The political future of Dominique Anglade seems more uncertain than ever, according to a sounding carried out with several liberals, still reeling from the bitter, historic defeat of their party on October 3.
If, as we saw last Wednesday in Yamachiche, the Liberals gathered in a post-election caucus unite behind their leader, at least in public, that’s a whole different story away from the cameras. Suddenly, tongues are loosened and knives are sharpened.
Over the past few days, The Canadian Press conducted interviews with a dozen Liberals, often longtime activists, who had worked closely with the leader of the Quebec Liberal Party (PLQ), including several former MPs, defeated candidates and an association president. All have agreed to reveal their feelings on the condition that their identity remains confidential.
This is not the time for optimism in the Liberal ranks. Of all those interviewed, no one ventured to predict that Ms Anglade would still be party leader in the next election, in 2026, and no one pledged to support her in the vote of confidence that is due to take place. at the next congress within a year.
On the contrary, some, who do not hesitate to say very harsh things about her, say they remain members of the party precisely in order to be able to vote against her in the vote of confidence and thus hasten her departure. That she emerges victorious in the vote of confidence would be downright “tragedy for the party”, according to a former MP who sat alongside her just a few months ago.
Many claim that the frolicking to find a successor had even begun before the election campaign, so much was feared for the worst.
“She has almost killed the Liberal Party” since she was its leader, categorically judges a former Liberal minister, member of the Anglade caucus until very recently, who does not hide his bitterness and his spite, holding her personally responsible for the party setbacks.
On October 3, the PLQ obtained the worst score in its history, with 21 deputies and 14% of the popular vote (6% in Quebec, 3% in Saguenay), dropping to fourth place among the five main parties in terms of popular support. , behind the Parti Québécois and Québec solidaire. The PLQ therefore has 10 fewer deputies and collected 10 points less than in 2018, when the party had recorded its worst performance of all time. Since 2014, the PLQ will have lost more than 1.1 million votes. The French-speaking electorate practically massively disavowed the PLQ.
In the face of these “catastrophic” figures, one feels the panic growing in the Liberal ranks. The specter of the Union Nationale haunted people’s minds.
“The PLQ is not immune to disappearing” too, fears a defeated candidate and longtime activist, who bit the dust in an old fortress. “How far are we going to go? asks another, worried.
Hence the importance in the eyes of the Liberals to be able to bet on the right person to reverse the trend and prevent the party of Jean Lesage, Robert Bourassa and Jean Charest from a slow and inexorable agony.
In the circumstances, Ms. Anglade, who has announced her firm intention to remain leader, must above all be “lucid”, a defeated candidate will say, and draw the necessary conclusions.
“It does not pass,” adds a former member of the Anglade caucus, both with the electorate and with activists. To illustrate her point, she says she knows long-time Liberals who gave up voting for the PLQ on October 3 because it is led by Ms. Anglade.
“People didn’t want to see her” during the election campaign, when she ran in a constituency, assures this ex-MP.
While acknowledging Ms. Anglade’s great qualities, many liberals agree that the connection between her, her activist base and voters never happened.
“She does not “pogne””, summarized a former deputy, in a pithy judgment, convinced that “she will have to disembark” for the good of the party.
His style of leadership makes the dozen Liberals contacted cringe. She is criticized for several things: her lack of listening, her tendency to create a vacuum around her and to surround herself with people without experience, her distance from liberal values, her inability to attract more members and sources of financing. , and especially for having abandoned the entire volunteer structure in the regions, what former premier Jean Charest called the “backbone” of the party.
Ms. Anglade will have had two and a half years, so all the time required “to prove herself and it did not work”, concludes a former elected official who had supported her candidacy for leadership in 2020 and who is now demanding her departure.
This former elected official notes what she describes as an extremely tense “toxic climate” that reigned in the Liberal caucus, which boded badly for the election campaign. His finding was confirmed by several other sources.
If the leader of the official opposition has not been able to unify her caucus of 27 people, has not succeeded in bringing it together around common objectives, how can we be surprised, asks a former member of this caucus, that did it not attract more voters on October 3?
According to her, her departure becomes all the more inevitable as her entire electoral strategy relied on her personality, the “real Dominique”, a risky bet that she will have lost.
The positions taken by the leader for two years, especially her nationalist and environmental shift, made many Liberals dizzy, who no longer recognized their training. At first, “she betrayed the ideals of the party”, opines a former elected official. Then, she says, “she tried to pull herself together”, to correct her situation, “but it was too late”, the damage was done, her confidence gone. A party is not “a brand of yogurt”, she illustrates.
Trust or mistrust?
In this context, a defeated candidate, having experienced “a ‘shitty’ election”, a veritable nightmare in terms of organisation, said that she wanted the party congress to take place quickly, before the summer, “to move on to something else “. She says she is divided as to what happens next, multiplying criticism of her leader, but demanding stability for her party. She praises the importance of rallying, fearing that the PLQ “will become like the PQ”, which has changed leaders several times in recent years.
Some venture to say that it should aim for a score of at least 75% to maintain a minimum of legitimacy and possibly remain in place. But what is a vote of confidence worth?
In 1997, Daniel Johnson received 80% support from liberal activists gathered in congress. A few months later, he was shown the door, to make way for Jean Charest.
“Since when will the PLQ keep a person who made it lose the election? “Asks a former elected, convinced that Ms. Anglade is no longer in her place. In 1998, Jean Charest, fresh from Ottawa, lost to Lucien Bouchard’s PQ, but he won the popular vote and took power in 2003.
Anyway, “it is sure that she will jump” during the vote of confidence, predicted a defeated candidate, fatalistic.
Until then, one thing is certain, Ms. Anglade will have to “establish her authority on her caucus, otherwise, she is done”, is convinced an ex-MP, describing the current situation of the leader as being “very, very, very difficult” .
The liberal leader does not seem to “take note” of the defeat of October 3 and to measure its full extent, argues a former elected official. She lives “in denial”, because if she really realized it “she would bow out”, right now, in her opinion. “She clings”, added a former colleague.
Disorganization
All the people interviewed denounced the “completely deficient” organization of the electoral campaign.
The PLQ was nevertheless recognized in the past for its formidable “machine” on the ground, capable of mobilizing its troops throughout Quebec and winning an election.
Today, we are looking for volunteers. Twenty riding associations did not have a president. In some constituencies, the president was over 80 years old. When they still exist, riding associations don’t even bother to meet. “The troops are demotivated, demoralized”, summarizes an association president, who notes the exodus of militants.
Additional sign of disorganization, a dozen candidates were missing when the campaign began, unheard of.
Those polled blame the leader for this mess and want to see heads roll, especially those of the party’s general manager, Julie Martel, chief organizer, Jean-François Helms, and communications manager, Jérémy Ghio, all people chosen by the chief.
The frolicking has begun
The most cynical will say that Ms. Anglade’s current advantage lies in the fact that no one is rushing to the gate to succeed her.
Nevertheless, several ex-elected officials and ex-candidates claim that the frenzy began even before the election campaign. Some “started to make calls” in order to start the hunt for the potential “savior”, assures a former minister.
If Ms. Anglade had resigned on the evening of the poll, the deputy for La Fontaine, Marc Tanguay, was already positioning himself to take over the next day and take over as interim, several sources indicated.
For the moment, few names of possible “saviors” circulate. MNA André Fortin had been approached the last time, but he had declined, for family reasons. MP Marwah Rizqy, who is due to give birth any day now, had also considered running for office, but had given up.