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Global News
21 hours ago
- Politics
- Global News
Conservatives hoping for first seat as two-way race emerges in Quebec byelection
A polarizing figure who railed against pandemic restrictions and wants to break Quebec's consensus on carbon pricing could be days away from claiming a long-coveted seat in the provincial legislature. The stakes are high for Éric Duhaime, the former shock-jock at the helm of Quebec's Conservative party. Despite four years on the job, Duhaime has not yet been able get any members of his party elected. But if he comes out on top in a Monday byelection in the central Quebec riding of Arthabaska, Duhaime's unabashedly right-wing presence in Quebec's national assembly will shift the political landscape in a province that has not elected a Conservative party member in 90 years. 'It could be a huge breakthrough,' Duhaime said in an interview. 'And it could change politics in Canada (through) having a true Conservative party in Quebec.' Story continues below advertisement A two-way race has emerged in the riding between Duhaime and the sovereigntist Parti Québécois, which has been leading in Quebec polls for the better part of two years. The governing Coalition Avenir Québec, which has won the riding easily in every election since the party's founding in 2011, seems poised to suffer its third consecutive byelection defeat amid widespread dissatisfaction with the government of Premier François Legault. Parti Québécois candidate Alex Boissonneault, a well-known former journalist, said voters are looking to his party as the best option to replace the CAQ government in the next Quebec election, set for October 2026. But he concedes that some of his support is coming from people voting strategically against Duhaime. In the fiercely fought campaign for Arthabaska, local concerns have given way to a referendum on the Conservative leader, said political analyst Alain Rayes, a former federal Conservative MP for the region. 'When we talk to people on the ground, it's really, 'We want to give Éric Duhaime a chance,' or, 'We don't want anything to do with Éric Duhaime and we don't want to be the ones who open the door, who roll out the carpet toward the national assembly,'' he said. Get daily National news Get the day's top news, political, economic, and current affairs headlines, delivered to your inbox once a day. Sign up for daily National newsletter Sign Up By providing your email address, you have read and agree to Global News' Terms and Conditions and Privacy Policy Quebec's first premier was a Conservative, and the original Conservative Party of Quebec dominated politics in the province for 30 years after Confederation. The party's support collapsed at the end of the 19th century, however, and conservatives did not form government again until the ascension of Maurice Duplessis's right-leaning Union Nationale in the 1930s. Story continues below advertisement The emergence of Quebec's independence movement and the Parti Québécois in the 1960s created a new divide on the question of sovereignty that would define provincial politics for decades to come, with the Quebec Liberals as the default choice for federalists. It wasn't until the 2018 election of the right-leaning Coalition Avenir Québec – a nationalist party promising not to hold a referendum – that separatism took a back seat as the dominant issue in Quebec politics. It was in this context that Duhaime took the reins in 2021 of the Conservative Party of Quebec, newly reconstituted a little over a decade earlier. Duhaime, formerly a conservative talk-radio host, built up the party's base by tapping into frustration over pandemic health restrictions, and now presents himself as the voice of a growing number of Quebecers who don't see their values reflected by any of the province's four major parties. 'They're all proposing a little bit less or a little bit more of the same model,' said Duhaime, who describes himself as a longtime friend of federal Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre. 'It's the interventionist model. We're elsewhere. We're saying, 'Look, this is over.'' In recent months, Duhaime has kept himself in the headlines by calling for the abolition of Quebec's carbon-pricing system after the federal carbon levy was scrapped in April – a position not shared by any party with seats in the legislature. 'There are several subjects on which there is almost unanimity in the national assembly,' said political analyst Antonine Yaccarini. 'And the Conservative party wants to break that unanimity.' Story continues below advertisement In the 2022 election, Duhaime's Conservatives won nearly 13 per cent of the vote – barely less than any of the main opposition parties. But because of how his support was distributed, he failed to win a single seat. 'We represent more than one Quebecer out of eight and we have zero seats out of 125,' he said. Meanwhile, the Parti Québécois is trying to prove it still has what it takes to form government next year. 'People are extremely disappointed with the CAQ government,' Boissonneault said. 'We are experiencing momentum in the Parti Québécois that it has not experienced for several years.' The sovereigntist party has already won two byelections from the CAQ in the last two years, but has faced questions about its promise to hold a third referendum on independence by 2030, given U.S. President Donald Trump's economic threats. Boissonneault downplayed that pledge this week, saying he thinks voters in Arthabaska understand sovereignty isn't the 'fundamental issue' in this campaign. If the PQ fails to win Arthabaska, Yaccarini said, it could give the impression the party has lost 'the wind in its sails.' But Duhaime's political future could also be at stake on Monday night. If he loses, Rayes, the former Conservative MP, said, 'it's going to be more and more difficult for him.' The riding, a largely agricultural region surrounding the town of Victoriaville, gave the Conservatives nearly 25 per cent of the vote during the last provincial election. The federal riding of Richmond–Arthabaska has voted Conservative since 2015. Story continues below advertisement The seat was vacated earlier this year when the Coalition Avenir Québec incumbent resigned to run for the federal Conservatives. Legault's party could now face a crushing defeat in a riding where it won more than 50 per cent of the vote in the last two elections. Poll aggregator shows the Conservatives and PQ tied at 37 per cent support in the riding, with the CAQ and the Liberals far behind at nine per cent. Keven Brasseur, the CAQ candidate and former president of the local chamber of commerce, said the polls don't align with the reaction he's getting from voters. 'There are people who tell me they want to choose someone local,' he said. 'There are a group of people who say they vote for the candidate before the political party.' Still, it's undoubtedly Duhaime who has the most to gain – and possibly the most to lose – on Monday. 'We're representing a huge percentage of the population and at least we're going to have a voice,' he said. 'There's going to be something different. I think that's what people are looking for.'
