Front Burner - Why Quebec’s election has been turned upside down

Episode Date: September 3, 2026

In just over a month, Quebecers will head to the ballot box. And, until recently, this election seemed like a foregone conclusion: the Parti Quebecois, running on a promise to hold another independence referendum, had been ahead in the polls for the better part of three years.Then, the Canada-U.S. trade talks collapsed, and Quebec’s political future suddenly looks uncertain. The governing Coalition Avenir Quebec has surged from a distant fourth place, the PQ has shelved its referendum until after Donald Trump leaves office, and the U.S. commerce secretary has accused Mark Carney of “manufacturing” a fight over the French language to stop the sovereigntists from winning.Paul Journet is a political columnist for La Presse, and he unpacks what this election means for the province – and for the rest of the country.For transcripts of Front Burner, please visit: https://www.cbc.ca/radio/frontburner/transcripts

Emmanuel Lutheran Church in Georgetown invites you to a quiet and compassionate free seminar on supporting those who struggle with substance use. On Saturday, September 12 at 10 in the morning, we will gather to listen, to learn, and to offer hope. Robin Griller of St. Michael's Holmes and Reverend Robert Crestick Lutheran Church, Canada will share gentle guidance on medical, practical, and spiritual care. If you are someone you love is seeking understanding, please call to register 437-297-0056. This is a CBC podcast. Hi, I'm Jason Marcosoff, in for Jamie. Up until pretty recently, it was looking like another province was on track to hold a referendum about independence. That's what the party Quebecois was promising to do if they won next month's election.

And for the last three years, their victory has looked like a sure thing. But new polling shows the race has suddenly gotten much tighter. Paul Gernet is a columnist for La Press. He's been covering Quebec politics for years, and joins me now to be. unpack what this election means for the province and the country writ large. Hi, Paul. Thanks for joining us. Hi, thanks for having me. So back in March, the CAQ, the CAQ, the party currently in power, was polling down around

9% behind almost every other party. But according to a synopsis poll that you commissioned at La Press, there are now in a statistical tie for first with the party Quebecois. I should say that a Legge poll coming out this week had the CAQ five points back, but that's still way closer than they were even a month ago. What happened? Yeah, the job of many people dropped when they saw the last polls. What happened, basically, two things. First of all, the Trump issue. Second is that the provincial liberals are having an extremely bad time. So just to get back at March, like you hinted, the Coalition Avenir Quebec was just about to disappear.

We were wondering if any MNAs would be left after the next election. Then the Premier Francois Legault quit. He was the least popular Premier of all Canada. After winning two resounding election majorities, the end for Francoislego came suddenly. I see that, actually, many of Quebecers want to change, the Premier said.

He was succeeded by Christine Frischette, who managed to incartic change. I think I have my own style. my own personality, and right from there, you can have a different style that is being seen. I'm from another generation, Generation X. I'm a woman, and this comes with a certain number of change for Quebecers. You can think of Francois de Go as some sort of a local dog Ford. He can be very quick to anger, but he's also very relatable for everyday people, whereas Christine Frischette is viewed more as mild-mannered, calm, a rational, deliberate kind of figure,

which is exactly the kind of person that reassures you in troubled times. And then comes Donald Trump. So the shift of attention in Quebec totally changed. We're not talking so much about local issues like healthcare, education. Everybody's attention in Quebec,

like elsewhere in Canada, is directed at the White House and what's happening with Donald Trump and these new tariffs. So here comes, Christine Frischette, who's a very reassuring figure for many people in Quebec. And the other factor is the provincial liberals who, quite frankly, are having a terrible campaign because their leader is new. He's never been in power. He's never been elected. Doesn't have much experience.

And he's totally being eclipsed by Christian Frischet. So the trade war is reverberating around the country, of course. But can drill down on what's happening in back and why it's resonating so much in this election? Yeah, well, perhaps two things. First of all, simply the economic impact. Quebec is, you can look at the data. It's the province that is the most impacted by the latest Trump tariffs. And second of all, because Trump is kind of a joker in Quebec politics, people are looking

at the referendum promise that the party Quebec was, and they're saying, well, is this the best time to have a referendum. So this makes the issue of independence less of a preoccupation for the people who wanted it. And the people who do not want it, they're more scared than there have ever been of the instability that would result of such a referendum campaign. Let's talk about the referendum a bit later on. But I wonder how the French language stuff that's kind of played out in the trade war has become a factor here. or two. Prime Minister Mark Carney has said that one reason talks broke down was a disagreement over

