Quebec 2022 Election

[adma]

66% turnout, the same as last time.

Incredible, considering. Hope someone maps the change in turnout as well.

Weird to see QS do so well in the Eastern Townships. I wonder what their base is there?

FWIW when the NDP swept Quebec in 2011 some of its biggest margins were in eastern township places Drummond and Shefford and Ste. Hyacinthe and some of their MPs from there even won again in 2015...

Though within this particular QS patch, the only '15-prevailing NDPer (and a near-survivor in '19 as well) was Pierre-Luc Dusseault in Sherbrooke--then again, he might have single-handedly planted a left-amenable seed in the Sherbrooke area.

Otherwise, QS *did* seriously gun for Saint-Francois this time, and seemed to be entertaining the notion of Sherbrooke as a regional stepping stone to bigger things.  Plus this pocket simply wasn't PQ enough, and wasn't PCQ enough, and the Anglo element meant that there was an above-average Liberal vestige feeding at the bottom (Brome-Missisquoi and Orford gave them rare "QC heartland" double-digit shares)

[adma]

Maybe it's worth running down all the CAQ seats where at least one opposition party hit 20%...

Abitibi-Ouest (PQ 20.8 )
Anjou-Louis-Riel (Lib 30.8 )
Arthabaska (PCQ 24.7)
Beauce-Nord (PCQ 42.8 )
Beauce-Sud (PCQ 43.4)
Bellechasse (PCQ 35.3)
Berthier (PQ 20.8 )
Bertrand (PQ 20.8 )
Bonaventure (PQ 30.1)
Charlesbourg (PCQ 20.3)
Chauveau (PCQ 31.8 )
Chutes-de-la-Chaudiere (PCQ 27.2)
Chateauguay (Lib 24.8 )
Cote-du-Sud (PCQ 23.4)
Duplessis (PQ 24.9)
Fabre (Lib 30.9)
Gaspe (PQ 37.5)
Hull (Lib 25.9, QS 20.7)
Jean-Talon (QS 23.8 )
Joliette (PQ 31.2)
La Peltrie (PCQ 30.0)
Lac-Saint-Jean (PQ 25.6)
Laporte (Lib 28.8 )
Laval-des-Rapides (Lib 28.7)
Lotbiniere-Frontenac (PCQ 32.2)
Levis (PCQ 20.7)
Marie-Victorin (PQ 24.7, QS 22.5)
Montmorency (PCQ 26.1)
Megantic (PCQ 22.3)
Nicolet-Becancour (PQ 22.2)
Portneuf (PCQ 29.7)
Rene-Levesque (PQ 21.2)
Richelieu (PQ 20.3)
Richmond (PS 20.0)
Rimouski (PQ 28.6, QS 21.3)
Roberval (PQ 20.6)
Rouyn-Noranda-Temiscamingue (QS 31.1)
Saint-Francois (QS 28.2)
Sainte-Rose (Lib 24.1)
Soulanges (Lib 21.8 )
Taillon (PQ 20.3)
Ungava (QS 24.2)
Vercheres (PQ 20.7)
Vimont (Lib 29.8 )

So that adds up to only half the seats won.  And that's *including* those which they took from incumbents or incumbent parties.  (And half of the PQs were with only 20-21% of the vote.)

[VPH]

Duhaime's speech last night made it seem like he plans to stick around for the long haul, but it will be difficult to make a difference and grow in support without any MNAs. To come within about 1% of two separate seats has got to hurt for them.

Anglade's future should also be in doubt imo. She's not been a particularly strong leader (disappointing because I had hope) but no matter who leads the PLQ, they're going to have a mighty tough time building a larger coalition while not bleeding Anglophone and immigrant support.

[Oryxslayer]

Anglade's future should also be in doubt imo. She's not been a particularly strong leader (disappointing because I had hope) but no matter who leads the PLQ, they're going to have a mighty tough time building a larger coalition while not bleeding Anglophone and immigrant support.

