Politics Briefing: CAQ wins resounding victory in Quebec

Good morning,

Nearly three years ago, longtime readers of this newsletter might recall, we noted a historical oddity: No governing party in Canada had the word “conservative” in their name. In the waning days of 2015 and the early days of 2016, Liberal Party red had washed across the country, with big-L Liberals in power in Ottawa and seven provinces.

Now the pendulum has swung the other way.

The Quebec Liberals suffered an historic rout last night, with their worst showing in half a century.

The Coalition Avenir Québec, a new-ish small-c conservative party, won a majority of seats in the Quebec legislature and François Legault, a former Parti Québécois cabinet minister, is poised to be the province’s next premier.

The Quebec Liberals had been in power for 13 of the past 15 years. Their defeat follows that of the Ontario Liberals in June and the B.C. Liberals last year. (The New Brunswick Liberals did not win the most seats in last week’s election, but they’re going to try to hold on to power in a hung parliament – for however long that lasts.)

Justin Trudeau’s first days as Prime Minister were marked by having a surprising number of allies across the country’s provincial legislatures.

But with another conservative premier of a populous province in power, it doesn’t look like Mr. Trudeau has many first-minister friends left.

This is the daily Politics Briefing newsletter, written by Chris Hannay in Ottawa and James Keller in Vancouver. Have any feedback? Let us know what you think.

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QUEBEC ELECTION

Final standings: Coalition Avenir Québec 74 seats (63 needed for a majority); Liberals 32 seats (Official Opposition); Québec Solidaire 10 seats; Parti Québécois 9 seats. Map here.

It was the first victory for the seven-year-old CAQ, a party composed of both federalists and former separatists. Leader François Legault said last night: “Today we made history. Today many Quebeckers set aside a debate that divided us for 50 years. Today Many Quebeckers have demonstrated that it’s possible to make adversaries from yesterday work together for tomorrow.”

The Liberals had one of their worst nights in decades, but Leader Philippe Couillard said he hadn’t decided whether he wanted to stay at the helm of the party.

The QS won their first seats outside Montreal.

And the PQ was devastated. It did not win enough seats for official party status in the National Assembly. Jean-François Lisée lost his own Montreal seat and said he would step down from leading the party. It was the party’s worst showing since 1973.

Columnist Konrad Yakabuski: “That [the PQ’s] trouncing has come at the hands of a former PQ cabinet minister and convert to federalism, CAQ Leader François Legault, demonstrates a deep desire among even nationalist Quebeckers to focus on a different kind of nation-building, one based on improving Quebec’s economy and public services.”

Columnist Campbell Clark: “The CAQ Leader’s majority triumph represents a third way for the province’s relationship with Ottawa, without the referendum threat of sovereigntists, but with a hefty dose of soft-nationalist, Quebec identity politics. And a lot of those politics clash with [Justin] Trudeau’s.”

Montreal Gazette’s Allison Hanes: “But in electing the CAQ, has Quebec chosen genuine change, or change for the sake of change?”

OTHER HEADLINES

The proposed new U.S.-Mexico-Canada trade agreement largely preserves what came before (read this explainer for a comparison with NAFTA), but there is one major outstanding issue to resolve: the United States' tariffs on steel and aluminum. At least auto tariffs are off the table.

B.C. has tabled legislation to clear the way for the province to sue the companies that manufactured and distributed opioids as the pain medications fuelled a national crisis. Attorney General David Eby, who has called on other provinces to join the case, says the legislation will allow the class-action lawsuit to proceed quickly.

Election officials in Surrey, B.C., have suspended mail-in ballots in the face of potential voter fraud. The city’s chief elections officer says he referred a potential voter fraud scheme to the RCMP after irregularities were discovered in 160 applications for mail-in ballots.

A Manitoba First Nations children’s advocate says the child welfare system is designed to apprehend Indigenous children, not to support their families.

And Calgary’s bid to host the 2026 Winter Olympics is getting support from former B.C. premier Gordon Campbell ahead of a plebiscite scheduled for next month. Mr. Campbell, who was in office during Vancouver’s 2010 Games, told a business crowd at an event in Calgary that the city won’t face significant risk because the billions required for facilities and other infrastructure would be shouldered by the provincial and federal governments.

Margaret Wente (The Globe and Mail) on Foreign Affairs Minister Chrystia Freeland: “Among the biggest winners in these trade negotiations is Ms. Freeland herself, who, over months of upbeat media briefings, became the face of the Canadian negotiating team. By now, she is certainly the most prominent female politician in Canada. She may also be the most popular federal politician, period.”

Lawrence Martin (The Globe and Mail) on the new U.S.-Mexico-Canada trade agreement: “With an 11th hour agreement on a tentative trade pact, the big scare is over. Kaput. Stability returns. All’s well that ends hell. What happened was that the American side finally got reasonable.”

Andrew Coyne (National Post) on whether it’s better than NAFTA: “Still, it’s not quite the conflagration we’d been banking on, is it? Trump is the bully in middle school who threatens to take your lunch money, only to settle for a half a slice of your pizza.”

Gordon Ritchie (The Globe and Mail) on the details: “On closer inspection, the tentative agreement reached late Sunday night is remarkably similar to the deal Canada was prepared to accept nearly one year ago. But in obedience to the Trump negotiating playbook, we first had to endure the escalation of increasingly unhinged rhetoric and the imposition of mutually destructive tariffs before the Great Negotiator agreed to declare victory.”

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