French language protections, things like discoverability rules for French content on streaming platforms and labeling requirements. But last week, Commerce Secretary for the U.S. Howard Lutnik said that Carney had manufactured the story. Do I care about how the Quebecois speak? I mean, what could matter less to America? We don't care. So the fact is, we never bought those words up. This is manufactured, and that's why the president put out of truth saying it was a complete lie. So there's the sovereignty party trying to run, and they're in the lead in Quebec. And so this was Mark Carney manufacturing something that would try to keep them from winning. And he's, of course, referring to the party Quebecois there. What do you make of this allegation? Is there any

truth to what Lutnik was saying? So I think he misrepresented what Mr. Carney said. said. Mark Carney never said that the trade deals broke down only because of French. He mentioned French with many other factors. And when you take a step back, it's really absurd. I don't think that anyone in Quebec thinks that Canada had a great trade deal and that the only reason they did not sign was to protect a little bit more of the French language, which is anyway mainly a provincial issue. It seems like Fershett's trying to make this race about which leader is best equipped to take on Trump, identifying him as her principal adversary in her campaign launched last week. President Trump is my principal opponent. He's the one who's disturbing, completely disturbing, our trade links with the United States. And you wrote that this framing risks turning the election into a bit of a personality contest. What do you mean by that?

Well, it's pretty logical for her to frame this as an election to choose who is best to defend Quebec facing Trump. Because when you've been in power for eight years, do you really want to defend what you've done in Quebec, like in other provinces? People are frustrated by the lack of access to health care, by the lack of teachers and the state of other public services. And any government that's been in power for eight years is going to suffer from the feeling of rust that the party has. So if people want change, well, you're going to lose. So you need to switch the conversation to another topic. But what I meant by the personality contest is that Quebec is not negotiating, obviously, with the White House. It only has, well, you could argue, a veto power if Quebec and Ontario get together and try to convince Mr. Carney,

to sign or to not sign a deal so they can intervene after a tentative agreement has been made. But for the rest, Quebec has a very limited effect on those trade deals. So it's more of a personality contest where people are looking at the different leaders and saying, who is able to reassure me because the common emotion right now dominating Quebec politics is fear and anxiety, much more than anger, like you usually have anger because you want to change the government or hope because you believe that one of the leaders is really putting forward a positive proposal, but nobody is going to believe you in Quebec if you say that you have the solution to solve the healthcare problems because we get the feeling that everything has been

tested and not much has worked. So if it does become a personality contest, Paul, who has the edge here? He talked about Frasette being kind of this new face. What about the other characters? Yeah, Paul Saint-Pierre Plamandandon, the head of the Partsique Quebecua. The obvious question is, what do we do after eight years of CAQ? Are we really going to go for 12 years of that? I think it's a fundamental question.

He's younger. He has a bit of a temper. I don't know how he would translate in English, Sopolae. He's quickly prone to a fit, to a hisy fit, I think, you would say. and he doesn't have any experience of power. So those two things put together make him someone that is perhaps less a reassuring figure than Kisen Frechette, who's been in power. She was first elected in 2022 and she held the main ministers in Quebec, the one for economy.

Also, she was head of immigration and language, big files. So she comes as more reassuring and experienced than Paul Saint-Piart. Plamondon, and you need to combine his personality with the project he's putting forward. Because if he want to hold a referendum and build a new country, well, that's a big task. And you need to show people that you're a kind of a figure, a historical figure, basically, who can change the fate of a nation. And does he have it in him? That's a question people are asking. Well, so this part, his party seemed like a lock to in the election for a while, the PQ.

And then Plamondon says he wouldn't hold a referendum while Trump is in office. In opposed to social media, Plamondon says a debate over Quebec's political future needs to happen in calm conditions. And a referendum would therefore not take place before January 20th, 20, 29. Can you walk me through that decision he made? Yeah, well, he hinted at that decision last February, where he said after by-election in Shikutsimi, After knocking on many doors, he realized that people do not want for a referendum to be held while Trump is in power. And if you look at the details of his program, he said that he would do many technical stuff to prepare the referendum that would take three years. So people who are following this very closely say, well, there's no news there.

We already knew that if he holds a referendum, it would be in the last year of his mandate. but for the 99% of the people who don't dedicate their lives to following this stuff like I do, that was the news when he made his announcement a few weeks ago saying, as long as Trump is in power, there will be no referendum. But many other questions now come up. Well, if you say that Trump is a problem, if J.D. Vance wins the next election, what do you do? So he tries to put an end to the question, but many other questions are coming up. Look, I know sovereignty is the Party Quebecoise raison d'etre, but, you know, I also look at the polling, and it says that sovereignty is, like, lower than it's been in long time, like, under 30%.

