Conservative leader Pierre Poilievre is touring Quebec as he tries to assemble a coalition of voters ahead of the next election campaign.
During his trek through Montreal, Trois-Rivières and Quebec City, Poilievre is trying to win over skeptical voters in a province that hasn’t been fertile ground for conservative politicians for a generation.
Former Prime Minister Brian Mulroney won two consecutive elections in the 1980s thanks to lopsided victories in Quebec. But after the emergence of the Bloc Quebecois, the Conservative Party of Canada failed to make inroads in the province.
The most successful Conservative leader of the 21st century so far, former prime minister Stephen Harper, won just five provincial seats in the 2011 election, even though his party defeated the Liberals in a key election in English Canada.
A recent poll by Angus Reid shows Poilliever has plenty of ground to make up if he is to challenge the Liberals and BQ for supremacy in the province.
According to a December 2022 survey, only eight percent of the 849 Quebecers surveyed had a “very favorable” opinion of Poilievre. Another 12 percent have a “favorable” opinion of the Ontario MP. About 44 percent have a “very unfavorable” opinion.
After more than seven years in government, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau still enjoys relatively high levels of support in his home province, with 47 percent of Quebecers polled by Angus Reid either “strongly approving” or “moderately approving” ” his performance.
Christian Bourque is executive vice president of Leger, a Quebec-based polling firm. He said there was no “Poilievre swelling” in the province.
While he easily won nearly every race in the province during his leadership campaign, Poilievre’s numbers are underwater among the broader Quebec electorate, Bourque said.
“We’ve seen a little bit of improvement in terms of Mr. Poilievre’s numbers in Ontario, in British Columbia, but so far nothing in the province of Quebec,” Bourque said.
“There are several issues that could explain this,” he added. “One is the perception that he is more radical than his predecessor, Mr. O’Toole, particularly on social conservatism, which, as we know in Quebec, just doesn’t work.” (Poilievre said he would not reopened the abortion debate in Canada.)
“The other reason may be that Quebecers just haven’t warmed to it.”
Federal Conservative Party leader Pierre Poilievre and his wife Anaida arrive to speak at an adult education center as he begins his tour of Quebec on Monday, Jan. 16, 2023, in Montreal. (Ryan Remiortz/The Canadian Press)
Poilievre’s strong anti-Trudeau message also has less appeal in Quebec, Bourque said, because the premier still enjoys relatively high levels of support in the province.
His anti-establishment message, his support for some aspects of the vaccine mandate protests and his general opposition to COVID-19 policies are also not big votes in the province, he added.
Poilievre’s more strident conservatism has already claimed a senior Quebec MP. Alain Reiss, who backed former Quebec premier Jean Charest in the leadership race, left the Tory faction after that tough campaign.
Poilievre’s predecessor, Erin O’Toole, identified Quebec as a key part of his path to victory.
Despite portraying himself as a “true blue” Conservative during the party’s leadership campaign, O’Toole pivoted after that victory, casting himself as a moderate to appeal to disaffected Liberals, BQ and other voters.
His 2021 election manifesto also included a number of Quebec-specific promises designed to convince voters there that the Tories are committed to their political distinctiveness.
Then-Conservative leader Erin O’Toole, left, and Quebec Premier Francois Legault meet in Montreal on Sept. 14, 2020. (Ryan Remiorz/Canadian Press)
With a commitment to “build on the historic recognition of the Quebec nation by the previous Conservative government,” O’Toole said a government led by him would decentralize the federal government and hand more powers to the province.
He promised to harmonize Canadian and Quebec tax returns, give the province more powers over immigration and temporary foreign workers and remain neutral on Bill 21, the provincial legislation that bans public servants from wearing religious garb.
And O’Toole promised climate action. In Quebec, voters often tell pollsters that climate change is their top political issue.
Poilievre has yet to take a similar approach to Quebec.
His message in the province is largely the same as that in English Canada — laser-focused on inflation and debt — and offers nothing tailored to a Quebec audience.
In an interview with Radio-Canada on Monday, Polievre said he “respects the autonomy of Quebec” and that “Quebecers must be masters in their own house.” Promising to reduce the size of government and reform the “broken” tax system, he also said he believes “Quebecers have the same concerns as other Canadians.”
Earlier Monday, he told reporters in Quebec that he would work with the province to speed up the certification of foreign-trained health professionals to address labor shortages and streamline environmental reviews to build more projects for Natural Resources – both platforms he took over when he was out of the province.
Dimitri Soudas, a Montreal-born former communications director for Harper, said there was a “very stark contrast” between what O’Toole presented to Quebecers and what Poilievre is offering now.
“Erin O’Toole showed up in Quebec and said to the prime minister — a popular prime minister, Francois Legault — ‘Ask me anything you want and I’ll say yes.’ Lego then told Quebecers, “Vote for anyone but the Liberals and the NDP,” effectively endorsing Erin O’Toole and the Conservatives. Yet it won zero new seats for the Conservative Party of Canada.” Sudas said.
“Mr. Poilievre departs from this past approach. He’s basically saying, ‘I’m going to come to Quebec and talk to you like I talk to the rest of the country,’ whether it’s the economy or crime, whether it’s foreign policy.”
Soudas said Poilievre’s biggest hope is that the election comes at the right time — when enough Quebecers and other Canadians are tired of Trudeau and ready for a change.
If the economy is in disarray, Soudas said, Poilievre may be well-positioned to pounce, given his frequent references to “Justinflation” — his joking name for the Liberal government’s inflation rates.
“In politics, timing is everything,” he said. “He seems to be completely focused on the economy and that could very well lead to electoral success for him as long as the economy is the main issue during the next election campaign.”
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