Bloc Quebecois Leader Yves-Francois Blanchet, right, and newly-elected candidate Louis-Philippe Sauvé pose with their campaign posters on Sept. 17 in Montreal. The Bloc Quebecois won the Montreal Liberal stronghold riding of LaSalle-Émard-Verdun after an extremely tight three-way race with the NDP.Christinne Muschi/The Canadian Press
Top Liberals demonstrated either exceptional creativity or deep denial in casting their party’s humiliating by-election defeat in the Lasalle-Émard-Verdun riding as a merely disappointing political setback.
“Obviously, it’s never fun to come so close to winning a by-election,” Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said on Tuesday, after his party narrowly lost the lower Montreal riding that it won by 20 percentage points in 2021.
“For sure, it’s heartbreaking to lose a campaign by only 248 votes,” chimed Tourism Minister Soraya Martinez Ferrada, further stretching credulity by saying reporters’ descriptions of Lasalle-Émard-Verdun as a Liberal stronghold were just “media spin.”
It is hard to understate the significance of the Liberal collapse in a Quebec riding with the demographic profile of Lasalle-Émard-Verdun. The fast-gentrifying circonscription has a progressive bent, and anglophones and allophones account for about 40 per cent of its residents. Until Monday, it had almost never not been red.
That the sovereigntist Bloc Québécois managed to come out on top in Monday’s by-election, with 28 per cent of the popular vote, is a testimony to the party’s ability to turn out its core francophone nationalist supporters – and attract disaffected Liberals, to boot. Louis-Philippe Sauvé became the Bloc’s 33rd MP in an upset that had even some Bloquistes shaking their heads at their party’s good luck.
The victory puts the Bloc in a sweet spot with a federal election on the horizon. For Leader Yves-François Blanchet, the result is a major morale booster. If the Bloc can pick off a riding like Lasalle – albeit thanks to a three-way split of the vote, with the NDP coming in a close third – it can credibly envision gains elsewhere in the province.
There is a risk that an overconfident Mr. Blanchet overplays his hand by demanding concessions from Mr. Trudeau in exchange for propping up his minority government. His main ask so far is an increase in Old Age Security benefits for Canadians between 65 and 74, to match the hike the Liberals provided to those older than 75 in 2022.
Ottawa already spends more than $80-billion a year on elderly benefits – far more than on health or defence – and the cost is set to surpass $100-billion by the end of the decade. While an OAS increase might be popular with some voters, working-age Quebeckers struggling to pay their bills might just see it as a financially irresponsible vote-buying scheme and blame the Bloc for holding the Liberals ransom.
The Bloc also faces a messaging dilemma as it seeks to appeal to progressive francophones in the greater Montreal area, while at the same time trying to hold onto its rural and semi-urban ridings.
A case in point is the Bloc’s reaction to Liberal Environment Minister Steven Guilbeault’s threat of enacting a federal decree to protect three endangered woodland caribou herds, which would result in bans on logging that the Quebec government warns would cost 2,000 jobs. Business and labour leaders have denounced Ottawa’s intervention. Forest workers have staged protests.
Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre has vowed to abolish any such decree if he becomes prime minister, as he courts voters in forestry-dependent Quebec ridings. Mr. Blanchet has blasted Ottawa for meddling in provincial affairs. But he has been less categorical than Mr. Poilievre about favouring the economy over the environment, apparently pleasing no one.
Still, midsummer polls showing the Bloc and Conservatives neck-and-neck in Quebec proved ephemeral. Léger and Abacus polls released in the past week showed the Bloc with support in the mid-30s. The Tories and Liberals are each hovering in the mid-20s.
Liberal support is concentrated in Montreal and western Quebec, while the Tories dominate in the Quebec City and Beauce regions. Despite its strong showing in the Lasalle by-election, the NDP barely cracks double digits across the province. Based on current polls, there would be plenty of three-way races in Quebec in the next election.
Despite Mr. Blanchet’s refusal to support a non-confidence motion the Conservatives plan to table next week, there might be no better time than this fall for the Bloc to try to force a federal election. Quebec remains the only province or region in which the Conservatives do not have a commanding lead.
The Bloc stands to gain up to 10 seats in the province in a fall election – all of them at the expense of the Liberals. They include Brome-Missisquoi, now held by Heritage Minister Pascale St-Onge, and Ms. Martinez Ferrada’s own Hochelaga riding. The Bloc could also snatch Public Services Minister Jean-Yves Duclos’s Quebec City seat.
Mr. Poilievre has so far failed to persuade enough Quebeckers to jump onto the Tory bandwagon to make significant seat gains in the province. That could change if the Bloc chooses to prop up the minority Liberals for another year. Or not. Quebec is showing once again that, politically speaking at least, it really is a distinct society.