Minister of Transport Pablo Rodriguez speaks to reporters ahead of a cabinet meeting on Parliament Hill in Ottawa, on June 11.Spencer Colby/The Canadian Press
How bad are federal Liberals feeling about their party’s prospects in the next election?
Bad enough that Transport Minister Pablo Rodriguez is considering making the leap to provincial politics, to run for the leadership of the moribund Quebec Liberal Party.
The QLP finished in fourth place in the 2022 election with 14.4 per cent of the popular vote, and its support in the polls has been mired around that level ever since. The party of former premiers Jean Charest, Robert Bourassa and Jean Lesage – all political giants in their heyday – has the support of just 6 per cent of francophone Quebeckers, according to a Léger poll released in June.
In other words, the QLP barely has a pulse outside of anglophone and ethnic Quebec.
The party has been without a full-time leader since Dominique Anglade stepped down after the 2022 vote. It still formed the official opposition then, winning 21 of the National Assembly’s 125 seats, thanks to the concentration of its support in anglophone and allophone ridings in and around Montreal.
The Coalition Avenir Québec won 90 ridings in 2022. Since then, the CAQ government of Premier François Legault has lost its mojo as it scores one own-goal after another. The once-left-for-dead Parti Québecois has taken a commanding lead in the polls under its energetic leader, Paul St-Pierre Plamondon, who is promising to hold a third referendum on sovereignty if the PQ wins the 2026 election.
Why would Mr. Rodriguez want to give up his seat at the federal cabinet table to jump into the smaller, and even murkier, pond of Quebec politics? Perhaps because the PQ’s rise from the ashes might just signal better days ahead for the QLP.
Mr. Legault, a former PQ cabinet minister, capitalized on Quebeckers’ fatigue with the old QLP-PQ duopoly to win power in 2018. By wooing disaffected sovereigntists and francophone federalists with his “autonomist” platform and a vow to never hold a referendum on sovereignty, Mr. Legault drained support from both the PQ and QLP.
The CAQ moved to ban some public employees from wearing religious symbols and strengthen protections for the French language. But its failure to wrench full control over immigration from Ottawa, and Prime Minster Justin Trudeau’s constant intrusions into areas of provincial jurisdiction, have undermined Mr. Legault’s promise to increase Quebec’s autonomy.
Sovereigntists who left the PQ for the CAQ appear to be returning to the fold. it might not be long before the CAQ begins to bleed its remaining support to the QLP, as the federalist-sovereignist dichotomy that long defined Quebec politics is restored.
The June Léger poll showed that 56 per cent of CAQ supporters would vote “No” in a future referendum on sovereignty; francophone federalists now account for the core of the party’s support. Mr. Legault has attempted to win back support from the PQ by creating a task force, co-chaired by a former PQ candidate, to propose ways to increase Quebec’s autonomy within the Canadian federation. But there are no guarantees the effort will work, and it risks alienating some federalist CAQ supporters.
The perfectly trilingual, Argentinian-born Mr. Rodriguez no doubt senses an opportunity here, and enthusiasm for his potential candidacy for the QLP leadership is palpable. He is a strong communicator and an even stronger political organizer, having chaired the past three federal Liberal campaigns in Quebec.
The Montreal MP has served as Mr. Trudeau’s Quebec lieutenant since 2019 and helped persuade his boss to recognize the CAQ’s move to entrench French as Quebec’s only official language in an update to the federal Official Languages Act. The move showed a willingness to reach out to voters outside Montreal. The QLP will need to do that if it is to have any chance of ever winning power again.
Mr. Rodriguez has not formally declared his candidacy for the QLP leadership. But speculation about his move to provincial politics has injected a much-needed jolt of energy into what has, until now, been a listless leadership race.
The next leader will not be chosen until next June. So far, there are only two declared candidates – ex-Montreal mayor Denis Coderre and Charles Milliard, a political neophyte who recently stepped down as head of the Quebec Chamber of Commerce.
Mr. Coderre, who also served as a federal Liberal cabinet minister, has plenty of political baggage. But he also has an uncanny ability to work a room. Mr. Milliard remains an unknown political quantity.
First-term QLP MNA Frédéric Beauchemin is also expected to run. Some QLP strategists still dream of persuading federal Innovation Minister François-Philippe Champagne to enter the race, though he is believed to be eyeing Mr. Trudeau’s job.
For now, Mr. Trudeau is not the only one waiting for Mr. Rodriguez to make up his mind. His departure from federal Liberal politics could be the beginning of a trend.