The PLQ has a lot of issues they need to sort out and fast, cause they were really only spared this landslide cause Anglo/allophone and immigrant voters don't neatly fit into the CAQ or any other coalition at the moment. They are very much still needing to find a way into post-separatist modern political landscape. The PLQ are in a strange position of being the only party with a brand that can challenge the CAQ for control of government, but also have no feasible way back to government. If the map on the previous page didn't drive this home, their less than 10% voteshare off Montreal should. If a new (serious) party comes knocking for specifically the non-francophone vote, or QS is able to break past the federal Lib -> PLQ & NDP -> QS guardrails on Montreal then they will really be in trouble. The PLQ could also be in danger if some other party gains the perception that they can challenge the CAQ. Their urban base and history though can be beneficial if the party modernizes and finds a new approach for a new era.

[adma]

Duhaime's speech last night made it seem like he plans to stick around for the long haul, but it will be difficult to make a difference and grow in support without any MNAs. To come within about 1% of two separate seats has got to hurt for them.

Anglade's future should also be in doubt imo. She's not been a particularly strong leader (disappointing because I had hope) but no matter who leads the PLQ, they're going to have a mighty tough time building a larger coalition while not bleeding Anglophone and immigrant support.

If I may be contrarian here, there's an argument to be had that *all* of the existing leaders have earned the right to stick around.  Even Anglade who, in a doubtlessly thankless reduced-circumstance situation, had something of a graceful finish anyway--I mean, let's accept that it may take a fair bit of work for the Libs to truly repatriate natural-governing-party status, and it actually might be a good, cathartic thing that they confronted this kind of bottoming-out circumstance.  (Of course, it helps that QC political ergonomics are such that the Libs have such a high and resilient floor--but much like the NDP in Ontario, relative seat totals can go a long way.)

[adma]

One thing that would be useful is if anyone could post maps of the CAQ/Lib/PQ/QS vote shifts from 2018. 

And one thing nobody's raised about R-N-T and its going QS in '18: at the time, that territory had impetus from a federal NDP MP (Christine Moore, who ironically ran for the PQ this time in Ungava)

[VPH]

Duhaime's speech last night made it seem like he plans to stick around for the long haul, but it will be difficult to make a difference and grow in support without any MNAs. To come within about 1% of two separate seats has got to hurt for them.

Anglade's future should also be in doubt imo. She's not been a particularly strong leader (disappointing because I had hope) but no matter who leads the PLQ, they're going to have a mighty tough time building a larger coalition while not bleeding Anglophone and immigrant support.

If I may be contrarian here, there's an argument to be had that *all* of the existing leaders have earned the right to stick around.  Even Anglade who, in a doubtlessly thankless reduced-circumstance situation, had something of a graceful finish anyway--I mean, let's accept that it may take a fair bit of work for the Libs to truly repatriate natural-governing-party status, and it actually might be a good, cathartic thing that they confronted this kind of bottoming-out circumstance.  (Of course, it helps that QC political ergonomics are such that the Libs have such a high and resilient floor--but much like the NDP in Ontario, relative seat totals can go a long way.)

Not to draw too much of an equivalency but I thought that the Ontario Liberals' implosion in 2018 would be a good "reset" for the party (and maybe it still will be in the long run) but 2022 made that look iffy. Perhaps the PLQ will remain stuck in a rut for a while, even though they've bottomed out.

[mileslunn]

Anyone able to do up the results for the 17 regions as be interested in those.

[Benjamin Frank]

Anyone able to do up the results for the 17 regions as be interested in those.

I printed up the wiki of the candidate listing and I went to the CBC results and I wrote down all the numbers, but I have to find a calculator.

Some of the wiki ridings in regions were a bit of a surprise to me, I don't know if those are the official divisions (like St Hyacinthe as part of one of the Montreal suburban regions.)

[Benjamin Frank]

I didn't use a calculator, so this is from just eyeballing (but I'm good at doing arithmetic in my head), but this is the range of seats based on less than 10% victories.

CAQ: 78-100
Liberal: 15-27
QS: 7-14
P.Q: 1-5
Con: 0-3

1.CAQ could have ended up with not many more ridings than they won in the last election, but the polling was also correct that they could have got to 100 ridings (not that polling is necessarily needed for that.)

2.The Liberals could have ended up with nearly as many ridings as they won in the last election.

3.QS could have reached official party status, but did pretty well.

4.PQ had a big win in Matane-Matapedia so they wouldn't have been shut out, but they weren't even competitive in ridings they won in 2018. One of their five competitive ridings was probably a result of their candidate there being former NDP M.P Pierre Nantel.

