Conservative leader Pierre Poilievre’s tour of Quebec this week leaves little doubt. The Conservative Party of Canada (CPC) has set out to conquer Bloc Québécois ridings in regions of the province where Mr. Poilievre’s messages on the cost of living, immigration and the economy seem to be resonating. Mr. Poilievre’s troops are no longer content to protect their gains in the Quebec City region; they have ambitions well beyond their current nine seats.
The “Bloc-Liberal” — as Mr. Poilievre now calls the party led by Yves-François Blanchet — is in the CPC’s crosshairs like never before since the party was created, born from the merger in 2003 between the Progressive Conservative Party and the Canadian Alliance. “The Bloc-Liberal voted 188 times to keep Justin Trudeau in power,” Mr. Poilievre said in an interview Tuesday on Radio-Canada. “They voted for Justin Trudeau’s $500 billion in bureaucratic, inflationary and centralist spending. They voted to increase capital gains taxes, to increase gasoline taxes, to put more taxes in the pockets of Justin Trudeau and the federal government. So it’s either the Bloc-Liberal or the common-sense Conservatives. That’s the choice for Quebecers.”
A poll by Abacus Data published earlier this month caused a stir within the Bloc by placing the CPC slightly ahead in Quebec, with the support of 31% of voters in the province, compared to 30% for Mr. Blanchet’s troops. Mr. Trudeau’s Liberals were at 24%, while Jagmeet Singh’s New Democratic Party garnered 12% of intentions. However, the latest Abacus poll, published Wednesday, places the Conservatives at 26%, the Bloc at 30% and the Liberals and NDP at 29% and 9% respectively. Of course, all these figures must be taken with a certain reserve, given the greater margin of error involved in such a Web survey based on a limited sample of Quebec voters.
Nonetheless, a clear trend has been emerging for several months. The CPC, which won 18% of the vote in Quebec in the 2021 federal election, is gradually moving towards the so-called “pay zone,” where each percentage point gained at the expense of rival parties increases its chances of winning additional seats. On the other hand, support for the Bloc is stagnating at around 30%, below the 32% of the vote won in 2021, when the party won 32 seats. However, the Bloc’s support is spread across the province, both in the greater Montreal area and in the province’s rural regions. The Conservatives remain virtually absent from Montreal ridings. Their vote is concentrated elsewhere in the province.
“I don’t remember seeing a Conservative Party that was as combative in directly targeting the Bloc,” says Abacus Data president David Coletto. “It remains a tall order to win the popular vote in Quebec without having a Quebec leader. But the importance that Quebecers give to certain issues, such as immigration and the cost of living, means that they are more open to voting for the Conservatives.”
Indeed, according to Abacus data, Quebecers are much more likely than Canadians in most other provinces to identify immigration as one of the most important issues in the upcoming election. While 35 per cent of Quebecers rank immigration among their most important concerns, only 21 per cent of British Columbia voters do so, compared to 24 per cent of Prairie voters and 20 per cent of Atlantic voters. Ontarians are closer to Quebecers on this issue, with 32 per cent considering immigration a key issue in the upcoming federal campaign. “The data indicate that immigration is not just a peripheral issue, but a driving force behind a political realignment in Quebec,” Coletto noted in a recent analysis.
Quebec voters are anything but predictable. In 2011, they mobilized massively behind the NDP to prevent, unsuccessfully, the election of a majority Conservative government. A similar phenomenon could occur in the next election if enough Quebecers fear the consequences of a Poilievre-led government on environmental and social protection issues. The Bloc remains more likely than the NDP, this time, to be the beneficiary of an anything-but-Conservative movement.
While in Sacré-Coeur, on the Haute-Côte-Nord this week, Mr. Poilievre denounced the emergency decree that federal Environment Minister Steven Guilbeault is threatening to impose to protect the woodland caribou in this region that is heavily dependent on the timber industry. Once again, the Conservative leader had the Bloc in his sights. “Our Quebec Conservative team says NO to the Bloc-Liberal decree,” he wrote on the X network while posing in front of a sign reading “Village for sale,” erected by workers at the Boisaco forestry cooperative, who fear losing their jobs if the decree is adopted. Let the Bloc-PCC joust begin.