The 43rd general election in Quebec has officially begun.
Coalition Avenier Québec (CAQ) leader Francois Legault made the announcement Sunday morning after asking Lt.-Gov. Michel Doyon to dissolve the legislature.
“The real campaign begins,” Lego said as he made his way to the campaign bus.
Election signs have already been put up in towns across the province. The campaign will run for about five weeks before Quebecers head to the polls on Oct. 3.
Party leaders are in full gear, appearing in several ridings throughout the day.
Legault’s Quebec Liberals and CAQ were the first parties to hold press conferences launching their campaigns on Sunday morning.
Parti Québécois (PQ) leader Paul Saint-Pierre Plamondon then spoke in the Montreal reading of Camille-Laurent, followed by Quebec Conservative Party leader Eric Duhaime in his riding of Chauvreau, northeast of Quebec City.
Québec Solidaire (QS) has launched its campaign in the riding of Saint-François in the Eastern Townships, where it hopes to make gains in this election.
All major party leaders have named candidates and made campaign promises in recent weeks.
Polls show the CAQ has a convincing lead at the start of the campaign and is expected to reach a second majority.
The economy was one of the main topics on which party leaders opened their election campaigns.
Liberal leader Dominique Anglade said the economy would be the voting issue and suggested the topic of Quebec’s economic growth had been neglected by the CAQ.
“Ask any Quebecer if it’s better today than it was four years ago, and they’ll say no,” Anglad said.
“The reality is that people don’t have that much money in their pockets. We need a long-term plan and these are the proposals we have.”
Economy top of mind
At a press conference outside Montmorency Falls outside Quebec City soon after, Legault said he was proud of the state of Quebec’s economy, but acknowledged that inflation was the number one concern voters had shared with him during his recent trips around the province.
“Wages in Quebec have never increased so quickly, so can we agree that there is something good for our workers right now?” he said. “Who do you really trust to manage your wallet?”
He also mentioned more than once that during his time as premier, Quebec had narrowed its wealth gap with Ontario.
He addressed Anglade’s accusations about the economy, saying in French: “How can this madam say that Quebec’s economy is not doing well? We’ve never seen Quebec’s economy outperform Ontario’s under the Liberals.”
Legault also said that “the labor shortage is not caused by CAQ.”
Anglade soon tweeted back that “My name is Dominique.”
Legault said the CAQ will share its four measures to address the cost of living in the coming days, and that it will include specific ways to green the province’s economy, including measures to combat climate change and reduce greenhouse gas emissions.
Lego’s launch in the capital suggests his party wants to strengthen its base in the region, where conservatives under Duheim appear to be gaining ground.
Quebec Conservative Party leader Eric Duhaime said his campaign began a week ago. (Radio-Canada)
Asked if Duhaime threatened the CAQ’s strongholds in Quebec City and the Bos region, Legault said the pandemic has taught him the importance of staying humble and that he tells his team every day, “Don’t take anything for granted.”
He said he believed the Conservatives’ growing popularity could be partly due to the backlash to pandemic restrictions, but felt it was his duty to implement sometimes tough measures to protect vulnerable people.
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. Québec Solidaire and the Conservative Party of Quebec received 15 percent and 13 percent, respectively.
Growing popularity of conservatives
Duhaime held his press conference in front of a small group of supporters, saying his campaign had begun a week ago without waiting for Lego to give the go-ahead.
Coalition Avenir Québec leader Francois Legault launched his campaign in front of the popular Montmorency gutters. (Mathew Potvin/Radio-Canada)
He said the fact that his party has already fielded 125 candidates for the first time in a Quebec election is a victory.
“I can feel a lot of enthusiasm and a very strong mobilization on the part of our base, and we have 36 days to convince hundreds of thousands of other Quebecers,” Duhaime said.
Health, housing and climate change
Québec Solidaire (QS) is positioning itself as the main opposition to the CAQ, trying to capitalize on the Liberals’ decline in the polls.
Gabrielle Nadeau-Dubois, QS co-host, said the upcoming mandate is Quebec’s “last chance” to fight climate change.
“We have a responsibility to act now,” he said. “The first priority should be the health of people and the health of the environment.
Québec Solidaire spokespeople Gabrielle Nadeau-Dubois, center, and Manon Massé, left, launched their party’s campaign in Sherbrooke on Sunday. (Matt D’Amours/CBC)
He said his party will present an ambitious platform that will solve the housing crisis, “revolutionize” transportation and make Quebec “one of the greenest countries in the world,” referring to QS’s support for sovereignty.
“We will end the biggest polluters getting a free pass.”
In Montreal, Plamondon said his party could be the Cinderella story of the election – “The team that will go much further than everyone predicted.”
Despite the PQ’s dismal poll results, Plamondon said the party would rely on a platform based on the authenticity of its beliefs.
Paul Saint-Pierre Plamondon said he hopes the Parti Quebecois will be the “Cinderella team” in this election and do better than predicted. (Radio-Canada)
“In face of the decline Canada has chosen for us, we do not accept the CAQ’s invitation to resign. We choose hope and firmness,” Plamondon said, hinting at the CAQ’s position that Quebec should not secede from the rest of Canada to assert its sovereignty.
“Simply put, to be a sovereignist is to be a realist,” Plamondon said. “We want to make sure that everyone understands that this idea is also first and foremost about our future as a nation and the future of the French language.”
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.
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