Open this photo in gallery:
Quebec premier-designate Paul St-Pierre Plamondon in the province’s capital city on Tuesday.Jacques Boissinot/The Canadian Press
Two parties at opposite ends of Quebec’s ideological spectrum have been thrust into the national spotlight after an election that leaves the province’s political future – and possibly the unity of Canada – in their hands.
The left-wing Québec solidaire and right-wing Conservative Party both won enough seats in Monday’s vote to potentially decide whether the incoming minority Parti Québécois government stays in power long enough to launch an independence referendum.
With the PQ at 59 seats, five shy of a majority, premier-designate Paul St-Pierre Plamondon has vowed to collaborate across the aisle, while his rival party leaders are starting to hint at what they will demand in return.
“It will be a context of rivalry and contention on many issues,” said André Lamoureux, a political-science lecturer at the University of Quebec at Montreal.
Five takeaways from the Quebec election results
Mr. St-Pierre Plamondon has promised not to hold a referendum while U.S. President Donald Trump is in the White House, and throughout the campaign spoke little about sovereignty, which is currently unpopular in Quebec.
But during his victory speech Monday, he reaffirmed his commitment to fighting for independence.
The premier-designate suggested that opposition lawmakers could help realize his plan to hold a vote on secession, though he has also made clear that sovereignty will not be among his early priorities. In reality, partisan jockeying may well bring down his government long before he can hold an independence vote.
The Quebec Liberal Party will retain its position as Official Opposition with 40 seats, though it seems least inclined to collaborate with its old adversaries in the PQ. Although there are some areas that the two parties agree on, such as trimming bureaucracy and building housing, the animosity between the federalists and sovereigntists runs deep, noted Mr. Lamoureux.
Open this photo in gallery:
Supporters of Parti Québécois cheer as members of the party are elected in Montreal on Oct. 5.ANDREJ IVANOV/AFP/Getty Images
The Liberals may have their first chance to clash with the government over its plans to abolish the role of lieutenant-governor, which Leader Charles Milliard said was “constitutionally an issue” and “not a priority for Quebeckers” in a postelection interview with Montreal radio station CJAD.
The government’s most likely partner in its goal of separating from Canada is Québec solidaire, with its nine seats concentrated in the cores of Montreal and Quebec City. The PQ needs a majority of votes in the National Assembly to adopt a referendum question.
But the two sovereigntist parties are not natural allies. QS was born in 2006, partly out of frustration with the PQ’s drift to the right on economic and identity issues, and they diverge sharply on everything from immigration to the question of how to bring about independence.
The Editorial Board: The real reason for the return of the Parti Québécois
The left-wing party describes its vision of separation as “inclusive” and proposes a four-year process that would involve consulting minorities on a proposed constitution, which would then be put to a referendum, at a cost of $840-million. The PQ wants a more pared-back constitutional consultation at far less cost.
Despite these differences, party leaders have collaborated before, including on a “roadmap” to independence in 2017, when both were in opposition.
Their bases are deeply at odds, however, on ideological grounds and have blocked attempted reconciliations in the past, including when QS members voted down a proposed alliance with the PQ ahead of the 2018 election.
Despite its iron-clad commitment to independence, QS draws major support from urban progressives who like its environmental and social policies but are not interested in separation. Polls show that only a minority of the party’s supporters would vote Yes in a referendum.
QS is also conscious of avoiding the fate that befell the NDP in last year’s federal election, when the New Democrats were decimated after propping up a minority Liberal government. The QS caucus will include Alexandre Boulerice, a former NDP MP now representing the Montreal riding of Gouin in the National Assembly.
“Politically, it wasn’t a winning choice for the NDP,” said Quentin Janel, QS director of communications. “And we have fundamental disagreements with the PQ on immigration and inclusivity, which makes it out of the question to strike a formal pact with the government on that level.”
The most likely dance partner for the PQ on many bread-and-butter issues is the provincial Conservative Party, founded in 2009, which had never won a seat in the National Assembly and now has 19, clustered in the Quebec City area. (An earlier iteration of the party dissolved in 1936).
Open this photo in gallery:
Quebec Conservative Leader Éric Duhaime in Lévis, Que., on Sept. 2.Jacques Boissinot/The Canadian Press
The breakout star of the 2026 election was Conservative Leader Éric Duhaime, who campaigned on the cost of living and voters’ dissatisfaction with the Coalition Avenir Québec government’s management of public funds.
Mr. Duhaime promised to act as a watchdog on behalf of taxpayers if voters gave his party the balance of power, and during a press conference in Quebec City on Wednesday, he said his caucus members are united by their commitment to fiscal conservatism.
“These are people fighting for individual freedom, for civil liberties, for democracy, and also for more money in your pockets – a smaller government that’s tightening its belt,” he said. “That’s the Quebec version of conservatism today.”
Shortly before the campaign, Mr. Duhaime unveiled a plan to cut government spending by $47-billion over five years, in part by eliminating 20,000 public-service jobs.
The proposal was the cornerstone of his campaign, and it set the narrative for an election that saw most parties announce measures to shrink the size of the bureaucracy, said Rudy Husny, a political analyst and former federal Conservative adviser.
There is considerable common ground between the Conservatives and Mr. St-Pierre Plamondon’s PQ, the most “centre-right” version of the party that Quebec has seen, Mr. Husny said.
Andrew Coyne: The weakness of its mandate will not deter the PQ from the chaos and division of its project
Both parties want to scrap the sales tax on used goods and to abolish Santé Québec, a Crown corporation created by the CAQ government to operate Quebec’s health care network, which critics have labelled as little more than a new layer of bureaucracy. On Wednesday, Mr. Duhaime said he also supports the PQ’s plan to freeze the salaries of elected officials.
But the Conservative Leader has been adamant that his party wants nothing to do with a vote on sovereignty. “Our position is non-negotiable,” said spokesperson Cédric Lapointe in a statement. “There will be no referendum.”
Mr. Husny said it’s very unlikely the PQ will launch the process to hold a referendum in this mandate, especially given Mr. St-Pierre Plamondon’s promise to wait until Mr. Trump leaves office in 2029. Quebec’s two previous minority governments survived less than two years.
This election campaign was primarily about change, he said.
“The next one will certainly be about the referendum.”