Why is Plamondon pushing referendum at all at this point? You need to go back to when he was elected, because the Parts of Quebec was almost decimated. Basically, no one was left, I think, only three MNAs. and there was a race. And when almost no one is left inside of a party, who do you still got? The diehard fans. The one who no matter what will say,

we want independence, we want a referendum, we don't care about the polling, we believe we still can do it. So to win that race, Paul Saint-Pierre-Palamandon had to put forth a new proposal saying, with me, I promise there will be a referendum. So that's how he came into power for the, Parts Quebecois.

And then he gained momentum in the polls, but he was stuck with that previous promise. And one of the reasons why he got more popular in the polls was people thought, well, here's a guy who's authentic. He's saying what he thinks, no matter if it's popular or not. So he's stuck with it. He cannot change the personality that made him popular by flip-flopping on the main issue of his party. So he's really that that's kind of something he's dragging around from when he arrived in power. Emmanuel Lutheran Church in Georgetown invites you to a quiet and compassionate free seminar

on supporting those who struggle with substance use. On Saturday, September 12 at 10 in the morning, we will gather to listen, to learn, and to offer hope. Robin Griller of St. Michael's Homes and Reverend Robert Crestick Lutheran Church, Canada will share a gentle guidance on medical, practical, and spiritual care. If you are someone you love is seeking understanding, please call to register 437-297-0056. This, of course, is all happening at the same time that the country is being consumed by this other sovereignty debate on the side of the country in Alberta. Can you run down for us how different Quebec sovereignty movement is from Alberta's? The first difference is that the sovereignty movement in Quebec is being defended by two political parties, the main one being the Partsique Quebecua.

It's already been in power. It's viewed in 1976, its government held by René de Baik was viewed as perhaps the best government in Quebec's history. So it's a party that's viewed as being very serious. And if there's a referendum, well, the governing party, because if you have a referendum, it means that the Parts Quebecois has won a majority, well, the governing party is defending the yes option, whereas in Alberta, it's really peculiar because you don't have a party in power or a main party in the legislative assembly defending the independence option. So that would be the first main difference. The other one, not to get too deep into sociology, but in Quebec, it's viewed as an identity issue. If you speak to Canadians and you ask them, why don't you want to become the 51st state? Well, they're going to say, well, because we're not Americans. We're Canadians. It's simple as that.

Well, many people in Quebec view it this way. So it's not a matter of economical grievances. It's not because people think that they would be. better off money-wise outside of Canada. It's just that for them it's an issue of political liberty of a very profound identity. They believe that they're not Canadian and they want to have a country. And in Alberta, I think that the people for independence are very much more reacting to stuff that's been decided in Ottawa that made them angry like pipelines and other issues like that. Yeah, it's more of an economic-driven independence movement, whereas most, like, Quebec's more like the other global ones we've seen like Scotland or Basques, where it's cultural. Is the fact that it's going on this independence referendum sort of in Alberta, is that influencing the sovereignty debate at all in Quebec right now? I don't think that it's having a very big influence.

Perhaps the only influence, but it's not very big, is that it's not very big, is that it's. that some people are looking at Daniel Smith and saying, well, here's a premier who's getting what she wants from Ottawa because she's not playing nice. And because obviously she's not for independence, but she's able to use the independence movement to exert pressure on Ottawa to make political gains. And people in Quebec are saying,

we did that in the past. Alberta is using our method and we should use that again and not just simply play nice like the provincial liberals are doing and like Christine Frechette for the Coalition Avenir Quebec is also promising.

She's saying, you don't want the party Quebec stumping their foot at Ottawa. This is not constructive. You want someone who's able to work with Ottawa in a constructive partnership to make reasonable gains.

I think, you know, In addition to sovereignty, the other big issue, Quebec issue that people look at during elections nationally is language. And I think back to all the fewer over the CAC's last big language law, Bill 96, which placed severe limits on offering provincial services and languages other than French. Bill 96 will tighten rules on the use of French and businesses, provide more French lessons to newcomers, and limit the number of francophone and aliphones students accepted to English Seijeps. And there's real pushback, of course, from Anglophones, indigenous groups, other groups. But now most parties are supporting it even the, you know, Anglophone-friendly liberals. Why have they all coalesced around this once controversial law, Bill 96? Well, yeah, well, Bill 96 does many things.

I think you need to unpack them. You have the language policies regarding education, regarding the justice system, or regarding businesses in what language. can they speak to their clients? In what language can employees speak at work? And there's also the language that the state uses to speak to citizens. Many of these things are not too controversial because people in Quebec do not compare themselves to the rest of Canada.

