In Montreal, bastions are now fragile
Several liberal castles in the metropolis could take on a pale blue or orange hue on Monday. This is particularly the case in the riding of Anjou–Louis-Riel, Liberal since 1998, where the CAQ is hot on its opponents.
QS could also carve out a place in other QLP strongholds by winning three-way races. This is particularly the case in Verdun, a Liberal riding since 1939, and in Saint-Henri–Sainte-Anne, where the Liberal leader Dominique Anglade is threatened.
The riding of Camille-Laurin, in Mercier–Hochelaga-Maisonneuve, will also be one to watch on Monday. A PQ member for seven successive terms, she fell into the hands of the CAQ in 2018. In this riding where nothing is decided in advance, the leader of the PQ, Paul St-Pierre Plamondon, is neck and neck with the outgoing CAQ MP , Richard Campeau.
Zacharie Goudreault
Laval could turn pale blue
Five of Laval’s six ridings that are currently Liberal are at risk of swinging to the CAQ camp on October 3, according to the most recent polls. This would be a major gain for the formation of François Legault, which won only one seat on Île Jésus in 2018, by having Christopher Skeete elected in the riding of Sainte-Rose (where he was elected). good chances of being re-elected).
This time, the CAQ is ahead in the riding of Fabre, Liberal since 2003, as well as in those of Laval-des-Rapides, Mille-Îles and Vimont, four ridings where the QLP’s lead has largely diminished since then. 2014.
The riding of Chomedey, for its part, should remain in the bosom of the PLQ, which is well ahead in the local polls.
Zacharie Goudreault
In Outaouais, the PLQ fights for its survival
Once dominant in the Outaouais, the Liberals are now fighting to stay there.
In 2018, the CAQ had dislodged them from three of the five ridings in the region: only Maryse Gaudreault (Hull) and André Fortin (Pontiac) had survived the wave. The latter, however, remains very popular in his constituency.
Hull, on the other hand, is the scene of a three-way struggle between the CAQ, the PLQ and QS. The Parti Québécois and Québec solidaire are also presenting promising candidates, the economist Mathieu Dufour (QS) and the physiotherapist Camille Pellerin-Forget (PQ). The CAQ candidate, Suzanne Tremblay, is linked to Équité Outaouais, a citizen organization that denounces the underfunding of the region in health.
This is also a central issue of the campaign in the region: last August, the CISSS de l’Outaouais had to suspend part of the oncology services in Gatineau following the departure of three technicians for the Ontario, seeking better wages. And in rural areas, the Shawville obstetrics service has remained closed since the interruption of its services – in principle temporary – in February 2020.
Isabelle Porter
Will the PCQ’s efforts bear fruit in the greater Quebec City region?
The greater Quebec region represents traditionally fertile land for the right. And although Éric Duhaime and his conservative troops plowed through it extensively during the campaign, their electoral harvest could disappoint them.
Polls show that the best hopes for a Conservative victory are in Beauce, but the CAQ is ardently defending its seats there. Even the accession of chef Éric Duhaime to the Salon bleu seems uncertain in Chauveau, where the PCQ nevertheless has more members than anywhere else in Quebec. If the party draws a blank, it will have four years to prove that the momentum that propelled it was not simply anger that was destined to fade with the pandemic.
QS, for its part, will try to keep the two orange islands that it managed to bring out of the CAQ wave in 2018. Taschereau, even in the absence of Catherine Dorion, seems to be won over to the left-wing party. Sol Zanetti’s seat in Jean-Lesage appears more shaky in the rematch between him and caquiste Christiane Gamache; in 2018, the solidarity victory was held by only 699 votes.
Sebastien Tanguay
Saguenay-Lac-Saint-Jean in powder blue?
Saguenay-Lac-Saint-Jean was already almost entirely powder blue. It could be completely on Tuesday morning.
According to a local poll conducted in early September by Segma, the CAQ candidate Yannick Gagnon holds a monster lead over the Parti Québécois (PQ) in Jonquière. It is the only historic PQ stronghold in the region to have remained in the hands of the sovereignist party in 2018, but the departure of MP Sylvain Gaudreault could confirm CAQ domination.
The PQ claims not to have said its last word. On Sunday, the PQ caravan will fly to Jonquière to stimulate local sovereignty intentions. Sylvain Gaudreault fears that with “five deputies who say nothing on the government side… we will escape”.
The caquiste Yannick Gagnon feels on the contrary that “the world [de Saguenay] likes to be with the rest of the gang”.
