Partial in Terrebonne | Towards a two-way fight between the PQ and the CAQ

(Quebec) The four elected PQ officials did not hesitate: a few hours after the resignation of CAQ superminister Pierre Fitzgibbon, they boarded what looked like a campaign bus on Thursday and headed to the now vacant riding of Terrebonne to hold a campaign rally.

The signal is clear: the leader of the Parti Québécois (PQ), Paul St-Pierre Plamondon, wants to reconquer this former PQ stronghold. But the battle is still far from being won, because the Coalition avenir Québec (CAQ) will not let this riding on the North Shore of Montreal slip through its fingers.

The creator of the poll aggregator Qc125, Philippe J. Fournier, is categorical: the pressure is enormous for the PQ. “If the PQ doesn’t win Terrebonne, it can’t win the general election. There is no scenario where the PQ wins the greatest number of seats – even a minority – and Terrebonne is not part of it,” he said in an interview with The Canadian Press.

This is because, unlike Jean-Talon, which was never a PQ member before Pascal Paradis’ surprise victory last October, Terrebonne was a PQ bastion for several decades.

Former PQ fortified castle

Between 1976 and 2018, the PQ lost Terrebonne only once; it was against Mario Dumont’s Action démocratique du Québec in 2007. The ADQ reign was short-lived, however, as the PQ regained the riding in 2008.

In 2018, the CAQ won its first majority mandate and Pierre Fitzgibbon won the riding against the outgoing PQ MNA Mathieu Traversy. The man who would become the Legault government’s superminister of Economy, Innovation and Energy kept the riding in 2022 with 49% of the vote. The PQ only won 19%. The pressure on the CAQ is therefore also very great in the upcoming by-election.

“If the CAQ starts losing ridings that it won by 30%, that doesn’t bode well,” says Philippe J. Fournier.

The importance of the 450

According to the creator of Qc125, the suburbs around Montreal will be crucial in the next provincial elections. “If you don’t win the 450, you won’t be close to power. […] “Is the PQ really back in the suburbs of Montreal? It’s going to be a good test,” he says.

For now, his poll aggregator places Terrebonne in the category of probable gains for the PQ. But Philippe J. Fournier has a caveat, because it is difficult to survey the voting intentions of voters in this specific riding. “The margin of error is large when you don’t have local polls,” he explains.

The latest polls place the PQ in the lead in voting intentions across the province. The CAQ is in second place. These two political parties are the ones that attract the most francophone voters and Terrebonne has a very high percentage (93%) of people whose “language most often spoken at home” is French, according to Élections Québec.

The fight between the PQ and the CAQ in Terrebonne will therefore be tough, especially since the two political parties are communicating vessels in terms of voters.

The other political parties (the Quebec Liberal Party, Quebec Solidaire and Éric Duhaime’s Conservative Party) are not really competitive at the moment, according to Qc125.

The government has six months to call a by-election after an MP leaves office. The estimated cost of such an election is $725,000. No party has yet nominated a candidate.

The Terrebonne riding was created in 1929 and is located in the Lanaudière region. Over the years, its territory has undergone several changes. “The toponym refers to the name of the seigneury of Terrebonne or Terbonne, granted to André Daulier Deslandes […] in 1673. The name of his seigneury was given because of the fertility of the land,” we can read on the Élections Québec website.