On the heels of yet another byelection win, Parti Québécois leader Paul St-Pierre Plamondon says he heard a lot of concern from his voters that now is not the right time for a referendum, as some fear the economic impact of Trump administration policies north of the border.
But he is standing by his promise to hold a referendum in his first mandate, should his party come into power in the next provincial election slated for this fall.
At the Quebec National Assembly on Tuesday, St-Pierre Plamondon found himself again defending his plans to hold a vote on sovereignty, clarifying what he said in his victory speech following a byelection win in Chicoutimi Monday night.
This was the fourth consecutive byelection where the PQ swept a seat from the governing Coalition Avenir Quebec (CAQ).
“I met with people who are truly scared. After listening to them, I understand,” St-Pierre Plamondon told the crowd Monday. “On this I want to be clear: the PQ government will always stand up for Quebecers and will never bend in the face of threats from the Americans.”
St-Pierre Plamondon added any number of things could change over the course of a four-year mandate, including a new American government taking over, and he said the PQ would be strategic in choosing the right moment in those four years to launch a referendum.
Opposition parties immediately accused the sovereignist leader of backtracking on his commitment to a referendum and purposefully creating ambiguity around it, with just months to go before the provincial election is expected.
“Uncertainty is problematic for business, it’s problematic for our economy, so the fact that this position is evolving, it’s unclear, all of this uncertainty is problematic in itself,” said Quebec Liberal MNA Désirée McGraw. “These are self-inflected wounds at a time we need to stay strong and united.”
St-Pierre Plamondon said Tuesday his position never changed and he accused the opposition of leading a campaign of fear, rather than allowing Quebecers to choose their future through a vote.
He used Alberta as an example to follow.
“We have many political parties that are lacking any compass, any captains that are very lost,” he said. “Inducing fear has been a technique to avoid debating the essential debate here.”
In a recent poll published by Angus Reid and surveying just over 900 people, only 15 per cent of respondents said they would “definitely vote to leave” if a referendum were held today.
An additional 11 per cent responded they would “lean toward voting to leave.”
The PQ wasn’t the only party taking stock of the results of the Chicoutimi byelection Tuesday.
Quebec Conservative Party leader Éric Duhaime celebrated his party coming in second with just over 26 per cent of the vote — significantly higher than the party’s results in the riding during the general election. l
This is also the second consecutive byelection where his party comes in second, following that of the Arthabaska riding last August.
Duhaime sees the results as a sign the province could be headed for a two-way race between his party and the PQ in the next election, specifically in French-speaking areas outside of Montreal.
“And [Chicoutimi] isn’t even in the Quebec Conservative Party’s stronghold. Everyone knows our stronghold is in the Capitale-Nationale, the Chaudière-Appalaches,” he said. “We are just a few steps away from winning these ridings.”
Duhaime chalked up his success, in part, to the fact his party’s candidate, Catherine Morissette is someone who is well-known and appreciated in the region because of her business and municipal politics background.
But, he said, he also believes his party did well because of its stance against a Quebec referendum.
“The closer we get to the general election and the referendum, the more we see the population doesn’t want one,” he said.
He extended an invitation to English-speaking Quebecers who are tired of the Quebec Liberal Party to vote for his party instead.
“If we want to stop the Parti Québécois and its referendum there needs to be even more support for the Conservatives,” he said.
But some analysts believe this focus on fighting against the referendum ahead of the next election could actually split the vote and ultimately work in favour of the PQ.
“I think you have several parties that will try to be the main anti-referendum party,” said Daniel Béland, director of the McGill Institute for the Study of Canada.
Béland said he would also be weary of giving the byelection results too much importance, as byelections are generally more of a protest against the government than a true indication of how people will vote this fall.
“It’s not that there is a conservative surge right now,” he said. “The odds they could form government are very low at this point. I think it’s more about whether they could become a second opposition in Quebec City.”
Sébastien Dallaire, executive vice-president of Léger, said the latest byelection results demonstrate the Quebec Conservative Party is a force to be reckoned with — a long way from the fringe party it once was.
“What we see now is a steady but kind of self-reinforcing message from voters that the PCQ is part of the conversation, that it is a legitimate political force in the province,” he said.
He said Duhaime’s party coming in second is especially significant when you consider it currently has no MNAs sitting in the provincial assembly.
