Minister Geneviève Guilbault could not find the words to appease the discontent of the political and economic leaders of Chaudière-Appalaches caused by the abandonment of the promise to build a third road link between Quebec and Lévis. “The South Shore-North Shore motorway link, we care about it”, could we still read on the electronic notice board of the municipality of Saint-Lazare-de-Bellechasse after its passage Thursday afternoon. Appeals to reason from the Minister of Transport, and lover of the French language, have failed. And now ?
How voters shocked by the abandonment of the promise to build a road tunnel under the St. Lawrence River, from Bellechasse and elsewhere, can they be heard by the Coalition avenir Québec between now and the next general election , which are scheduled for October 5, 2026?
“The tools are limited during the mandate,” explains the professor at the School of Applied Politics at the University of Sherbrooke, Jean-François Daoust. “They can send signals of discontent”—like those appearing in the last Léger poll – to force the Legault government to “propose alternative solutions” to them in order to increase mobility and safety on the roads of the Quebec City agglomeration or offer them any other “compensation”, he adds.
Regardless of their parliamentary majority, heads of government remain sensitive, between two electoral meetings, not only to opinion polls, but also to the pressure exerted by coalitions of elected and non-elected members on the members of their group. parliamentarian and their political party and, by extension, on the members of the Council of Ministers, points out a political strategist who has seen snow.
Moreover, it is difficult to explain why CAQ MPs found themselves overnight on the front line with, as their only weapon, the promise to build a link reserved exclusively for public transit between the city centers of Quebec and Lévis. “A slingshot”, in his eyes, to put down a particularly dangerous “slingshot” since it is led by people who have hitherto been in their own camp.
The CAQ saw its support plummet in the census metropolitan area (CMA) of Quebec, falling from 40% to 26% between February and May (-14 points), observed Léger.
If the “signal of discontent” remains “strong enough”, the caquists will have no choice but to “find alternative solutions which could potentially appease the discontent”, underlines Professor Daoust. But, “if it is no longer on the media agenda two weeks later, and the government still has a very strong base of support that keeps it in first place, it has much less incentive to respond, to adapt its strategy,” he continues.
On the way to 2026
General elections are a golden opportunity to punish (or reward) a political party. Despite all its flaws, the first-past-the-post system “is the best way to send a clear signal of dissatisfaction, to hold responsible the person who displeased us during the mandate”, judge Jean-François Daoust, at nearly three and a half years from the next election.
Voters have long memories. Philippe Couillard’s team had learned this the hard way during the 2018 general elections. literally save Quebec”, starting with that of raising the rates for educational childcare services – which the Liberal Party of Quebec had nevertheless promised not to do during the 2014 election campaign.
The modulation of childcare service fees based on parental income shocked voters of all political stripes—including PQ members who supported the Parti Québécois in one way or another, Solidarity supporters who in one way supported or another Québec solidaire, etc. — in the four corners of Quebec. On the other hand, the abandonment of the project for a third road link between Quebec and Lévis angers first and foremost the sympathizers of the CAQ in the greater Quebec City region – for whom the political party of François Legault was the champion of the development of the economy, the defense of Quebec’s specificity… and a third Quebec-Lévis road link.
“Not a disaster so far”
For the moment, the drop in support observed by Léger is, yes, “very significant in Quebec” (-14 points), but “it is not a disaster either for the moment”, nuance Jean-François Daoust. The CAQ remains the most popular political party in Quebec, garnering 36% of voting intentions (-4 points) against 22% for the PQ (+4 points), 16% for QS (-1 point), still 14% for the PLQ and 10% for the Conservative Party of Quebec (+1 point), which won six points in the Quebec City CMA.
Nevertheless, several delegates from the Capitale-Nationale will sketch a forced smile during the CAQ Congress in Sherbrooke next weekend. In particular, they will debate a proposal calling on the government to “promote the integration of the various public transit networks on the outskirts of urban centers”, but not the abandonment of the third Quebec-Lévis road link project, according to the congress participant distributed on Friday.
The temptation to “send signals of discontent” to their leader, François Legault – who must also submit to a vote of confidence – will be great for some of them.