how did she get into politics? How did she become leader of the party and how is she tried to set herself apart from Legault, who, as you say, kind of is or has been the face or the identity of the party? Well, she actually, before the CAC got started, Mr. Legault and other sort of political leaders in Quebec were associated in various think tanks. And she was in that circle, but I'm for sure, was in that circle with Legault and other people that later became politicians or did not become politicians, but it was, so she had deep roots in the origins of the CAC movement herself. She also interestingly enough did a stint as a deputy assistant minister in a PQ government

6:19for our friend Jafas, Jafaswale Lise, who was her boss, and so he was part of a PQ government. So she's got roots in several different areas of Quebec society, but she's basically, you know, a trained economist, a business woman, she worked for the Chamber of Commerce of Eastern Montreal, and she has worked for very, Maria L. International, various business groups. So she has a business background. And so she became, Legault recruited her, and she became the minister for the economy. We called her the super minister of the economy. And so she was, she was in the right place at the right time for a party that likes to sell itself as pragmatic and with a focus on the economy. And so she ran in the leadership race. Her one opponent was Bernadré Ville, who today is her minister of the economy.

7:23Looking at the election broadly, for people outside of Quebec, especially, what do you see as the key issues in this race? Well, I think the key issue is obviously it's been eight years that the CAC has been in power, and usually in Quebec society or Quebec politics, that's about as long as you can run before the people get tired and what and have a desire for change. So the issue of this election has very much been aside from the United States trade war. It has been, who do you trust to run the next government? What, you know, and the opposition is talking about all the things that the CAC failed to do, all the missteps that the CAC did, basically portraying the government as worn out and no longer viable. So there are spending, who do you know, the line is who do you trust to run your government?

8:26And which is a pretty classic formula for an election campaign, but that's what it's become. And now with the discussion over the US trade tariffs, it has become who do you want to be running the government and the economy in times of turmoil in the storm, as Madame Frichette says almost every day. The CAC is facing stiff opposition from the Partique Becouin, whose leader Paul Saint-Pierre Plémon Don has had years to frame his party as a government in waiting. What's the ballot question for the PQ? Is it just we're not the CAC? We are not the tired, stale government. We're providing something fresher. Is there something that the PQ is particularly targeting in this campaign? It's a bit of that as well, but it's also the PQ is playing an old card that they played back in 1976 when René Leveque took power. They're playing the card of good government, meaning that we are competent.

9:29We know what we're doing. We'll do a better job than the CAC. And vote for us now. We're going to give you a good government. We're going to cut the wait times in the healthcare system. We're going to put Quebec back on the map internationally. We're going to fix the education system. We're going to fix the highways and the roads. So it's basic government stuff that they're pitching. Their line is when it comes to the rest of their agenda, the referendum, we will worry about that later. Right now, we're here. We're a viable alternative to the CAC. We can form a new government. And they're asked for the rest of our plan. You could worry about it later. So they're playing that card. Vote for us now and then you don't have to worry about the referendum until later. We'll be right back.

10:34Now ultimately looking at some of the polls, this really feels like a three horse race. The PQ and the CAC and the Liberal Party in the top three spots, though, I know that the PQ has a lead of about a few points ahead of the other two. Who are each of these parties appealing to? Is there any differentiation in voting block or are they trying to kind of grab at the same group of voters here? Well, in Quebec, you win elections by appealing to the vast middle of the population. The middle sector of the population of what we call soft nationalists who can tend to pivot with each election. So in this campaign, each party, especially the Liberals and the PQ, have a block, a base of voters. The Liberals would have a base of staunchly federalist voters. The PQ has a base of staunchly sovereignist or pro-independence voters. And then the game is in about 20 writings, mostly frecophone nationalists, which sit back,

11:42those people sit back and they sort of watch the campaign and they decide who they think is best to run the government. And so that's where it pivots. So the only way to win the election is to bring your platform into the middle of the political spectrum and appeal to those voters. And that's what they're all doing now. So you want to fill up with your base, your base liberals, your base PQ, and then you top it off with a bunch of the middle of the road, soft nationalists who are proud to be Quebecers, but not necessarily adverse to being Canadian. And that's how it goes. It's been going, the elections have been like this for about 40 years here now. This election happening as many people know as Canada is in the middle of a trade war with the United States. It's also happening as another province, Alberta, is in the midst of its own debate about

12:45its place in Canada. And so I guess two pieces to this, how has the trade war factored into the election? And I guess an extension of that Trump's expansionist talk. And also the nationalist debate or the separatist debate. How is that playing in here? Well, the trade war and Mr. Trump has become the central element of this campaign, especially in the last couple of weeks. If you ask the premier, Madame Frashad, who her main adversary is in this election, she'll say Donald Trump. And that suits her agenda because she's controlling the levers of government. She's the one that is able to make decisions about aid programs for businesses that are hurting because of tariffs. And so she's playing the card of economic stability. And her national, she's playing also that she's a strong nationalist, but she's able to