Francois Carabin
The North Shore, a symbol for the PQ
The Parti Québécois is going all out to save two strongholds of high symbolic value on the North Shore. The CAQ threatens to steal two ridings there: Duplessis, which has remained loyal to the PQ since 1976, and René-Lévesque, named in honor of the party’s founder and where, in 1995, the highest proportion of votes for the independence.
The CAQ could write history in its own way by having the first Aboriginal woman elected to the National Assembly. In Duplessis, the caquiste Kateri Champagne Jourdain, an Innu candidate, has a good chance of succeeding the péquiste Lorraine Richard, who is bowing out after nearly 20 years at the Blue Room. In René-Lévesque, the mayor of Baie-Comeau, Yves Montigny, is running for the CAQ for the seat left vacant by the PQ member Martin Ouellet.
If the polls are confirmed and the CAQ wins these two ridings, a new political chapter will open on the North Shore, and it will be entirely written in pale blue ink.
Sebastien Tanguay
In Montérégie, the battle for the suburbs
CAQ tidal wave or pockets of opposition against a probable Legault government? This is the dilemma of the voters of Montérégie, a vast region of the South Shore which extends from Sorel-Tracy to Vaudreuil-Dorion, between the river and the American border.
When the election campaign was launched, the CAQ held 18 of these 22 suburban ridings, wrested in recent years from the Parti Québécois and the Liberal Party of Quebec.
The Liberals are counting on the incendiary declarations of François Legault and his minister Jean Boulet on the subject of immigration to keep their strongholds of La Pinière, Laporte and Vaudreuil. Even the PQ lives in hope to take back its stronghold of Marie-Victorin, swept up by the CAQ in April 2022 during a by-election.
Marco Fortier
Two close battles to watch in Estrie
In the last elections, Estrie had wiped the slate clean of its past by electing candidates from the Coalition avenir Québec almost everywhere. Only the riding of Sherbrooke had escaped the party of François Legault, a “small Gallic village” where Québec solidaire had caused surprise with the election of Christine Labrie.
Next Monday, in an Estrie which could become entirely caquiste, two tight battles are emerging. QS hopes not only to preserve its only headquarters in the region, but has the ambition to make a splash in Saint-François with the DD Mélissa Généreux, a local star candidate who is seriously hot on the heels of the outgoing CAQ MP, Geneviève Hébert.
In war as in war, the CAQ also intends to fight hard to conquer the riding of Sherbrooke, where its candidate, Caroline St-Hilaire, known as the former mayor of Longueuil, is leading an energetic campaign to dislodge the solidarity deputy Christine Labrie.
Lisa-Marie Gervais
The Horne foundry at the heart of a fierce battle in Abitibi-Témiscamingue
The fight will be very tight in the riding of Rouyn-Noranda–Témiscamingue, where the issue of air quality divides the population.
Elected in 2018 by a slim lead of 506 votes, outgoing solidarity MP Émilise Lessard-Therrien demands that the Horne Foundry comply within four years with Quebec standards for arsenic emissions. But the CAQ candidate, Daniel Bernard, could well take his job, especially since the former Liberal MP at the time of Jean Charest accuses his opponent of having tarnished the image of Rouyn-Noranda by his alarmist speech. . Its leader, François Legault, also went as reinforcements to the region at the very end of the campaign, raising the idea of a referendum on the fate of the foundry.
In Abitibi-Est and Abitibi-Ouest, the two outgoing CAQ members — Forest Minister Pierre Dufour and MNA Suzanne Blais, respectively — are in good shape to win.
The shortage of manpower, particularly glaring in the field of health, and the housing crisis were at the heart of the electoral campaign in the region.
Magdaline Boutros
Gaspésie and the Islands in the sights of the CAQ
The passage of François Legault in Gaspé a few days before the election is no coincidence: the CAQ would like to break into the region where the PQ holds some of its last constituencies. After winning a narrow victory over her Liberal opponent in 2018, the outgoing PQ MP for Gaspé, Méganne Perry Mélançon, will have to face the caquiste Stéphane Sainte-Croix in a fight that promises to be tight.
In the neighboring riding of Bonaventure, the departure of independent MNA Sylvain Roy changed the situation. The latter announced this summer that he would not seek a new mandate, nearly a year after having slammed the door of the PQ for lack of confidence in the leader, Paul St-Pierre Plamondon. The race promises to be tight between the PQ Alexis Deschênes, lawyer and former journalist, and the CAQ Catherine Blouin.
A heated battle is also looming in the Magdalen Islands between outgoing PQ MP Joël Arseneau and Mayor Jonathan Lapierre, who wears the colors of the CAQ.
Florence Morin Martel