Remember 2014?
Pauline Marois, the Parti Québécois Premier of Quebec, had just called an election, trying to turn her minority into a majority. She was running on the so-called Charter of Values and hoping to channel the culture war forces towards a third referendum. She had just recruited Pierre Karl Péladeau, one of the province’s most powerful businessmen, as a star candidate, and it really looked like Quebec sovereignty was about to dominate Canadian politics once again.
And then she lost. She lost big — giving up a majority government to the Quebec Liberals.
Things only got worse for the sovereigntists in the following years. In 2018, François Legault’s party, the Coalition Avenir Québec, came to power, vowing to stop focusing so much on the federalist-separatist debate and instead focus on the economy. By 2022, the PQ was down to just three seats.
Today things look very, very different.
Last week, CAQ, under the leadership of Christine Fréchette, was completely wiped out. And the PQ’s Paul St-Pierre Plamondon, or PSPP, as he’s often referred to in Quebec, will be the province’s next premier
But the death of CAQ and the return of the separatist government are far from the only unlikely stories that have emerged from this election: You have the rise of the Conservative Party of Quebec under former shock jock Eric Duhaime, who captured 19 seats, mostly in the Quebec City region; the survival of the Liberal Party of Quebec, which looked like it might be finished after their leader, Pablo Rodriguez, resigned and replaced by a relative unknown Charles Milliard, and somehow he emerged with 40 seats; and even Quebec Solidaire, the leftist sovereigntist party that mostly competes for seats in the downtowns of Montreal and Quebec City, had a decent night, potentially holding the balance of power in this new minority legislature.
Quebec politics hasn’t looked this unpredictable in years, and so I wanted to talk to friend of The Hatchet, Nora Loreto, all about it.
