The Canadian Party of Quebec leader Colin Standish unveiled three new candidates to run in the Quebec election set for Oct. 3.
The party is hoping to make inroads in strong Liberal ridings in the greater Montreal area including Verdun.
The riding has been held by a Liberal MNA for decades and the candidate for the Canadian Party of Quebec admits unseating the Liberals won’t be easy.
“I’m not going to lie, it’s going to be an uphill battle because it’s very Liberal,” Scott Kilbride, said.
The party is vehemently opposed to Quebec’s new language reform law, Bill 96 and Bill 21, the secularism legislation which prohibits civil servants, teachers, court judges and others from wearing religious symbols in public.
Standish says the Liberals have wavered on both issues.
“They’ve betrayed all Quebecers, certainly minority and Anglophones who’ve looked to them for protection for their basic rights and freedoms,” Standish said.
His party will be battling for the protest vote with other non-traditional parties, including Montreal Bloc led by Balarama Holness.
The leader plans to field candidates from downtown to the western tip of the island and he’s not worried about splitting the vote.
“Vote splitting is an argument brought forth by the Liberals attempting to monopolize,” Holness told Global News.
But one political analyst argues it would be in the best interest of the two parties to merge or risk losing.
“This will divide the protest vote and this will make it harder for these two small parties,” Daniel Béland, a political science professor, told Global News.
And one political pollster insists the Liberals aren’t currently threatened by either party.
“I think it’s still in the Liberal party’s hands and Dominique Anglade’s hands if she does campaign well and if they get off to a fairly decent start,” Christian Bourque of Léger360 told Global News.
The election is scheduled for Oct. 3.