Quebec voters on Monday seem to have returned the Parti Québécois to power for the first time since 2014, CBC News projects, though the sovereigntist party appears to fall short of a majority in the 127-seat National Assembly. Paul St-Pierre Plamondon, the party’s 49-year-old leader, stands to become premier of the mostly French-speaking province of roughly nine million people. His party has promised a third referendum on independence from Canada, and the result hands Prime Minister Mark Carney a fresh national-unity problem, the BBC and Al Jazeera report.
CBC’s decision desk first projected a PQ government and then narrowed the call to a minority. In its latest count Monday night, CBC put the PQ ahead in 59 ridings, five short of the 64 a majority requires. The Quebec Liberal Party followed with 40, the Quebec Conservative Party with 19, and Québec solidaire with nine. The Coalition Avenir Québec, which governed for eight years, held no seats in that count. CBC also reported that the PQ captured less than 30 percent of the popular vote. Those figures come from election-night projections, not certified results, and they may still shift.
The scale of the comeback stands out. The PQ won just three seats in the 2022 election, Al Jazeera reports, citing the Associated Press and Reuters, and it last governed from 2012 to 2014 under Pauline Marois. In the Outaouais region, PQ candidate Isabelle Millette took the riding of Papineau, giving the party its first seat in that region in 50 years, CBC reports. CBC also noted the timing: the win comes close to the 50th anniversary of René Lévesque’s 1976 victory, when the PQ took 71 of 110 seats and went on to hold the 1980 referendum.
The night went badly for the CAQ. Premier Christine Fréchette, who replaced longtime leader François Legault earlier this year, lost her own race in Trois-Rivières and conceded shortly before 10 p.m. local time, the BBC reports. She said she would work with St-Pierre Plamondon on the transition. “I have Quebec tattooed on my heart,” she told supporters, according to the BBC. The broadcaster attributes part of the PQ’s success to public fatigue with the CAQ, a centre-right nationalist party that does not support independence.
Analysts quoted before and after the vote doubt that the result reflects a surge in support for leaving Canada. Daniel Béland, a political scientist at McGill University, told the AP that the victory reflects Quebec’s multiparty system, where support splits among several parties, and he put backing for independence at about 30 percent, low by historical standards, Al Jazeera reports. Before the vote, poll analyst Philippe Fournier told the Guardian that the PQ gained from a massive split among voters who dislike the party but disagree on an alternative. The Guardian also reported that analysts credit St-Pierre Plamondon’s hard line on identity more than his separatism: he has blamed immigrants for crowded schools, crime, and rising housing prices, promised to slash immigration, and pledged to ban “conspicuous” religious symbols for teachers and students.
The referendum itself now looks harder to move. St-Pierre Plamondon promised during the campaign to hold a third vote on independence in his first term, but he said he would wait until Trump leaves office in January 2029, Al Jazeera reports. Quebec voters rejected secession in 1980 and, by a narrow margin, in 1995. CBC’s Benjamin Shingler wrote that a minority leaves the PQ needing the backing of Québec solidaire, the only other sovereigntist party in the legislature, to push a referendum forward, and that minority governments in Quebec typically last less than two years. Polls suggest roughly 70 percent of Quebecers consistently oppose a referendum, CBC adds.
In his victory speech in Montreal, St-Pierre Plamondon called the result an “enormous privilege” and said he wants to work with all parties, CBC reports. He promised Carney a “direct and transparent” relationship with Ottawa. Switching briefly to English, he addressed his “English-speaking friends in Quebec” and told them, “we share the same future.” He closed by urging other sovereigntists in the National Assembly to back his goal of an independent Quebec.
Liberal Leader Charles Milliard, whose caucus grew from 18 members to 40 by his count, vowed to fight any referendum. “Preparing your referendum will find you facing a clear opponent in the Liberal Party,” he said in French, according to CBC’s translation. Because voters elected an assembly without a majority, he argued, the PQ will have to weigh proposals from other parties; the Liberals will cooperate on many issues, he said, but not on a referendum. Conservative Leader Éric Duhaime won his own seat in Bellechasse, CBC projects, as his party gained ground, especially around Quebec City, according to the Guardian’s pre-vote reporting.
Carney, whose federal Liberals still poll well in Quebec, congratulated St-Pierre Plamondon on Monday night. “I look forward to working with you to support Québec’s businesses and workers impacted by tariffs, create more good jobs, work to end homelessness, and get more homes built across Québec,” he wrote on social media, according to the BBC. CBC’s Rosemary Barton wrote that the premiers’ united front against U.S. tariffs may now fracture, and that Ottawa should not read the PQ’s wait-for-Trump pledge as a lack of commitment to sovereignty.
St-Pierre Plamondon has also signaled fights with Ottawa that have nothing to do with a referendum. He has vowed to resist any federal increase in immigration and called a likely rise an “abuse of power,” the Guardian reports, and he pledged to “abolish the monarchy in Quebec,” according to the BBC. He has floated defunding the office of Quebec’s lieutenant-governor, who represents King Charles III, and spending the money on homelessness instead. The BBC notes that such a move would likely face major legal challenges, since the lieutenant-governor gives royal assent to new provincial laws. St-Pierre Plamondon has told reporters he stands ready for that legal battle.
The result lands weeks before a separate vote out west. Albertans face an independence-related referendum later this month, the BBC reports, and Béland told the AP: “Seeing that a pro-independence party won in Quebec barely two weeks before an independence-related referendum takes place in Alberta might suggest to the Trump administration that national unity remains a major issue in Canada despite the popularity of Mark Carney.” Quebec also feels the trade war directly. After U.S.–Canada talks broke down in August, new U.S. tariffs hit the province especially hard, and Oxford Economics projects a C$2 billion blow, according to the BBC.
Other premiers moved quickly. Newfoundland and Labrador Premier Tony Wakeham said he looks forward to working with the new government “to finalize the definitive agreements for our new and better deal for Churchill Falls,” the hydro agreement struck while Fréchette held office, CBC reports. St-Pierre Plamondon said in September that he would not scrap the deal, though his party has promised a due-diligence review.
What comes next depends on arithmetic in the National Assembly. A PQ minority would need opposition votes to pass major legislation and survive confidence votes, Al Jazeera notes. With the Liberals ruling out help on a referendum and Québec solidaire as the only sovereigntist partner, the new premier’s first months may turn more on immigration, language, the monarchy, and tariffs than on a vote to leave Canada.