They compare themselves to other nation states. And they're saying, well, if you're in Denmark, there's no right to go to school to a publicly funded school in a foreign language like in English. Same thing in Sweden, in France. So it's a matter of perception, whereas do you believe that the only official language in Quebec is French? Or do you view Quebec as a province of Canada that's bilingual? We talked about the liberals. We talked about the PQ and the CACC.

Let's talk about the most left-wing party in this race, Quebec Salidaire. Like the PQ, they make the case for a sovereign Quebec, but it's like a younger, more progressive vision of sovereignty. Can you tell me about what they're promoting? Yeah, they're hard to understand because the Quebec Solidare, you could think of them as like the NDP, but not the NDP in other provinces, more like the federal NDP with like A.V. Lewis leadership, very, very much left. and they are in favor of independence, but a vast majority of the people voting for them do not want independence, because it's not a topic that they put up forward into their priorities. So they're the main spokesperson for problems like lack of access to households and for public transit, but they're having a really hard time because they're being.

totally eclips, a little bit like the NDP in the last federal election, because this is coming to be a binary choice between two leaders, even though we have five parties that should elect MNAs. They're kind of being sidelined whenever we have a debate. You're looking at them for their position. Nobody is really paying much attention to them now. We talked about the liberals a bit, but I wanted to get a bit more on them because you'd think that if the PQ is becoming, you know, has a ceiling. Plumont doesn't overly popular, and people want change from the KAC, there's the liberal option that has governed the province. And right now I've seen surveys saying that the most popular politician in Quebec right now is

liberal. Mark Carney. Is he lifting up the party any? He's not lifting up the liberals because the liberals are being challenged by Kressin Freshet, because when the coalition was founded, its name says it. There are a coalition between people for independence and against independence who agreed on one thing. Let's stop speaking about this divisive issue and work together. But its founder was a next party Quebecois minister, and he defended some very harsh measures to protect French and secularism. so many people, many federalists were kind of skeptical about him. But now he's been replaced by Christian Treshette,

who's hard to distinguish from the provincial liberals. She doesn't have a list of demands, of pressing demands on Ottawa to gain back some powers. She doesn't want to have more autonomy for Quebec. She doesn't speak much about the identity issues. So she's really close ideologically. through the Quebec provincial liberals. And what you're seeing in the last few days in a campaign is a major shift.

So you have people used to vote for the Quebec liberals who are now going to Christine Frischette. Really? And that's why she has a chance to retain power. Because the Parti Quebeco is not losing that many votes. But all the people who did not know for whom to vote, they're going to Christine Frichette, ex-liberals are going to Christian Frechette.

So while the other parties are not moving, she's going upwards. Like we said, this is a five-party race where five parties are competitive. And the last party we haven't mentioned really much yet is the Quebec Conservatives. And they've never elected a candidate to the National Assembly. But they could pick up a lot of seats now and leading in the Quebec city region. Why do their chances seem to be changing? Because they're having a very effective and targeted campaign. in the Quebec City region, and also because there's no real right-wing party in Quebec.

So they have a lot of free ground that they can hold. And their leader is, he was a radio host, a very provocative radio host, who knows how to get himself into the discussion. So they're on track to gain quite a few seats for the first time. actually they would elect an MNA, but their ceiling is very low because no other party leader is hated as much as him because he has a gift to make controversial statements. And when you look in depth at what he's proposing, it's kind of hard to believe that he could cut the public budget by $50 billion. So he's kind of in between, he's kind of a little bit at the right of Pierre Polière. And in terms of public support, he's kind of in between Pierre Poliiev and Maxim Bernier.

I know that last election, there was this weird situation where you had five parties all gaining 10% or more of the vote. This time, though, they could all pick up seats. What's that bode for the potential outcome or how Quebec deals with this kind of national. Assembly. Yeah, I've never seen such an election that was that hard to predict because we have those, you know, the websites that helped you to make seat projections. And if you change the percentage of votes that the Coalition Amnir, Quebec has by 2% upwards or 2% downwards, that could be a deal breaker between them being in power or them not even being recognized as, an official party. It's very, the result is very, very sensitive to little movement in terms of vote percentage. But we're on track to elect a minority government. But in terms of stability for the federation, well, the main question is, will the party be in power and what kind of tone will they have with Mark Carney? Will they be able to work with him? Or will they have

an incentive to stir up trouble to show that Canada doesn't work and to be on track to hold a referendum. But I need to insist that if the Partsique Quebecois does not have a majority, you can forget about any possibility of a referendum. It's absolutely impossible. That's a lot of bouncing balls to watch. Paul, thanks so much for helping us understand it all. Thanks. That's all for today. I'm Jason Markosov. Thank you for listening to Frontburner. For more CBC podcasts, go to cBC.ca slash podcasts.