Canada Election 2021: For Justin Trudeau, it’s make or break in Quebec
It’s increasingly looking like this campaign will be won or lost for the Liberals in the only province in which its support is currently higher than it was in 2019
The Liberal Party released its platform on September 1. Some critics say it was 15 days too late. The Conservatives and NDP both released their platforms on day one of the campaign. Truth is, however, that the Liberal platform was released at roughly the same time the last election.
The big-ticket items are a $10-a-day child care program and a promise to do more on climate. The absence of a national pharmacare program was noted by the NDP and some members of the media.
Less noticed was the fact Liberal leader Justin Trudeau and deputy leader Chrystia Freeland spent most of the 28-minute online presentation selling the Liberal record in Canada’s other official language.
It’s customary for all federal leaders to offer a few words in French when making major policy announcements. But Trudeau and Freeland spent a noticeable majority of their time making a direct plea to French-speaking voters. Most of it was about Liberal accomplishments, not the platform.
It’s no coincidence. On Thursday, the Libs released a new French-language TV ad in Quebec ahead of the leaders’ debate to be telecast on TVA tonight (not to be confused with the election commission’s televised leaders’ debates scheduled for September 8 and 9). The leaders of the five main parties have already appeared before Quebec voters in one-on-one interviews on TVA on August 29 and 30.
With the Conservatives now polling ahead of the Liberals nationally, Quebec’s role in the outcome of #elxn44 just got bigger for the Liberals if they’re to hold on to their minority status.
To be sure, Ontario’s 121 seats will be crucial. The Liberals won 79 seats in 2019 (one less than 2015) to the Cons’ 36. This time, voter intention in Canada’s most populous province seems to be evenly split between the Liberals and Conservatives with the NDP assuming their usual share of support. According to projections by 338Canada.com, as many as 20 seats may move to the Conservatives in Ontario. Other polls suggest Liberal support in the province has rebounded after a shaky start. According to EKOS, the Liberals are back ahead by six points ahead in Ontario.
But even with national poll numbers showing the Conservatives slightly ahead, their support is more concentrated. There will need to be a significant shift in voter intention for the party if it’s to overtake the Libs in any more than half a dozen of seats in Ontario, even with the NDP splitting the vote.
As Leger Marketing executive vice-president Christian Bourque points out in Leger’s latest analysis, “The Conservatives need significantly more votes than the Liberals, if they wish to form government. Remember, they lost the 2019 election with 1 per cent more votes [than the Liberals].” The NDP, meanwhile, is making inroads in BC, the province with the next most seats after Quebec and Ontario, complicating the national picture for the Libs.
But back to Quebec. It’s increasingly looking like this campaign may be won or lost for the Liberals in the only province in which its support is currently higher than it was in 2019.
The Liberals are currently polling ahead of the Bloc and the Conservatives, who were reduced to 10 seats in Quebec in 2019 under Andrew Scheer. Electoral prospects on paper look slightly less dim for the Conservatives with current party leader Erin O’Toole polling at 20 percent in the province. But the party’s positions on women’s right to choose and the environment have historically been out of step with most Quebec voters. And the party is not on the strongest footing on the ground, having just finished nominating their slate of candidates this week.
The Bloc under leader Yves-Francois Blanchet currently holds 32 seats. It was the Bloc’s reemergence in 2019 that denied the Grits a majority. The Libs won 35 seats in that run-off, five fewer than the 40 seats the party won in 2015 with the Bloc under Gilles Duceppe managing only 10 seats.
But at 29 percent in the polls this time around the Bloc could lose as many as one-third of their seats to the Libs, according to polling projections.
Blanchet may end up fighting for the same nationalist votes the Conservatives are fighting for in and around Quebec City where the Cons have their base. What that means for the Conservatives’ electoral prospects in the region remains to be seen. But it’s worth noting that the Conservatives are currently polling some eight points lower than they were in 2019. A washout in Quebec could blunt any advances in Ontario.
Blanchet has noticeably turned up his criticism of Trudeau in recent days, including on the issue of vaccine passports. But it’s the immensely popular Quebec premier, Francois Legault, who is the wild card for the Libs.
Unlike 2019, Legault has not interjected himself into the proceedings. In fact, the former PQ leader no longer identifies as a separatist. He calls himself a nationalist.
He’s managed to use his political leverage with Ottawa to squeeze concessions on French language rights and big money for infrastructure projects from the Libs. Last month, it was $693 million from the feds to bolster Quebec’s aerospace industry.
So cozy has seemed the relationship between Trudeau and Legault that the Quebec media has taken to describing it as a bromance. Other political observers have offered that it’s more a merger of political convenience as Legault asserts his role as a top political dog in Quebec over Blanchet.
Equalization payments to the province and health-care transfers, however, remain hot buttons for Legault. And on those issues, he has been clear in his criticism of both Libs and NDP earlier in the campaign.
The province’s voters will have the final say. And history shows they can be as fickle as they are strategic. When it comes to sniffing out which way the wind is blowing nationally, they’ve shown an uncanny ability to vote accordingly and get the party they want in Ottawa.
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