5.I think it's Frontenac a riding in the same region as Beauce where the Conservatives lost by less than 10%.

On the Island of Montreal the results were:
Liberal: 16
QS: 8
CAQ: 2
PQ: 1

The PQ leader won the Montreal riding of Camile Lauren resulting in the only CAQ incumbent defeat.

So, off the island of Montreal the results were:
CAQ: 88
Liberals: 5
QS: 3
PQ: 2

4 of the five Liberal wins were in the Montreal suburbs in either Laval or the South Shore. The only Liberal win in 'the regions' was Pontiac. The only other riding they lost by less than 10% in 'the regions' was Hull.

2 of the 3 QS wins off of the Island of Montreal were in Quebec City and the other was in Sherbrooke. I think QS clearly has a problem similar to all left wing parties of not having much support in smaller towns and rural areas (with the exception of more isolated rural areas- like the Rouyn-Noranda riding QS held from 2018-2022.)

[Benjamin Frank]

One thing I don't fully understand about the immigration debate in Quebec is that there is no shortage of French speakers around the world who I'm sure would like to come to Quebec and I'm sure would be good additions to Quebec.

I'm thinking in present of French speakers in Burkina Faso and Haiti.

[adma]

4.PQ had a big win in Matane-Matapedia so they wouldn't have been shut out, but they weren't even competitive in ridings they won in 2018. One of their five competitive ridings was probably a result of their candidate there being former NDP M.P Pierre Nantel.

Well, not just former NDP MP (who was party-expelled and finished his stint as a *Green* candidate in '19, of all things), but former byelection candidate in the only Greater Montreal riding to stick with the Bloc in '18 (that is, there had been a *lot* invested in said byelection, and Nantel's name-recognition fumes carried on into the general).  Also, it was a borderline *3-way* (Nantel did only a little over 2 points better than QS, who were only a little over 10 points from the CAQ winner, and likewise w/the same candidate as in the byelection--that is, Marie-Victorin was the closest QS got to an off-island gain in Greater Montreal, and it probably helped that it was commutably just across from the Jacques Cartier Bridge from QS's E Island strongholds; so there's a bit of a natural "softness" to CAQ support there)

[Filuwaúrdjan]

One thing I don't fully understand about the immigration debate in Quebec is that there is no shortage of French speakers around the world who I'm sure would like to come to Quebec and I'm sure would be good additions to Quebec.

I'm thinking in present of French speakers in Burkina Faso and Haiti.

That's because the language issue in the context of immigration is in part a cover for something else.

[adma]

One thing I don't fully understand about the immigration debate in Quebec is that there is no shortage of French speakers around the world who I'm sure would like to come to Quebec and I'm sure would be good additions to Quebec.

I'm thinking in present of French speakers in Burkina Faso and Haiti.

That's because the language issue in the context of immigration is in part a cover for something else.

And that "something else" is also an unspoken factor behind Anglade's limited reach beyond the Anglo/Allos.

[MaxQue]

Also, and I'm sure that fact will be denied by some, the federal government rejection rate of foreign student visas is way higher if the student is from a French-speaking country. Anti French and anti black African systemic racism at Citizenship and Immigration Canada?

[Benjamin Frank]

One thing I don't fully understand about the immigration debate in Quebec is that there is no shortage of French speakers around the world who I'm sure would like to come to Quebec and I'm sure would be good additions to Quebec.

I'm thinking in present of French speakers in Burkina Faso and Haiti.

That's because the language issue in the context of immigration is in part a cover for something else.

I like to think that isn't the case.

[Benjamin Frank]

Irrespective of the reasons for Quebec's unwillingness to accept more than 50,000 immigrants a year, I think Quebecers need to be aware of and accept all the consequences of that.

So, a couple caveats:
1.Quebec, of course, can not prevent immigrants (or any other Canadian) who moves to anotehr province first to relocate to Quebec. They can, as part of their language schooling policies try to make it difficult for English speaking people to move to Quebec, but I think most English speakers who move to Quebec want their children to learn French as quickly as possible anyway.

2.There is obviously opposition to immigration, especially 350,000 immigrants a year outside of Quebec, in the rest of Canada as well. And, certainly one can oppose such a large number of immigrants a year without being racist.

