Understand | Quebec politics

The political landscape is changing in Quebec. The stakes are changing, the divisions are more numerous and the players are multiplying. The current election campaign and its five main parties are proof of this. A few days before the election, our journalists present three recently published works to help you better understand Quebec politics.

An evolving story

The new Quebec voter

Éric Bélanger, Jean-François Daoust, Valérie-Anne Mahéo and Richard Nadeau

The Presses of the University of Montreal

182 pages

The election of the Coalition avenir Québec (CAQ) in 2018 was not only a reflection of a desire for change on the part of Quebec voters. It was “the culmination of a recomposition of the Quebec partisan space” which began in the wake of the second referendum, in 1995. This is what the four academics who sign The new Quebec voter explain to us. According to them, the transition from bipartisanship to multipartyism (where the CAQ and Québec solidaire stand out in particular) demonstrates that new issues are now structuring the vote of Quebecers. There is a left-right divide, where the nature of state intervention is debated, and a liberal-authoritarian divide, marked by divisions over identity issues and environmental protection. The result of the October 3 poll should confirm their thesis and prove that Quebec is going through “a pivotal period” in its electoral history.

Alexandre Sirois, The Press

The champions of the new right

Generation MBC – Mathieu Bock-Côté and the new conservative intellectuals

Frederic Boily

Laval University Press

202 pages

Even if he lives in Paris, Mathieu Bock-Côté is very present in the Quebec political debate. Among other things, he comments on the election campaign on a daily basis in the pages of the Montreal Journal. And if the political debate often moves on the ground of identity – among other things in the positions of the CAQ and sometimes in those of the PQ –, there is a little for something. Political scientist Frédéric Boily took an interest in MBC and this new generation of conservative intellectuals whom he describes in his book as “protesters”. Anti-woke (they see them everywhere), critics of multiculturalism, nationalists, these new thinkers have updated old concepts such as nation and homeland. This book presents their ideas and analyzes their impact.

Nathalie Collard, The Press

An in-depth analysis

Disadvantage – The new face of Quebec politics

Issue 90, Fall 2022

Available in select bookstores and online

The latest issue of the excellent magazine Disadvantage is devoted to Quebec politics. It comes on time. Instead of analyzing the daily noise of the polls, we analyze society in depth. As usual, the texts are varied and rich. A political orphan, Marie-France Bazzo examines the CAQ and the “continuity in change” it offers. It also reverses the framework of analysis to ask what the CAQ says about us. For his part, the historian Éric Bédard paints a portrait of François Legault, whose speeches he has already written. We discover the chef caquiste in his faults and his qualities, a “manager” above all who looks more like a businessman than an ideologue. Marc Chevrier, Orian Dorais, Georges Mercier, Benoît Côté, Sarah-Louise Pelletier-Morin and Mathieu Bélisle write the other texts in this issue.

Paul Journet, The Press