Premier Francois Legault’s Coalition Avenir Quebec (CAQ) party went into Tuesday having bolstered its majority at the National Assembly, after a byelection win in the Marie-Victorin riding on the south shore.
“I’m very happy. It’s a big win for us. It’s looking good right now,” Legault said at a press conference Tuesday afternoon.
“We still have five months and a half in front of us, so we need to be careful.”
The government’s victory is a tough pill to swallow for opposition parties like the Parti Québécois (PQ) and the Liberals (PLQ) just months ahead of the next provincial election.
“Of course, I can’t throw a party this morning,” PQ leader Paul St-Pierre Plamondon said Tuesday.
The Marie-Victorin seat was vacated when former PQ MNA Catherine Fournier became mayor of Longueuil.
She was the last in a long line of Péquistes who held the riding for four decades.
Analyst Daniel Béland say losing this stronghold is a crushing blow for the PQ heading toward the Oct. 3 election.
“The PQ is a party on life support,” said Béland, a political scientist at McGill University.
The PQ leader, however, is encouraged by his party’s second-place finish. They lost by just under 800 votes.
“Six months ago, everybody agreed it would be an easy win for the CAQ, then you have a very close result,” said St-Pierre Plamondon. “What will be the end result in six months? I think it’s very interesting.”
Dominique Anglade and the Liberal party may have been the byelection’s biggest losers.
“There’s no question in our mind that it was a disappointing result,” Anglade said Tuesday.
Their candidate, Émilie Nolet, won just seven per cent of the vote, finishing fifth behind Québec solidaire and the new Quebec Conservative Party.
“It shows how bad the PLQ is doing among francophones in this province,” said Béland. “Overall I think they are facing really a major crisis.”
Anglade recognizes she has quite a bit of work to do sharing the Liberals’ message in the months ahead.
“I think a lot of the Liberals stayed home and they stayed home because they’re not hearing enough the voice of the Liberals on a number of issues,” she said, adding she hopes to talk more about her party’s policies on the economy and the environment, among other topics.
Béland also points to the party’s recent flip-flop on a Bill 96 amendment angering anglophones.
“They really need to consolidate their base amongst anglophone and allophones because otherwise the party could almost be wiped off the map,” he said.
The parties have just under six months to figure out how to win your vote.
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