Montreal Gazette
a day ago
- Politics
- Montreal Gazette
Analysis: Not your typical byelection, Arthabaska will set the tone for Quebec's political season
Quebec Politics By QUEBEC — It's been anything but a sleepy summer byelection. This vote actually matters. When citizens in the central Quebec riding of Arthabaska go to the polls Monday after what has been a surprisingly intense campaign, they will be choosing a new MNA but also setting the scene for what promises to be a tumultuous fall political season that will include a cabinet shuffle by Premier François Legault. While it's pretty clear the 62,000 voters in the riding will use the byelection to express their discontent with Legault's Coalition Avenir Québec government — which stands to lose a third byelection in a row after Jean-Talon and Terrebonne — how those votes land will say something about the tone of debate in the weeks ahead. Will citizens buy into Conservative Leader Éric Duhaime's line that his party is the one that represents change, standing up for right of centre voters who have never had a seat in the legislature even though his party got 12.91 per cent of the vote in the 2022 general election? Electing Duhaime would give him a huge boost, allowing him to rise in the legislature regularly to directly question the government, bagging excellent media attention at the same time. It's no wonder Duhaime has thrown everything he has into the race in Arthabaska. Plastered on election posters all over the riding, which includes the city of Victoriaville, Duhaime's campaign slogan, 'Du vrai,' is in itself a jab at the CAQ, a party he says has strayed from its roots over the last seven years in office. This will be Duhaime's second attempt at winning a seat, so the stakes for him personally are high. His Conservatives placed second in the riding in 2022. There has not been an MNA elected under a Conservative banner in Quebec's legislature since 1935. Given the riding's demographics, right-of-centre blue-collar nationalist Duhaime, on paper, has a shot at winning, said polling analyst Philippe J. Fournier, creator of the the Qc125 poll aggregator. The region leans right, voting Conservative federally and for 'anything but the Parti Québécois,' provincially. It was voting CAQ even before the party took power in 2018. The CAQ has held the seat since 2012, regularly winning 60 per cent of the vote — which now appears to have collapsed. But Duhaime remains a polarizing figure, making the byelection a race between him and the PQ. His opponents have been quick to recycle many of his controversial comments from his past days as a shock radio host in Quebec City. There have been reports from the barbecue and summer-festival circuits in the riding of an 'anybody but Duhaime' vote turning out Monday. In the lone campaign debate, held in July, Duhaime was the main target of his opponents, who questioned his party's more controversial ideas. Duhaime, for example, favours a greater place for private health care. He blames the CAQ government for high gas prices in Quebec because the province maintains a cap-and-trade carbon emissions system. which funds projects to reduce greenhouse gases. Fournier says voters face the dilemma of voting strategically. 'People are saying, 'To block the PQ, we have to vote Duhaime,' but people are very uncomfortable doing that,' Fournier said. 'There are not that many sovereignists there. This is a big step.' For a byelection, interest has been unusually high, with 26 per cent of voters — about 15,000 people — casting ballots in advance polls held the weekend of Aug. 2-3. There were scenes of citizens lining up to vote. Some voters might opt for a more middle-of-the-road vote, which could favour the PQ, Fournier said. The PQ has come up with a star candidate, former Radio-Canada Quebec City radio morning man Alex Boissonneault. Unlike Duhaime, Boissonneault is from the riding, which is midway between Montreal and Quebec City in central Quebec. He grew up in St-Ferdinand on the shores of picturesque William Lake. He started his campaign on the defensive, admitting he had a reckless youth. He was arrested in 2001 when he was a member of an extreme-left radical group that plotted to take down fences at the Summit of the Americas in Quebec City. The issue, however, does not seem to have hampered his campaign. The Qc125 vote projection site saying the PQ and Conservatives are statistically tied.. Winning a third byelection in a row would have a big impact on the PQ. It would be a sign the party under leader Paul St-Pierre Plamondon can maintain the momentum it has experienced in the polls over the last two years. That's important for the PQ as Quebec gradually shifts toward a general election in 2026. It would be the first time since 1998 that the party won the riding and would further confirm the impression that the CAQ is in decline. The CAQ has fought back, recruiting well-known local candidate Keven Brasseur, the former president of the Chambre de commerce et industrie des Bois-Francs et de L'Érable. He, too, has played up his roots in the riding. A former president of the CAQ's youth wing, Brasseur has conceded that defending the CAQ's record on everything from the