In regards to the consequences, there was debate in the election that Quebec needs immigrants for economic purposes, there are job shortages, but there is also the other consideration.

In 40 years, Quebec has gone from having 75 of 282 seats in the House of Commons (about 27%) to 78 of 338 (soon to be 341 I think) about 23%.

This decline as a share of Canadian population will result after the next election of British Columbia and Alberta combined having more seats in the House of Commons than Quebec.

Quebecers need to understand that this is the consequence of their opposition to immigration, that if present trends continue, in about 30 years, they will likely comprise less than 20% of the Canadian population. They need to understand that this is the result of their choice and that they can't expect the rest of Canada to give them any kind of special protection in The House of Commons to make up for this choice.

When you make a choice, you need to accept all the consequences, both good and bad.

[adma]

Irrespective of the reasons for Quebec's unwillingness to accept more than 50,000 immigrants a year, I think Quebecers need to be aware of and accept all the consequences of that.

So, a couple caveats:
1.Quebec, of course, can not prevent immigrants (or any other Canadian) who moves to anotehr province first to relocate to Quebec. They can, as part of their language schooling policies try to make it difficult for English speaking people to move to Quebec, but I think most English speakers who move to Quebec want their children to learn French as quickly as possible anyway.

2.There is obviously opposition to immigration, especially 350,000 immigrants a year outside of Quebec, in the rest of Canada as well. And, certainly one can oppose such a large number of immigrants a year without being racist.

In regards to the consequences, there was debate in the election that Quebec needs immigrants for economic purposes, there are job shortages, but there is also the other consideration.

In 40 years, Quebec has gone from having 75 of 282 seats in the House of Commons (about 27%) to 78 of 338 (soon to be 341 I think) about 23%.

This decline as a share of Canadian population will result after the next election of British Columbia and Alberta combined having more seats in the House of Commons than Quebec.

Quebecers need to understand that this is the consequence of their opposition to immigration, that if present trends continue, in about 30 years, they will likely comprise less than 20% of the Canadian population. They need to understand that this is the result of their choice and that they can't expect the rest of Canada to give them any kind of special protection in The House of Commons to make up for this choice.

When you make a choice, you need to accept all the consequences, both good and bad.

Yet the irony is that for all this grousing over immigration policy, Quebec actually *has* grown at a reasonable pace over the years--it's just that the Western provinces have grown more.  That is, there's reasons other than language/immigration policy that have "constrained" growth; it's more akin to how Ohio hasn't grown as much as Oregon.  And compared to Ohio and other Great Lakes/NW States, Quebec's growth rate's not been bad at all, maybe not at an Ontario level but still well beyond that particular par.  (Certain parts within Quebec are a different matter; but that might be more analogous to the Atlantic Provinces.)

Heck, the only real reason Quebec's gone up in seat totals is as a byproduct of Harper-era Commons expansion--otherwise it'd probably have stayed at 75, and for more or less the same reason PEI's stayed at 4.  And fundamentally, 78 seats is harmless; so to insist upon reducing that because Quebec forms a shrinking share of the overall Canadian population strikes me as sort of, well, twerpy, like a wet-noodle version of fluctuating US Congressional delegations.    Indeed, this matter of painting declining population share as if it were declining population is inane, even if it feeds the case of those who seek to diminish QC's stature relative to the rest of Canada to something more "proportionate"--put it this way, btw/the 2011 and 2021 Censuses, QC went up 7.6%.  By comparison, California went up 6.1% from 2010-2020, the US *at large* went up 7.4%, and the only NE State to grow faster was Delaware (+ the District of Columbia), while Minnesota matched Quebec's growth rate.  See what I mean?  Not bad at all...

[toaster]

One thing I don't fully understand about the immigration debate in Quebec is that there is no shortage of French speakers around the world who I'm sure would like to come to Quebec and I'm sure would be good additions to Quebec.

I'm thinking in present of French speakers in Burkina Faso and Haiti.

A few things, French in Quebec and French in Haiti or Burkina Faso are so different they could be different languages.  There is a fear among Quebecers (a legitimate one) that their vernacular will be lost.  It's not so much about the colour of the person speaking the language, but more about the way it's being spoken. And it's not about accent, it's about words that are used, pronunciation, there is a Canadian/Quebec standard of French that is ignored or seen as "less than".

