The objectives of the leaders during the debate

The leaders of the main parties will appear this Thursday evening at the second and final debate of the campaign, each with very distinct objectives. Overview.

Legault wants to do better

The caquistes recognize it: François Legault did not have a good performance during the Face to face last week.

It is even surprising that the party has not lost feathers in the polls since. The leader himself admitted that he should “improve” his performance at the next debate, this Thursday evening. Both in substance and in form.

We first want to refine the non-verbal language: no question of seeing a scowling François Legault again, constantly pouting. It was amazing to hear the leader explain that he didn’t know the camera was filming him as the others attacked him; he is the only leader to have taken part in a leaders’ debate before (2012, 2014 and 2018).

Manhandled by his opponents last week, he replied by trying to unravel the electoral promises of others without really talking about his ideas – sometimes even going off topic, another mistake to avoid.

François Legault will seek to further promote his electoral platform. The Radio-Canada format will lend itself better. It is to be expected that he will seek to impose his “question from the ballot box”.

Mr. Legault will thus want to play the game of comparison. Unlike his rivals, he hates mock debates with members of his team impersonating other leaders. It sticks to advice on the messages to put forward and a review of the files. It is not because he is an accountant that he will be stuffed in his head with figures: some key data will be retained to avoid getting tangled up and losing the audience.

Tommy Chouinard, The Press

Meet “the real Dominica”

With polls against him and a difficult start to the campaign, Dominique Anglade is betting big on this second match to reverse the trend and move the needle in his favour.

The leader of the Quebec Liberal Party has slipped to 16% in voting intentions, according to the most recent Léger poll, which puts her on a par with her opponents from Quebec solidaire and the Conservative Party of Quebec, a first for the opposition. official.

Several Liberal strongholds are also threatened, starting with Saint-Henri–Sainte-Anne, where she wants to be re-elected.

Although M.^me Anglade insists that the campaign is far from over, time is running out. On the ground, it shows. She was the only campaigner on Wednesday, as all of her opponents honed their weapons behind the scenes in anticipation of the debate.

Sign that she does not have the luxury of losing a day of visibility. Dominique Anglade has also changed strategy and is going more on instinct. On Tuesday, she left aside her notes prepared by her team to address the members of the Board of Trade of Metropolitan Montreal.

She is more laid back and appeared more comfortable getting her messages across. This is the style she wants to adopt for the last debate. “It’s the real Dominica,” she summed up on Wednesday. History will tell if she waited too long before revealing it.

Fanny Levesque, The Press

In search of the official opposition

Gabriel Nadeau-Dubois repeats it to anyone who will listen: October 3 is the “last chance” election for the climate. But the co-spokesperson for Québec solidaire will have to work hard to impose this theme during the second and final debate of the campaign, Thursday, on Radio-Canada.

Facing him, two of his main opponents, François Legault and Dominique Anglade, already claim that the question of the ballot box is the economy. And on this front, he may often hear the expression “orange tax”.

With his commitments to a surcharge on “ultra-polluting” vehicles and the tax he wants to raise for citizens who hold more than 1 million in net assets, the parliamentary leader of QS spends a lot of time defending himself from attacking to the middle class. These lost minutes do not allow him to shine the spotlight on the social and political upheavals that climate change will cause.

After a successful first debate last week, Mr. Nadeau-Dubois will want to put the environment back in the foreground. The polls confirm that Quebeckers are concerned about climate change, even if the subject is not the one that is essential, to date, when it comes to voting.

The polls also indicate that the parties of the opposition to François Legault almost equally separate the voters who no longer want the Coalition avenir Québec in power. If, for Gabriel Nadeau-Dubois, the campaign is the “last chance” for the climate, Thursday’s debate is also one of his last chances to launch attacks that will hit the mark in public opinion.

Because at the end of the evening, all eyes will be riveted on the race which will lead one of the leaders to finish good second, on October 3rd. And for now, whatever Mr. Nadeau-Dubois thinks, Québec solidaire is not the only party that can target the official opposition.

Hugo Pilon-Larose, The Press

A little higher, a little further

Paul St-Pierre Plamondon had a good first debate, where he made himself known to Quebecers. It allowed him to raise his popularity rating and pull his political party out of the abyss. But he must continue his momentum so that the Parti Québécois emerges from the marginality in which it has sunk.

Since the election was called, the Parti Québécois (PQ) has gone from 9% to 13% in voting intentions. Mr. Plamondon, who was largely unknown to the public, was obviously appreciated for his performance at the Face to face de TVA: even if Gabriel Nadeau-Dubois remains the favorite of those polled as leader of the official opposition (between 28% and 30%), Mr. St-Pierre Plamondon is now second, at 21%. At the end of August, it was dead last, with 12%.

But these results are below the thaw suffered by the independence party in 2018 (17%, 10 deputies). There are only two weeks left for Paul St-Pierre Plamondon to convince Quebeckers if he wants to go even further and catch up with the pack of opposition parties.

To say in this context that the debate this Thursday evening is crucial is an understatement. His team expects him to be a target of François Legault, who attacked him last week over his oil surcharge, which according to the CAQ leader would affect the price of gasoline.

But the PQ leader does not intend to change his strategy: have a calm tone, put forward his platform and outline in broad strokes François Legault’s opposition to the independence project. Its objective: to bring down the sovereignists in the “house” of the PQ.

Before the debate on Thursday, Paul St-Pierre Plamondon might find himself singing a well-known tune by Ginette Reno to prepare: “One more step, one small step, one more jump and I’m there, up there if I don’t fall, no I’m there, I don’t fall. »

Charles Lecavalier, The Press

After practice, the game

Eric Duhaime’s ultimate goal on Thursday will be to move the needle. After the Face to face of TVA, the Conservative Party of Quebec found itself tied in voting intentions with Quebec solidaire and the Liberal Party of Quebec, behind the Coalition avenir Quebec, according to the polling firm Léger. Unheard of in the recent history of political formation.

This was the Conservative leader’s first debate. Éric Duhaime showed himself to be more calm than when he was a radio host, accustomed to inflammatory statements. He sent back a more serious image, perhaps a little too much… in the opinion of his team.

“One of Éric’s great challenges is to smile,” admits his press officer, Cédric Lapointe.

A good communicator, Éric Duhaime has a very sharp sense of repartee. His shock replies had not all been rehearsed in advance for the Face to face. “Me, I will never tell you to show up in Cuba,” he replied tit for tat to Gabriel Nadeau-Dubois, who told him that he would be in his place as governor of Texas.

What is the mistake not to make? “We wouldn’t want him to start interrupting people,” explains Mr. Lapointe. We want him to be respectful. Let him not be too calm, but not too aggressive. Difficult task in a five-party debate where each leader will have to take his place without crushing his opponents.

Unaccustomed to this kind of oratorical contest, Éric Duhaime began to prepare weeks before the first debate of the electoral campaign. To date, he and his team have done “six or seven practices”, one a week.

On Wednesday, footballer Arnaud Gascon-Nadon played the role of François Legault. On Thursday, the Conservative leader intends to focus on revising his financial and statistical framework. As he did last week, he plans to run twice on the day of the debate, in the morning and in the afternoon, to relieve the pressure and ensure that he has good concentration.

Mylene Crete, The Press