Poilievre has to make an ‘emotional’ connection with Quebeckers, says Éric Duhaime

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Pierre Poilievre’s Quebec counterpart says the federal Conservative Leader needs to go beyond policies to establish an emotional connection with Quebeckers to make political gains in the province.

“We need to bring some emotions into the debate,” Éric Duhaime, the Leader of the Conservative Party of Quebec, told The Globe and Mail in a weekend interview as the federal party concluded a three-day policy convention in Quebec City.

“We already know that his policies are smaller government, more common sense, the economy. We all know those things, but we need to have an emotional connection with Pierre Poilievre.”

The party’s three-day policy convention, which concluded Saturday, had more than 2,000 Conservative delegates in the provincial capital. Mr. Duhaime said their presence suggests Quebec matters to the federal party.

Mr. Duhaime said, in federal Conservative appeals to Quebec, there is usually a language barrier in aspiring to make that connection.

“It’s always tough with a non-Quebecker candidate to have that attachment, but I think that, with him, it is possible because, first off, his French is perfect. He speaks very well in French. He is the most bilingual leader since Brian Mulroney.”

Mr. Duhaime, who has known Mr. Poilievre for 20 years and considers him a friend, also noted that the Conservative Leader’s wife, Anaida Poilievre, who was born in Venezuela and raised in Montreal, speaks excellent French with a Quebec accent.

There are 78 federal seats in Quebec. The Liberals have 35 and the Bloc Québécois has 32. The Conservatives have nine, down from the 10 they won in the 2021 election. There is one independent – former Conservative Alain Rayes – and one New Democrat.

Mr. Duhaime’s Conservatives failed to win a seat in the Quebec Legislature during the province’s last election in 2022. But he said the popular vote for the party founded in 2009 increased to a peak of 13 per cent in the 2022 provincial election. “If we could help the Conservatives to go even higher, it’s also going to help us in the next election as well.”

Mr. Duhaime, who has been party leader since 2020, said the federal and provincial parties are not twin organizations, but could be affected by each other’s political fortunes.

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During a Friday evening speech to Conservatives attending the convention, Mr. Poilievre made a play for support from voters in Quebec, suggesting the Bloc has been enabling the government of Prime Minister Justin Trudeau with its support.

“If Quebeckers want to get rid of Justin Trudeau for good, only the Conservative Party can replace it for real,” said Mr. Poilievre.

“I will always be an ally for Quebec, for the Acadian people and all francophones across the country,” said Mr. Poilievre, who declared at one point, “Vive le Québec,” and talked about sending his children to French schools.

“A smaller central government will make way for a greater Quebec and better Quebeckers,” he added.

Earlier, Ms. Poilievre, speaking in French and talking about her roots in Quebec, introduced the Conservative Leader.

Mr. Duhaime quipped that the speech seemed like the launch of a campaign. “I was expecting to see signs on the street when I got out of there.”

Daniel Béland, director of the McGill Institute for the Study of Canada at McGill University in Montreal, said that Mr. Poilievre strongly emphasized bread-and-butter issues in his speech.

“Right now, these issues resonate with Quebeckers just like they resonate with Canadians from other parts of the country,” Prof. Béland said. ”Simultaneously, Mr. Poilievre emphasized his personal connection to Quebec and the French language, by referring to his wife Ana and his francophone father Donald, respectively.”

In a statement, Prof. Béland said the federal Conservatives are doing better in polls measuring support in Quebec than a few months ago and, as in the rest of Canada, this is related to an emphasis on economic and cost-of-living themes that Mr. Poilievre stressed in his speech.

“This is why he and his party are likely to continue to hammer these themes in the months to come, in Quebec as elsewhere around the country. Like Stephen Harper before him, Mr. Poilievre now focuses on the economy and it seems to be paying off.”

Mr. Duhaime ruled out running for the federal party, saying he is seven years into a 10-year commitment to the provincial party.

“I think I could help the Conservatives federally by building a true, provincial conservative alternative,” he said. “We need to make sure we have a provincial base that is stable, and that’s what I am working on.”