“We must not watch the pigeon that falls, but the pigeon that rises,” Jacques Parizeau liked to say, who was looking forward to seeing Jean Chrétien elected Prime Minister of Canada.
Even before the latter became leader of the Liberal Party of Canada (PLC), the PQ leader believed that Brian Mulroney and the Meech Lake Accord were already part of history and he saw the detestable disciple of Pierre Elliott Trudeau playing the role of the “ugly” in the upcoming referendum. Mr. Chrétien lived up to his character, but the scenario was not what Mr. Parizeau anticipated. Sometimes it happens that a pigeon is not what we thought it was.
For two years, François Legault has been constantly in the crosshairs of Paul St-Pierre Plamondon, but it is not too early to start worrying about the one that the latest Léger poll clearly designates as the volatile one on the rise.
If Pablo Rodriguez became leader of the Liberal Party of Quebec (PLQ), the party’s voting intentions would increase from 17% to 28%, and it would find itself in the lead, two points ahead of the Parti Québécois (PQ) and three ahead of the Coalition. future Quebec, while Denis Coderre would advance it by only four points. Among French-speaking voters, support for the PLQ would triple, with a jump from 7% to 20%.
Normally, the PQ and the PLQ are not communicating vessels, but the arrival of Justin Trudeau’s former lieutenant in Quebec would allow the Liberals to wrest six points from the PQ as well as three from Québec solidaire and the Conservative Party of Eric Duhaime.
Certainly, Mr. Rodriguez must first win the race for the leadership of the PLQ, which will not officially begin until January, but although he has not been seen since the announcement of his candidacy, he is already collecting more support among liberal voters than his four opponents combined.
From one poll to another, Mr. Coderre’s ceiling seems to be lowering. Since last February, his support among liberal voters has fallen from 27% to 14%, but he remains the favorite of young people (18-34 years old), to whom PLQ rules grant a third of the votes in the election of the leader.
The popularity of the former president of the Federation of Chambers of Commerce of Quebec Charles Milliard among Liberal voters (5%) seems inversely proportional to the favor he enjoys within the caucus of deputies. He is given a head start in terms of organization, but his lack of notoriety constitutes a serious handicap, with 83% of Quebecers unaware of who he is.
Pablo Rodriguez has a practically unbeatable card. The ability to bring the party back to power is the number one quality activists look for in a leader and, for the first time since the Liberal defeat in 2018, someone is able to dangle that possibility.
The image of freshness and sincerity that Paul St-Pierre Plamondon projected during and since the 2022 electoral campaign has won over Quebecers. From then on, they turned to the PQ to find an alternative option to a government whose work they had appreciated during the pandemic, but which has continued to disappoint them since.
After the evasions and convolutions taken by his predecessors to postpone the holding of a third referendum indefinitely, PSSP’s uninhibited independence speech earned him the respect of the population, but they did not adhere to his project however.
The rise of the PQ has had no ripple effect: year after year, the Yes vote remains stuck at around 35% in Léger’s polls. There are even 24% of PQ members who would vote no. For six years, the Coalition Avenir Québec has tried, despite itself, to demonstrate the impossibility of renewing federalism, even if only slightly, but nothing has worked. If Quebecers were starting to get fed up with it, it should be a bit obvious.
That the PQ’s voting intentions drop by six points simply at the prospect of Mr. Rodriguez becoming leader of the PLQ says a lot about their fragility. The man is undoubtedly sympathetic and his experience is likely to reassure the population about his ability to form a reasonably competent government, but no one imagines for a single moment that he can change the Canadian dynamic, or even that he will. wish.
Everyone knows his service record in Ottawa. However, in the eyes of voters from all the other parties represented in the National Assembly, he is by far the one who would make the best leader for the PLQ. In an election where the issue will likely be the holding of a third referendum, it could be enough for Mr. Rodriguez to push a few coaxes and modernize a little the Liberal discourse on our distinct way of being Canadians.