MONTREAL — François Legault’s win in the 2018 provincial election marked the start of a new era in Quebec politics, after nearly 50 years of federalist-versus-separatist two-party rule.
Four years later, Legault and his Coalition Avenir Québec are firmly in control, with polls suggesting he’ll cruise to a second majority victory on Oct. 3.
Experts offer a number of reasons to explain Legault’s runaway lead, including his popularity among francophones, the fragmentation of the opposition and the sustained visibility he obtained during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Most polls show Legault with support in the mid-40 per cent range — more than double that of his closest adversary, the Liberals. Days ahead of Sunday’s campaign launch, poll-aggregator website QC125.com pegged the probability of Legault’s party winning a majority government at more than 99 per cent.
Valérie-Anne Mahéo, an assistant professor of political science at Université Laval, said the election comes after more than two years of a pandemic during which Legault was “omnipresent.”
“He was there every day giving news conferences; we saw him all the time, and he governed by decree because of the health emergency,” she said in a recent phone interview. Opposition parties — most of which had new leaders — struggled for visibility because debate in the legislature on most issues regarding the pandemic was suspended, she added.
But Legault’s rise and continued strength cannot be solely attributed to circumstance, she said.
The outgoing Quebec premier, Mahéo said, has been able to capitalize on a new political landscape that began shifting even before his party was formed in 2011. For nearly 50 years, Quebec politics was defined by two competing visions: sovereignty, helmed by the Parti Québécois, and federalism, championed by the Liberal Party of Quebec.
But as interest in sovereignty has waned, a more traditional right-left political divide has emerged. That shift, she said, has led to the traditional parties losing ground in favour of the centre-right CAQ and — to a lesser degree — left-leaning Québec solidaire.
Legault’s nationalist approach, which consists of asserting Quebec’s political sovereignty while ruling out an independence referendum, appears to have won over a large chunk of the traditional Parti Québécois base, Mahéo said. The CAQ has also successfully unseated the Liberals as the party seen as the strongest manager of the economy, she said.
As a result, the Liberals and PQ are struggling to redefine themselves under the new leadership of Dominique Anglade and Paul St-Pierre Plamondon, respectively.
“Legault was very skilled because he managed to short-circuit this debate between sovereignty and federalism,” Mahéo said. “He said, ‘I’m not concerned with that, I’m going to defend the interests of Quebec, no matter what the form.’”
Daniel Béland, director of the McGill Institute for the Study of Canada, says Legault stands to benefit from a fragmented political landscape that has four opposition parties polling between 10 and 20 per cent. Most opposition parties, he said, appear to be in “defensive mode,” including a Liberal party that is facing backlash from its traditional anglophone base over a perceived failure to defend the community against Bill 96, Quebec’s language law reform.
The Conservative Party of Quebec, which has emerged from obscurity under the leadership of former radio personality Éric Duhaime, appears to be the only opposition party on the rise, Béland said. But it’s unclear, he added, whether the Conservatives’ new-found support around the Quebec City area will translate into seats.
Béland noted that while Legault’s approval ratings may have dipped from the height of the pandemic, the premier remains relatively unscathed by controversies — including the deaths of thousands of long-term care residents during the first wave of the pandemic, the adoption of the language reform, and the passing of Bill 21, which bans some civil servants from wearing religious symbols to work.
Those two laws pre-emptively invoke the notwithstanding clause of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms to shield them from legal challenges, leading critics to accuse Legault of trampling linguistic and religious minority rights.
The key to Legault’s resilience, Béland said, lies in his strong support among his mostly rural francophone base — and also within his own caucus. The opposition to the language and secularism laws, Béland noted, is concentrated in Montreal, where the CAQ won only two seats in 2018 and where the party doesn’t need to win on Oct. 3 to secure a second majority.
Legault’s unquestioned leadership in his own party, Béland said, allowed him to get away with flip-flopping at times, including cancelling a short-lived plan to tax people who remained unvaccinated against COVID-19.
“He has some wiggle room to change course when necessary, when he sees that there is a backlash happening,” he said.
Both Béland and Mahéo said that while Legault is in a strong position ahead of the vote, he has his weaknesses.
Béland says that a new wave of the pandemic or worsening inflation could put pressure on the CAQ leader. As well, none of the opposition party leaders have participated in a leaders debate before, meaning one of them could emerge as a star and capture Quebecers’ support on either issue, he said.
Mahéo said Legault during the campaign will face tough questions on immigration and on the environment. The party, she said, isn’t seen as an environmental leader and has been reluctant to raise immigration targets despite persistent labour shortages.
There’s also the possibility of a major stumble, although Mahéo notes that Legault’s strong lead makes that seem less likely.
“He’s so sure of winning that he can practically let himself get away with making half promises and not get too involved in the discussions in the debates,” Maheo said.
As the legislature broke for the summer, Legault’s party had 76 seats, while the Quebec Liberals had 27, Québec solidaire had 10 and the Parti Québécois had seven. The Conservative Party of Quebec held one seat and there were four Independents.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Aug. 26, 2022.