SAAQclic fiasco to Northvolt to health care has been challenging, but said after almost eight years in power, it's normal that some people are disappointed in the government. While some have said the byelection is a first test of the newly elected leader of the Quebec Liberals, Pablo Rodriguez, the party argues Arthabaska has not been fertile territory for the party for many years. The Liberals, nevertheless, came up with a local candidate, Chantale Marchand. She was executive director of the Fondation de L'Ermitage, an organization devoted to improving the quality of life of seniors. Québec solidaire candidate Pascale Fortin ran unsuccessfully in the 2022 general election. Perhaps anticipating a defeat, Legault will be in the riding Monday night as the votes are counted and intends to show voters he has heard their message and will move quickly after the byelection to jump-start his government. In June, when he revealed Brasseur would be the candidate, Legault took the unusual step of announcing he is planning to shuffle his cabinet in the fall. That exercise will happen around Labour Day, government sources said this week. Legault wants to give his new team of ministers a few weeks to get a handle on their files before the legislature resumes sitting Sept. 16. Not fond of shuffles to begin with, Legault will announce major changes in government that he says will respond to the concerns of voters. It can be argued the shuffle is overdue. Some of his ministers have been in the same job since the 2018 election. 'I think you would have to be on another planet to not realize there are Quebecers who are disappointed with certain issues handled by the CAQ,' Legault said in June. 'This is what has initiated my desire to make changes.' Legault has convened a meeting of his current cabinet for Wednesday, followed by a full meeting of his 86-member caucus Thursday. Legault has said he wants to hear the ideas of his caucus as he prepares the shuffle.
National Observer
2 days ago
- Politics
- National Observer
Quebec Conservatives hoping for first seat as two-way race emerges in byelection
A polarizing figure who railed against pandemic restrictions and wants to break Quebec's consensus on carbon pricing could be days away from claiming a long-coveted seat in the provincial legislature. The stakes are high for Éric Duhaime, the former shock-jock at the helm of Quebec's Conservative party. Despite four years on the job, Duhaime has not yet been able to get any members of his party elected. But if he comes out on top in a Monday byelection in the central Quebec riding of Arthabaska, Duhaime's unabashedly right-wing presence in Quebec's national assembly will shift the political landscape in a province that has not elected a Conservative party member in 90 years. "It could be a huge breakthrough," Duhaime said in an interview. "And it could change politics in Canada (through) having a true Conservative party in Quebec." A two-way race has emerged in the riding between Duhaime and the sovereigntist Parti Québécois, which has been leading in Quebec polls for the better part of two years. The governing Coalition Avenir Québec, which has won the riding easily in every election since the party's founding in 2011, seems poised to suffer its third consecutive byelection defeat amid widespread dissatisfaction with the government of Premier François Legault. Parti Québécois candidate Alex Boissonneault, a well-known former journalist, said voters are looking to his party as the best option to replace the CAQ government in the next Quebec election, set for October 2026. But he concedes that some of his support is coming from people voting strategically against Duhaime. In the fiercely fought campaign for Arthabaska, local concerns have given way to a referendum on the Conservative leader, said political analyst Alain Rayes, a former federal Conservative MP for the region. In four years on the job, Éric Duhaime has been unable to lead Quebec's Conservatives to winning even a single seat in the legislature. But now he's in a two-way race with a reasonable chance of claiming the party's first seat in 90 years. "When we talk to people on the ground, it's really, 'We want to give Éric Duhaime a chance,' or, 'We don't want anything to do with Éric Duhaime and we don't want to be the ones who open the door, who roll out the carpet toward the national assembly,'" he said. Quebec's first premier was a Conservative, and the original Conservative Party of Quebec dominated politics in the province for 30 years after Confederation. The party's support collapsed at the end of the 19th century, however, and conservatives did not form government again until the ascension of Maurice Duplessis's right-leaning Union Nationale in the 1930s. The emergence of Quebec's independence movement and the Parti Québécois in the 1960s created a new divide on the question of sovereignty that would define provincial politics for decades to come, with the Quebec Liberals as the default choice for federalists. It wasn't until the 2018 election of the right-leaning Coalition Avenir Québec – a nationalist party promising not to hold a referendum – that separatism took a back seat as the dominant issue in