Citizens of the highly contested riding of Jean-Talon, in Quebec, are called to the polls this Monday as part of a by-election.
Voters who have not exercised their right to vote in advance will have until 8 p.m. to choose between the ten candidates who aspire to replace CAQ MP Joëlle Boutin, who announced her resignation on July 19 for family reasons and professionals.
To replace her and keep the riding within its fold, the Coalition Avenir Québec (CAQ) is banking on Marie-Anik Shoiry. She notably faces Pascal Paradis of the Parti Québécois (PQ), Olivier Bolduc of Québec solidaire (QS), Élise Avard Bernier of the Liberal Party of Quebec (PLQ) and Jesse Robitaille of the Conservative Party of Quebec (PCQ).
The head of Climat Québec, former PQ minister Martine Ouellet, also appears on the ballot.
This is the fourth complementary election in this constituency since 2008. It was also during a partial election in 2019 that Mme Boutin was elected for the first time in Jean-Talon.
She was then re-elected last October, during the general elections, obtaining 32.5% of the support. Mr. Bolduc, from QS, ranked second with 23.8%.
Before the election of Mme Boutin, Jean-Talon was a liberal fortress, with liberal elected officials succeeding one another from 1965 to 2019.
More than a fifth of eligible voters — 22.25% — voted in advance on September 24 and 25. According to Élections Québec, 46,940 people are registered on the electoral list for the by-election.
The riding of Jean-Talon includes the part of Quebec City located in the borough of Sainte-Foy–Sillery–Cap-Rouge.
Polls will open at 9:30 a.m. Monday.
Hot fight on the ground
This electoral campaign was a close fight on the ground between the CAQ and the PQ, as the chief whip of the CAQ government, Éric Lefebvre, himself admitted.
We learned that Mr. Paradis, the PQ candidate, already discussed with the CAQ the possibility of running as a candidate in the riding of Charlevoix — Côte-de-Beaupré before last year’s general elections.
The CAQ maintained that the talks had failed because Mr. Paradis was asking for a ministerial post, which the main person concerned denied. The lawyer responded by maintaining that it was the CAQ which had approached him and that he had then expressed his opposition to the third link project.
Mr. Paradis affirmed that during the discussions, Mr. Legault’s chief of staff, Martin Koskinen, told him that the CAQ was going to abandon the third highway link after the election, which the Prime Minister vehemently denied.
Despite its second place in this riding in 2022, QS had more difficulty making its voice heard in this CAQ-PQ duel, being splashed by some controversies along the way.
First, the QS management lined up behind a candidate for the nomination, Christine Gilbert, but the members had the last word by choosing again Mr. Bolduc, who is on his third attempt to be elected in this constituency.
Also, QS came under criticism for placing advertisements on Facebook, thus deviating from the boycott of Meta called by all parties. This call for a boycott came following Meta’s decision to block Canadian media content on its platforms, including Facebook and Instagram.
Without a leader and adrift in the French-speaking electorate, the PLQ had a lot to do to reconquer what had always been its citadel until 2019. Mme Avard Bernier, their candidate, is co-founder of the site Viedeparents.ca.
For its part, Éric Duhaime’s PCQ, with its candidate Jesse Robitaille, focused mainly on its opposition to the Quebec tramway project, even if it is mainly an issue debated on the municipal scene.
Parade of ministers
The Caquists pulled out all the stops to keep Jean-Talon in their fold, while ministers, deputies, political staff and the Prime Minister himself campaigned in the constituency. All parties pride themselves on having put their deputation to work on the ground.
The CAQ has had an almost perfect record in the complementary since October 2, 2017, during their unexpected victory with Geneviève Guilbault in Louis-Hébert against the PLQ then in power. Many agree that this gain was a turning point in the history of François Legault’s party.
The Caquists notably won Roberval, a seat left vacant by the departure of liberal leader Philippe Couillard, in 2018, Jean-Talon in 2019 and Marie-Victorin in April 2022.
But exception this year: in March, voters elected a solidarity deputy, Guillaume Cliche-Rivard, during the complementary election in Saint-Henri-Sainte-Anne, in Montreal, to fill the seat left vacant by the departure of the former Liberal leader Dominique Anglade.
With information from Patrice Bergeron