The New Democrats have declared a federal byelection victory in their Winnipeg stronghold riding of Elmwood—Transcona.
The NDP candidate Leila Dance told supporters in a tearful speech that even though the final results weren’t in, she expected she would see them in Ottawa.
With several polls still to be counted, Conservative candidate Colin Reynolds conceded defeat and told his volunteers that they should be proud of what the Conservatives accomplished in the campaign.
Political watchers had a keen eye on the results to see if the Tories could sway traditionally NDP voters on issues related to labour and affordability.
Meanwhile in the byelection race in the Montreal riding of LaSalle—Émard—Verdun the NDP, Liberals and Bloc Québécois remained locked in an extremely tight three-way race as the results trickled in slowly.
The Liberal stronghold riding had a record 91 names on the ballot, and the results aren’t expected until the early hours of the morning.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 16, 2024.
VANCOUVER – An incumbent BC United legislative member has reversed her decision not to seek re-election and has announced she’ll run as an Independent in the riding of West Vancouver-Capilano in the upcoming British Columbia election.
Karin Kirkpatrick has been a vocal critic of BC United Leader Kevin Falcon’s decision last month to suspend the party’s campaign and throw support behind the B.C. Conservatives under John Rustad.
Kirkpatrick announced her retirement this year, but said Monday that her decision to re-enter the race comes as a direct result of Falcon’s actions, which would force middle-of-the-road voters to “swing to the left” to the NDP or to move further right to the Conservatives.
“I did hear from a lot of constituents and a lot of people who were emailing me from across B.C. … that they didn’t have anybody to vote for,” she said. “And so, I looked even at myself, and I looked at my riding, and I said, ‘Well, I no longer have anybody to vote for in my own riding.’ It was clearly an issue of this missing middle for the more moderate voter.”
She said voters who reached out “don’t want to vote for an NDP government but felt deeply uncomfortable” supporting the provincial Conservatives, citing Rustad’s tolerance of what she calls “extreme views and conspiracy theorists.”
Kirkpatrick joins four other incumbent Opposition MLAs running as Independents, including Peace River South’s Mike Bernier, Peace River North’s Dan Davies, Prince George-Cariboo’s Coralee Oakes and Tom Shypitka in Kootenay-Rockies.
“To be honest, we talk just about every day,” Kirkpatrick said about her fellow BC United incumbents now running as Independents. “We’re all feeling the same way. We all need to kind of hold each other up and make sure we’re doing the right thing.”
She added that a number of first-time candidates formerly on the BC United ticket are contacting the group of incumbents running for election, and the group is working together “as good moderates who respect each other and lift each other up.”
But Kirkpatrick said it’s also too early to talk about the future of BC United or the possibility of forming a new party.
“The first thing we need to do is to get these Independent MLAs elected into the legislature,” she said, noting a strong group could play a power-broker role if a minority government is elected. “Once we’re there then we’re all going to come together and we’re going to figure out, is there something left in BC United, BC Liberals that we can resurrect, or do we need to start a new party that’s in the centre?”
She said there’s a big gap left in the political spectrum in the province.
“So, we just have to do it in a mindful way, to make sure it’s representing the broadest base of people in B.C.”
Among the supporters at Kirkpatrick’s announcement Monday was former longtime MLA Ralph Sultan, who held West Vancouver-Capilano for almost two decades before retiring in 2020.
The Metro Vancouver riding has been a stronghold for the BC Liberals — the former BC United — since its formation in 1991, with more than half of the votes going to the centre-right party in every contest.
However, Kirkpatrick’s winning margin of 53.6 per cent to the NDP’s 30.1 per cent and the Green’s 15.4 per cent in the 2020 election shows a rising trend for left-leaning voters in the district.
Mike McDonald, chief strategy officer with Kirk and Co. Consulting, and a former campaign director for the BC Liberals and chief of staff under former Premier Christy Clark, said Independent candidates historically face an uphill battle and the biggest impact may be splitting votes in areas where the NDP could emerge victorious.
“It really comes down to, if the NDP are in a position to get 33 per cent of the vote, they might have a chance of winning,” McDonald said of the impact of an Independent vote-split with the Conservatives in certain ridings.
He said B.C. history shows it’s very hard for an Independent to win an election and has been done only a handful of times.
“So, the odds do not favour Independents winning the seats unless there is a very unique combination of circumstances, and more likely that they play a role as a spoiler, frankly.”
The B.C. Conservatives list West Vancouver School District Trustee Lynne Block as its candidate in West Vancouver-Capilano, while the BC NDP is represented by health care professional Sara Eftekhar.
Kirkpatrick said she is confident that her re-entry to the race will not result in a vote split that allows the NDP to win the seat because the party has always had a poor showing in the riding.