13:48work. And this is where you get into the element of Mark Carney, the prime minister. She's able to work with Ottawa and secure and create a safe economy and for Quebec within Canada. And she plays the card of let we're in Canada and we should make use of it. And if you look in the last few weeks of the campaign, even before the campaign, she had two big announcements done with Mark Carney standing beside her. There was the big, as you recall, the big Newfoundland and Labrador hydro deal with Quebec. And then two weeks ago, there was $11 billion of federal money to build five icebreakers in the Levy shipyard right across the river here from Quebec City. And so that's good optics for her because it shows that she's able to work with Ottawa

14:48to counter the effects of this economic storm. Looking ahead to voting day or after voting day, I get the sense that as of right now, it's looking like the peak you is likely to win. And I know things can change. We're still 20 summer days out from election day. With the PQ ahead in the polls, do we have a sense of what a government under the PQ could look like in the long term? I know you mentioned earlier, it's kind of they said, don't worry about the rest of it. We'll just handle this one question now. You can vote for that and we'll figure out the rest later. But what does that actually look like in practice? In practice, it's a couple of weeks ago, Mr. the leader of the PQ made quite a clever strategic move when he said we will not hold, he's promised a referendum within a mandate. So that's within four years of a theoretical PQ government.

15:48But he also said that he would not hold it until Donald Trump had left office. And that is a way to calm the waters a lot, a lot of concerns about Quebecers. So I think he's aiming for, he's aiming to be a good government. But just a nuance there on the polls that the PQ could win. The PQ is not at the moment within range of a majority government. And nobody is in fact, you have all this five parties. It's actually the first time in many, many years that five parties have a shot at electing MNAs in a Quebec election. And the PQ is ahead in the polls, but it does not have sufficient support right now for a majority government. So that raises a whole question of what they could do about a referendum if they're in a minority situation because they wouldn't have the support and the legislature to launch

16:49the operation. They'd have to appeal, they'd have to form coalitions. So it could be, and as a reporter, I find minority governments always fascinating. And we've seen it with Mr. Trudeau in Ottawa. They are challenges to cover, but they're very exciting and interesting legislatures. So we could end up with a PQ government or a CAC government or a CAC minority government or a PQ minority government. So it's going to be pretty interesting, but all of them are promising to go back to the root of your question. They're all promising to be a better government than the one that's in there now. So just as a follow to that, I guess two parts. In the event of a minority government, could the conservatives or Quebec solidaire who don't really have a lot of standing in the polls right now, could they play spoiler or could they play kingmaker in the event of a minority government? If the CAC and the liberals don't want to play nice with the PQ or vice versa.

17:52And I guess second to that, how does a PQ government majority or minority change the political dynamic in the country, do you think? There is no, I have to tell you, there's no history in Quebec politics for coalition governments, which is what you're referring to. There are occasions where an opposition party will support a bill or a measure from the government, but there's never, there's not been any kind of formal relationship as you saw with, I believe, the federal liberals and the NDP in the past. That kind of tradition has an existence. So you get into a balance of power situation as in, they all have to negotiate and they all have to talk to each other. And that's how the last two minority governments in Quebec have operated. So then looking at the possibility of a PQ government. And I know that Mr. Plamandon has talked about not holding a referendum until Trump is

18:57out of office for obvious reasons. But how does a PQ government change the dynamic politically at the federal level in Canada as compared to how things are currently with the dynamic between the federal liberals and the CAC? That's a very good question because last night during one of the early debates, the leader of the PQ knowing that Quebecers prefer to see a Quebec government work with the federal government, especially in critical times like this. He talked about, he talked about the need to cooperate with the federal government, which is sort of a move on his part to show that he's reasonable and willing to talk. But when this has happened in the past, when there was a PQ government and a federal government, the relationship with the federal government was always a bit touchy.

19:58A bit touchy. And it was not a very chummy, chummy relationship. If there was money for something, the PQ government would be there and lobbying. But there was always a lack of trust between the two levels of governments. Of course, it all, a lot of it depends on the personalities, right? Mr. Carney is known as a pretty reasonable Prime Minister. He doesn't come across as a dogmatic man. And Mr. Pierre-Plaumando has a pragmatic side. He has as well a little bit of a short fuse when things don't go his way. So I think it would be quite an exciting duo to see in action. Yeah. Well, I know a week is a lifetime in politics. And when there's several weeks before the campaign, so I know a lot of things could transpire between them, but it is really fascinating to see how Quebec could change the dynamic

21:01in the country. Phil, as always, a pleasure to talk to you. Thanks very much for your time. My pleasure anytime. 10-3 is produced by Sean Knox, Theme Music by Bryce Hall. Thanks to my guest Phil OTA, more from him and more on the Quebec Election at Montreal Gazette.com. I'm Dave Breakinridge. Thanks for listening.