For the Liberal Party of Quebec (PLQ), the good news is that there will be a real leadership race rather than a coronation. The less good thing is that there is no candidate – at least not yet – who can be said straight away to be a winner.
The PLQ is a government party. He hates being confined to the opposition and the first quality he looks for in his new leader is to bring him back to power as soon as possible.
The problem is that there is not, among the current candidates, a man – because there are no female candidates, we will come back to this – who has a strong enough image in the electorate Quebecois so that we can predict with a good degree of certainty that it will allow the PLQ to take off from its current mediocre situation.
The most recent Léger poll places the Liberals in third place with 15% of the vote, practically tied with Québec solidaire at 14%, but above all with only 6% of the French-speaking vote, one point behind the score of the Conservative Party of Quebec1.
But let’s look at those who have already announced themselves or who are expected to take part in this race. First, there is a group of three candidates who could be described as economic: Frédéric Beauchemin, Charles Milliard and Karl Blackburn. Their profiles are so similar that in France, we would organize a “primary” to decide between them.
Frédéric Beauchemin is the only MP in the group and this should give him an advantage. But we mainly heard about him because of his suspension from the caucus due to a complaint of psychological harassment. Mediation resolved this matter, but the least we can say is that the person who wants to be called “Fred” has not broken anything since his arrival at the National Assembly.
Charles Milliard and Karl Blackburn have interesting resumes. The first has never been involved in politics, except with the young liberals. The second knows the party inside and out, because he was a deputy and general director of the PLQ.
But the question must be asked: is the president of an economic pressure group the best choice in the circumstances? With the very real possibility that two candidates who are too similar cancel each other out in a vote in the universal ballot of members.
Another group is that of mayors: Antoine Tardif and Denis Coderre. None have real roots in the PLQ. The first does not come from the Liberal sector at all, he is a federal Conservative, director of the party’s operations in Quebec under Stephen Harper and now mayor of Victoriaville.
Mr. Tardif is 34 years old. He attended the universities of Moncton and McGill as well as the National School of Public Administration, all while being a university and major junior goalie.
But his real calling card in politics is to be the foal of the independent and formerly conservative MP Alain Rayes, to whom he was political assistant.
The only problem is that he doesn’t really have any significant electoral experience. He was elected mayor of Victoriaville by acclamation and his only victory in a contested election took him to mayor of Daveluyville in 2013, defeating the outgoing mayor by 308 votes to 79. A good candidate, no doubt, but is he a recognized winner?
Especially since his candidacy is a little too similar to that of the former mayor of Drummondville Alexandre Cusson, who took part in the last leadership campaign; an application that never really got off the ground and ended in abandonment.
As for Denis Coderre, he is very well known, but not always for the right reasons. He spent his political career confusing notoriety with popularity. But if everyone knows Denis Coderre, not everyone loves him.
The main problem of ex-mayor Coderre is that his time at the municipal level gave him the label not only of a loser, but of a bad loser.
Elected mayor in 2013 with only 32.1% of the vote, he was then beaten twice rather than once in 2017 and 2021 by Valérie Plante. But his videos of the road to Santiago with his Expos cap only revealed the lack of seriousness of his candidacy, as evidenced by a Léger survey published Tuesday by the Quebecor media2. Barely 12% of Liberal voters believe that the former mayor of Montreal would make the best leader for the PLQ. This is 15% less than last February.
Marc Tanguay, for his part, obtained 30% support among the Liberals. No wonder: he is the only one in the party to have a certain visibility currently. In fact, his rating has been going up since he said he wouldn’t run. But the election of the new leader is only a year away and there will still be many changes.
Finally, there remains the possibility of a female candidate. But let’s say it right away, the PLQ is in a very bad position if it wants to recruit a quality candidate.
The worst way to attract one is to say, as we have been hearing for several weeks: “We would like a woman…”
It’s all the more unfortunate as the current PLQ caucus in the National Assembly has a majority of women (11 out of 19) and they do a very good job on their respective issues.
We will have to hope that the debates between candidates allow someone to emerge. Or that the situation in Ottawa allows François-Philippe Champagne to think about changing capital. It is said that his thinking has evolved recently. One thing is certain, his presence would dispel many gray clouds in the PLQ.
1. Consult the Léger survey on voting intentions in Quebec
2. Consult the Léger poll on the PLQ leadership race, in THE Quebec Journal
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