11-04-2025
Canadian Dispatch: Surge in Quebec may help Liberals secure majority
EDITOR'S NOTE: Given the increased interest in US-Canadian relations and Canadian politics during this time, we'll be looking to run additional Peter Black columns as the situation develops, so expect additional supplemental Canadian Dispatch columns in upcoming editions.
It's pretty clear as it reaches its half-way point, the Canadian general election on April 28 has become a two-horse race.
This is not an unusual thing for Americans, where Democrats and Republicans have been duking it out at all three levels of government for 200 years.
In Canada, however, third parties have had an increasing impact on the outcome of elections, so much so that since 1962, 10 of 20 federal elections resulted in minorities, and since 2004, there have been five out of seven. The current Liberal government is the second of back-to-back minorities.
With that context, poll-watchers are tracking a rather rare phenomenon in this election where the battle has narrowed down to a duel between the Liberals and Conservatives, with the two main third parties fading away.
The simplest explanation is that many voters who normally would have voted for the left-wing New Democratic Party nationally, and the separatist Bloc Quebecois in Quebec, have flocked to the Liberals.
There are two reasons for that: One is that new Liberal Leader Mark Carney, with his unique expertise in managing economic crises, is perceived as ideally suited to manage the chaos, damage and insult Donald Trump is inflicting on Canada.
The other is a general fear and loathing of Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre and what a government of his making would mean for Canada.
Before the departure of Justin Trudeau, the Trump attacks, and the arrival of Carney on the scene, Poilievre was looking at a majority. Now, though, if Poilievre has any hope of winning even a minority government, he needs to expand his base and that is not looking promising with the Liberals opening up a consistent lead.
If an election were held this week, the Liberals would win at least a 20-seat majority, with the NDP holding only nine seats and the Bloc 16.
The Bloc's plunge in support is a particularly interesting case because Carney, the very picture of a boring Englishman banker, just doesn't seem like the type to excite French-speaking voters, particularly those who identify with the Bloc's dream of Quebec independence.
Carney is not particularly eloquent in spoken French and lacks a solid grasp of the province's cultural nuances. What minimizes Carney's lack of personal chemistry with Quebecers, however, is the fact he has an exceptionally popular trio of Quebec ministers as key players in his campaign and in his government: Foreign Minister Mélanie Joly (often seen on U.S. TV talking tariffs), Finance Minister François-Philippe Champagne, and Steven Guilbeault, an environmentalist warrior.
Quebecers have an historical tendency to vote en masse like a family. For five elections under Pierre Trudeau, for example, the Liberals routinely ran the table, with only a handful of seats going to other parties.
Conservative Brian Mulroney, a fluently bilingual son of Quebec's north shore, dominated Quebec in both his elections as leader (1984, 1988).
When, in 1993, Mulroney quit and left the country in a constitution mess with Quebec on the brink of separation, the Liberals under Jean Chrétien won a majority, but Lucien Bouchard, head of the newly formed Bloc, became leader of Her Majesty's Loyal Opposition, having won the second largest number of seats.
The most startling voter stampede of all in Quebec was in 2011. Thanks to a particularly ineffectual Liberal leader, the unpopularity of then-prime minister Stephen Harper and fatigue with the Bloc, the NDP, under charismatic, Montreal-born leader Jack Layton, won 59 of Quebec's 75 seats. Combined with 44 seats elsewhere in the country, the NDP became, for the first time ever, the Official Opposition.
The Bloc was reduced to four seats in that election and generally written off as a spent force. Not so fast! As the NDP tide in Quebec receded, the Bloc bounced back, and took 32 seats in the last election in 2021.
If current poll projections hold, the Bloc deputation to the federal Parliament could be cut in half, and the Liberals would win the most seats in Quebec since Justin Trudeau claimed 40 in 2015.
Pollsters and pundits caution the race, with less than 20 days to go, is not over. Although voter intentions are highly locked in, with Carney having a gaping lead over Poilievre for preferred prime minister, the two-horse race could tighten.
Hence, when the party leaders, including the head of the two-seat Green Party, face off in French and English debates next week, the stakes will be especially high.
— Peter Black is a radio broadcaster and writer based in Quebec City. He has worked on Parliament Hill in Ottawa, in Montreal as a newspaper reporter and editor, and as a translator and freelance writer. Email him: pmblack@