Quebec politics. It was in this context that Duhaime took the reins in 2021 of the Conservative Party of Quebec, newly reconstituted a little over a decade earlier. Duhaime, formerly a conservative talk-radio host, built up the party's base by tapping into frustration over pandemic health restrictions, and now presents himself as the voice of a growing number of Quebecers who don't see their values reflected by any of the province's four major parties. "They're all proposing a little bit less or a little bit more of the same model," said Duhaime, who describes himself as a longtime friend of federal Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre. "It's the interventionist model. We're elsewhere. We're saying, 'Look, this is over.'" In recent months, Duhaime has kept himself in the headlines by calling for the abolition of Quebec's carbon-pricing system after the federal carbon levy was scrapped in April – a position not shared by any party with seats in the legislature. "There are several subjects on which there is almost unanimity in the national assembly," said political analyst Antonine Yaccarini. "And the Conservative party wants to break that unanimity." In the 2022 election, Duhaime's Conservatives won nearly 13 per cent of the vote – barely less than any of the main opposition parties. But because of how his support was distributed, he failed to win a single seat. "We represent more than one Quebecer out of eight and we have zero seats out of 125," he said. Meanwhile, the Parti Québécois is trying to prove it still has what it takes to form government next year. "People are extremely disappointed with the CAQ government," Boissonneault said. "We are experiencing momentum in the Parti Québécois that it has not experienced for several years." The sovereigntist party has already won two byelections from the CAQ in the last two years, but has faced questions about its promise to hold a third referendum on independence by 2030, given U.S. President Donald Trump's economic threats. Boissonneault downplayed that pledge this week, saying he thinks voters in Arthabaska understand sovereignty isn't the "fundamental issue" in this campaign. If the PQ fails to win Arthabaska, Yaccarini said, it could give the impression the party has lost "the wind in its sails." But Duhaime's political future could also be at stake on Monday night. If he loses, Rayes, the former Conservative MP, said, "it's going to be more and more difficult for him." The riding, a largely agricultural region surrounding the town of Victoriaville, gave the Conservatives nearly 25 per cent of the vote during the last provincial election. The federal riding of Richmond–Arthabaska has voted Conservative since 2015. The seat was vacated earlier this year when the Coalition Avenir Québec incumbent resigned to run for the federal Conservatives. Legault's party could now face a crushing defeat in a riding where it won more than 50 per cent of the vote in the last two elections. Poll aggregator shows the Conservatives and PQ tied at 37 per cent support in the riding, with the CAQ and the Liberals far behind at nine per cent. Keven Brasseur, the CAQ candidate and former president of the local chamber of commerce, said the polls don't align with the reaction he's getting from voters. "There are people who tell me they want to choose someone local," he said. "There are a group of people who say they vote for the candidate before the political party." Still, it's undoubtedly Duhaime who has the most to gain – and possibly the most to lose – on Monday. "We're representing a huge percentage of the population and at least we're going to have a voice," he said. "There's going to be something different. I think that's what people are looking for."
National Observer
2 days ago
- Politics
- National Observer
High-stakes, two-way race emerges in Quebec byelection with Conservatives hoping for first seat
A high-stakes Quebec byelection could see the Conservatives win their first seat in the provincial legislature on Monday. Conservative Leader Éric Duhaime appears to be in a close two-way race with the sovereigntist Parti Québécois candidate in the Quebec riding of Arthabaska. The governing Coalition Avenir Québec, which has held the riding since 2012, seems poised to lose its third straight byelection in less than two years. Duhaime, a polarizing figure in Quebec politics, is hoping to enter the national assembly after his party failed to win a seat in the 2022 election. The Parti Québécois is trying to keep up its momentum heading into the next provincial election, set for October 2026. The riding was vacated earlier this year when the Coalition Avenir Québec incumbent resigned to run for the federal Conservatives. This report by The Canadian Press was first published Aug. 6, 2025.
Toronto Star
2 days ago
- Politics
- Toronto Star
Two-way race emerges in Quebec byelection with Conservatives hoping for first seat
MONTREAL - A high-stakes Quebec byelection could see the Conservatives win their first seat in the provincial legislature on Monday. Conservative Leader Éric Duhaime appears to be in a close two-way race with the sovereigntist Parti Québécois candidate in the Quebec riding of Arthabaska.