We've seen this in Ontario, virtually nobody on our own media (TFO, ICI) uses the Ontario French vernacular or lexicon. To no fault of their own (they are bringing their own identities), they pronounce the "t" in "aout" when giving the news, they say "cent" (with the T) when taking about pennies and money, they talk about going for dejeuner as though it means going for lunch. This is not the Canadian standard, and in Ontario, these are the only voices being heard in the media (and I would add, most higher level public institutions). People misrepresent this anger with racism, but it's more akin to Indigenous communities losing their languages or vernaculars than it is to angry Americans being upset that non-English speaking people are joining their country - which is the way the issue is being incorrectly characterized as.

These Franco spaces, especially in Ontario and other areas outside of Quebec, were created and made to protect the (shrinking) Franco population, and many feel like this safe space has been lost. Franco-Ontariens using the historical Canadian French standard are now being looked at as speaking incorrectly in their own province. And so we revert to using English because Francos from other parts of the world have other ways of saying thing. This is what Quebec wants to avoid.

[Хahar 🤔]

I don't speak French, Canadian or otherwise, but my impression was not that the OQLF is primarily concerned with promoting Quebec French as opposed to European French. Certainly the trend over the course of decades has been for prestigious Quebec speech to approach the European standard phonologically.

In any case, it sounds extremely racist to us anglophones to suggest that Canadian French would be endangered by a horde of francophone Haitians and Burkinabés. When Quebec nationalism presented itself as liberal in orientation (prior to the last decade), Gilles Duceppe actively made an effort to win Haitian votes and in presenting the Bloc as the party of the new francophone Quebec of all colors. He did not seem worried then about blacks degrading the pure French language.

[RogueBeaver]

Right now the opposition parties and pundits are squabbling over official party status, which is nominally 12 seats or 20% but in practice is decided case by case. In 2018 Legault granted it to QS and PQ, supported by the PLQ. Now QS and PQ are loudly demanding it but Anglade doesn't want to unless Legault commits to electoral reform, which he flatly refused in his press conference last week. Grits are saying they made a mistake agreeing in 2018 because it gave GND a higher profile and allowed Legault to run against him. My view is GND getting more coverage is a Grit problem.

Anglade's leadership is not being contested right now, though Marc Tanguay (Charest's former party president) wants to be interim leader while not doing anything to make it happen. Riqzy and Fortin are loyal to Anglade. Some outside Grits floated Labeaume, who sounded ambivalent when the Journal asked him. I highly doubt he would do it unless drafted and his profile is similar to Legault as a nationalist businessman-pol in his 60s who voted yes twice. Marois got 95% in her post-2008 leadership review and we know how that turned out, but leadership coups are strictly an establishment thing in the PLQ, like everything else. Plus no one seriously thinks Tanguay, Riqzy, Fortin or some LPC figure would do better.

[adma]

Right now the opposition parties and pundits are squabbling over official party status, which is nominally 12 seats or 20% but in practice is decided case by case. In 2018 Legault granted it to QS and PQ, supported by the PLQ. Now QS and PQ are loudly demanding it but Anglade doesn't want to unless Legault commits to electoral reform, which he flatly refused in his press conference last week. Grits are saying they made a mistake agreeing in 2018 because it gave GND a higher profile and allowed Legault to run against him. My view is GND getting more coverage is a Grit problem.

Anglade's leadership is not being contested right now, though Marc Tanguay (Charest's former party president) wants to be interim leader while not doing anything to make it happen. Riqzy and Fortin are loyal to Anglade. Some outside Grits floated Labeaume, who sounded ambivalent when the Journal asked him. I highly doubt he would do it unless drafted and his profile is similar to Legault as a nationalist businessman-pol in his 60s who voted yes twice. Marois got 95% in her post-2008 leadership review and we know how that turned out, but leadership coups are strictly an establishment thing in the PLQ, like everything else. Plus no one seriously thinks Tanguay, Riqzy, Fortin or some LPC figure would do better.

Probably if there's any "fresh start' hope for the Liberals, it'd be if a federal MP made a jump to the provincial leadership--not sure if there's anyone with that gumption at this point.

