Premier Francois Legault says campaigning for the fall provincial election will begin “for real” on Sunday, after weeks of informal campaigning by political parties and billions of dollars already promised to voters.
Legault made the announcement Tuesday in a 26-second video uploaded to social media. He said the campaign will officially begin on August 28 and continue until polling day on October 3.
“I want, of course, to wish all the candidates a good campaign,” Lego said in the video, adding, “August 28th really starts!”
Polls show the Legault Coalition party Avenir Québec has a convincing lead in the campaign and the party is expected to reach a second majority. A Léger poll released earlier this month found support for Léger’s party at 44 percent, compared to 18 percent for the second-placed Quebec Liberals. Quebec Solidarity and the Conservative Party of Quebec received 15 percent and 13 percent, respectively.
Although the official first day of campaigning has not yet begun, all major party leaders have already named candidates and made campaign promises in recent weeks.
CAQ pledged billions of dollars in new projects. In mid-August, Legault pledged $1.8 billion for thousands of new subsidized affordable housing units. A week later, Family Minister Mathieu Lacombe pledged $1.4 billion over five years to convert more than 56,000 unsubsidized kindergarten places into subsidized spaces.
On Tuesday, Lego announced it would create a $650 million fund to ensure the health of the province’s lakes and rivers if the party is re-elected. Meanwhile, Liberal leader Dominique Anglade has pledged to ensure that every Quebec resident will have a family doctor under her leadership.
The once-mighty Quebec Party, which has been struggling near the bottom of the polls, has promised affordable public transportation, while the Conservatives under leader Eric Duhaime have already held an official campaign launch. Quebec’s leftist Solidarity, which made a breakthrough in the 2018 election by winning its first seats outside the island of Montreal, has promised new funding for parents who can’t find kindergarten spots.
Québec solidaire responded to Legault’s video on Tuesday with its own message on Twitter, promising to run “the biggest campaign in its history.”
Despite the early start of the parties, the official date of the campaign remains important, since from that moment the expenses are tracked and regulated according to the rules laid down in the Electoral Law.
When the legislature dissolved in the summer, Lego’s party had 76 seats, while the Quebec Liberals had 27, Québec solidaire had 10 and the Parti Québécois had seven. The Conservative Party of Quebec had one seat and there were four independents.
This report from The Canadian Press was first published on August 23, 2022
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