The poll published Monday confirms what has been visible for quite some time: the breakthrough of the PQ, which replaces the CAQ as the main nationalist party. If there were an election tomorrow, the PQ would likely win a majority government.
Of course, anything can happen between now and 2026, but the reversal of the situation is undeniable. Two years ago, people said the PQ was on the threshold of the grave. Today, he is on the threshold of power.
Many commentators are disoriented by this rise, which disrupts their usual reading grid.
Nationalism
They repeatedly explained that Quebecers are no longer at all interested in the national question.
How can we explain then that they are turning to PSPP, which places independence at the heart of all of its speeches? Because PSPP is the most resolutely sovereignist PQ leader since Jacques Parizeau.
They then pull an explanation out of their hat: the emergence of the PQ would have nothing to do with the national question. PSPP may talk about it all the time, but that would have nothing to do with its success, which would be exclusively due to its charisma, its freshness, its candor, its way of doing politics.
But his message would not matter.
It’s just another way of treating voters like groupies who don’t know who they’re voting for.
This amounts to forgetting that the rise of the PQ can nevertheless be explained by a strong trend. Certainly, the CAQ is disoriented and no longer knows where it is going. The story of the third link hurt him greatly. She no longer has a direction, no more plans.
- Listen to the meeting Mathieu Bock-Côté and Richard Martineau via QUB :
Likewise, the PQ offers voters an alternative solution, an alternation in the CAQ, an alternation always necessary in a democracy.
But the main thing is elsewhere: the CAQ had created its bond of trust with French-speaking Quebecers around the national question.
She gave a political expression to the fight against multiculturalism with Bill 21. She dared to speak of massive immigration by asserting without embarrassment that the latter represented an existential threat for Quebec.
She dared to stand up to radical activists who wanted to see Quebec kneel before the theory of systemic racism.
But now, since her re-election, she has miserably denied herself.
We see it on the immigration issue, which is turning into a national catastrophe.
We see it in his mania for lowering his demands in Ottawa, for fear of being told no, and of being forced to admit that his autonomy is turning into crap.
Denial
The CAQ has gone from strategic autonomy to shameful federalism.
So Quebecers learn their lesson for him and look for a better nationalist option. And they are starting to be interested in sovereignty again. Soon, support for the Yes camp will rise.
Federalist commentators may understand this, but it scares them so much that they try to deny this trend altogether.
But reality is stronger than their denial.