And the QS thing is interesting; because as much as some observers might seek to project an big-city urban vs suburban/rural left vs right dynamic upon Quebec politics, it doesn't work because the Quebec Libs have always been at least as much of an "establishment" party, and a lot of their Anglo strongholds are scarcely the sort that'd be deemed "left" most anywhere else.  Thus except when it comes to self-preservation, there hasn't exactly been the climate for "unite the left under the Liberals" in QS strongholds, not least because a lot of said strongholds used to be PQ strongholds and the big-tent Liberalism might as well be a unite-the-*centre-right* reflex, much as it has been in Lib/NDP marginal seats across Canada.  Thus in practice, Montreal's like a London where the Kingston/Richmond Lib Dem reflex rules the establishment-Anglo roost (while bleeding into the Allos elsewhere) and CAQ is a Franco version of a coarse "Essex Man Tory" easterly element...

[Benjamin Frank]

Right now the opposition parties and pundits are squabbling over official party status, which is nominally 12 seats or 20% but in practice is decided case by case. In 2018 Legault granted it to QS and PQ, supported by the PLQ. Now QS and PQ are loudly demanding it but Anglade doesn't want to unless Legault commits to electoral reform, which he flatly refused in his press conference last week. Grits are saying they made a mistake agreeing in 2018 because it gave GND a higher profile and allowed Legault to run against him. My view is GND getting more coverage is a Grit problem.

Anglade's leadership is not being contested right now, though Marc Tanguay (Charest's former party president) wants to be interim leader while not doing anything to make it happen. Riqzy and Fortin are loyal to Anglade. Some outside Grits floated Labeaume, who sounded ambivalent when the Journal asked him. I highly doubt he would do it unless drafted and his profile is similar to Legault as a nationalist businessman-pol in his 60s who voted yes twice. Marois got 95% in her post-2008 leadership review and we know how that turned out, but leadership coups are strictly an establishment thing in the PLQ, like everything else. Plus no one seriously thinks Tanguay, Riqzy, Fortin or some LPC figure would do better.

Probably if there's any "fresh start' hope for the Liberals, it'd be if a federal MP made a jump to the provincial leadership--not sure if there's anyone with that gumption at this point.

And the QS thing is interesting; because as much as some observers might seek to project an big-city urban vs suburban/rural left vs right dynamic upon Quebec politics, it doesn't work because the Quebec Libs have always been at least as much of an "establishment" party, and a lot of their Anglo strongholds are scarcely the sort that'd be deemed "left" most anywhere else.  Thus except when it comes to self-preservation, there hasn't exactly been the climate for "unite the left under the Liberals" in QS strongholds, not least because a lot of said strongholds used to be PQ strongholds and the big-tent Liberalism might as well be a unite-the-*centre-right* reflex, much as it has been in Lib/NDP marginal seats across Canada.  Thus in practice, Montreal's like a London where the Kingston/Richmond Lib Dem reflex rules the establishment-Anglo roost (while bleeding into the Allos elsewhere) and CAQ is a Franco version of a coarse "Essex Man Tory" easterly element...

Maybe Joel Lightbound.

[RogueBeaver]

PSPP is refusing to take the oath of allegiance but seems open to a way that could modify it if assented to by the LG and secretary-general of the Assembly, which is possible according to constitutional experts. QS and most previous PQ members have taken the oath privately and under protest, adding "until Quebec becomes independent." In 1970 PQ members sat in the visitors gallery for a couple of weeks until Lévesque ordered them to take their seats. Not even the Grits are keen on defending the oath, so we'll see what happens. Maybe it gets paired with official party status as part of a broader organizational deal.

Knives are now out for Anglade: activists, establishmentarians and more quietly the caucus. Interviewees say "she almost killed the party", complain about an organization that ranges from useless to dead, her insular style reliant on inexperienced outsiders and her own distance from Liberal values. One former MNA who served under her says she knew veteran activists who refused to vote for the party while Anglade was leader, and caucus is worrying about following the UN into oblivion. They think she's in denial and will do anything to stay - but among recent leaders only Charest stayed after an overperformance, not even Lesage avoided the knife.

[DL]

Well Rene Levesque stayed on as PQ leader despite winning just 7 seats in 1970 and just 6 in 1973 and losing his own seat both times...but needless to Anglade is no Rene Levesque