“So, even if there is competition between myself and the Conservative candidate, it is highly unlikely that anything would swing over to the NDP here. And I believe that I have the ability to actually attract those NDP voters to me, as well as the Conservatives and Liberals who are feeling just lost right now.”
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 16, 2024.
WASHINGTON (AP) — Secretary of State Antony Blinken heads to Egypt on Tuesday for his 10th trip to the Middle East since the war in Gaza began nearly a year ago, this one aimed partly at refining a proposal to present to Israel and Hamas for a cease-fire deal and release of hostages.
Unlike in recent mediating missions, America’s top diplomat this time is traveling without optimistic projections from the Biden administration of an expected breakthrough in the troubled negotiations.
Also unlike the earlier missions, Blinken has no public plans to go to Israel to meet with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on this trip. The Israeli leader’s fiery public statements — like his declaration that Israel would accept only “total victory” when Blinken was in the region in June — and some other unbudgeable demands have complicated earlier diplomacy.
Blinken is going to Egypt for talks Wednesday with Egyptian Foreign Minister Badr Abdelatty and others, in a trip billed as focused both on American-Egyptian relations and Gaza consultations with Egypt.
The tamped-down public approach follows months in which President Joe Biden and his officials publicly talked up an agreement to end the war in Gaza as being just within reach, hoping to build pressure on Netanyahu’s far-right government and Hamas to seal a deal.
The Biden administration now says it is working with fellow mediators Egypt and Qatar to come up with a revised final proposal to try to at least get Israel and Hamas into a six-week cease-fire that would free some of the hostages held by Hamas in exchange for Palestinian prisoners held by Israel. Americans believe public attention on details of the talks now would only hurt that effort.
American, Qatari and Egyptian officials still are consulting “about what that proposal will contain, and …. we’re trying to see that it’s a proposal that can get the parties to an ultimate agreement,” State Department spokesman Matthew Miller said Monday.
The State Department pointed to Egypt’s important role in Gaza peace efforts in announcing last week that the Biden administration planned to give the country its full $1.3 billion in military aid, overriding congressional requirements that the U.S. hold back some of the funding if Egypt fails to show adequate progress on human rights. Blinken told Congress that Egypt has made progress on human rights, including in freeing political prisoners.
Blinken’s trip comes amid the risk of a full-on new front in the Middle East, with Israel threatening increasing military action against the Hezbollah militant organization in Lebanon. Biden envoy Amos Hochstein was in Israel on Monday to try to calm tensions after a stop in Lebanon.
Hezbollah has one of the strongest militaries in the Middle East, and like Hamas and smaller groups in Syria and Iraq it is allied with Iran.
Hezbollah and Israel have exchanged strikes across Israel’s northern border with Lebanon since the Oct. 7 attack by Hamas started the war in Gaza. Hezbollah says it will ease those strikes — which have uprooted tens of thousands of civilians on both sides of the border — only when there’s a cease-fire in Gaza.
Hochstein told Netanyahu and other Israeli officials that intensifying the conflict with Hezbollah would not help get Israelis back in their homes, according to a U.S. official. The official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss the private talks, said Hochstein stressed to Netanyahu that he risked sparking a broad and protracted regional conflict if he moved forward with a full-scale war in Lebanon.
Hochstein also underscored to Israeli officials that the Biden administration remained committed to finding a diplomatic solution to the tensions on Israel’s northern border in conjunction with a Gaza deal or on its own, the official said.
Netanyahu told Hochstein that it would “not be possible to return our residents without a fundamental change in the security situation in the north.” The prime minister said Israel “appreciates and respects” U.S. support but “will do what is necessary to maintain its security and return the residents of the north to their homes safely.”
Israel Defense Minister Yoav Gallant, meanwhile, warned in his meeting with Hochstein that “the only way left to ensure the return of Israel’s northern communities to their homes will be via military action,” his office said.
In Gaza, the U.S. says Israel and Hamas have agreed to a deal in principle and that the biggest obstacles now include a disagreement on details of the hostage and prisoner swap and control over a buffer zone on the border between Gaza and Egypt. Netanyahu has demanded in recent weeks that the Israeli military be allowed to keep a presence in the Philadelphi corridor. Egypt and Hamas have rejected that demand.
The Hamas-led attacks in southern Israel on Oct. 7 killed about 1,200 people. Militants also abducted 250 people and are still holding around 100 hostages. About a third of the remaining hostages are believed to be dead.
Israel’s offensive in Gaza has killed more than 41,000 Palestinians, said Gaza’s Health Ministry, which does not distinguish between civilians and militants in its count. The war has caused widespread destruction, displaced a majority of Gaza’s people and created a humanitarian crisis.
Netanyahu says he is working to bring home the hostages. His critics accuse him of slow-rolling a deal because it could bring down his hardline coalition government, which includes members opposed to a truce with the Palestinians.
Asked earlier this month if Netanyahu was doing enough for a cease-fire deal, Biden said, simply, “no.” But he added that he still believed a deal was close.
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Associated Press writer Aamer Madhani contributed to this report.
