What are the five major parties taking part in Quebec’s provincial election?

Quebec’s election marketing campaign started on Sunday and Quebecers will go to the polls on Oct. 3; right here’s a take a look at the 5 events vying to kind the province’s subsequent authorities.

Coalition Avenir Québec (CAQ)

In 2018, the Coalition Avenir Québec  — often known as the CAQ — took energy for the primary time, changing into the primary get together aside from the Parti Québécois and the Liberals to win a Quebec election in additional than 50 years.

Based in 2011 by François Legault, a former PQ cupboard minister and airline govt, and Charles Sirois, a businessman who had supported the Liberals, the centre-right get together sought to maneuver previous the talk on independence by as an alternative selling Quebec nationalism relatively than separation from Canada.

Legault’s authorities has strengthened the province’s French-language regulation and banned sure public servants, together with lecturers and law enforcement officials, from carrying spiritual symbols on the job. It additionally proactively invoked the however clause to guard each of these controversial legal guidelines from Constitution challenges.

His authorities has additionally pushed for extra autonomy from Ottawa, together with extra energy over immigration.

Legault, who remained fashionable throughout the COVID-19 pandemic, is working on his document and the province’s robust financial system. Current polls have urged he shall be re-elected with a much bigger majority than the one he secured in 2018.

Quebec Liberal Celebration

The Quebec Liberal Celebration has lengthy positioned itself because the defender of federalism and champion of the financial system, however since 2018, the CAQ has efficiently offered itself as a protected choice for federalist and economically minded voters.

For the reason that final election, the Liberals have struggled to attach with francophones and have alienated a part of their anglophone base in Montreal.

Help for the get together amongst Quebec’s francophone majority is at seven per cent, in keeping with a latest Leger ballot. And whereas the Liberals voted in opposition to Legault’s language regulation reform — seen by some anglophones as an assault on their group — the get together’s initially ambiguous stance has created dissatisfaction amongst English-speakers. In response to the Liberals being seen as weak defenders of anglophone rights, at the least two new events have fashioned — Bloc Montreal and Canadian Celebration of Quebec — that declare to symbolize the pursuits of the province’s linguistic minorities.

Liberal Chief Dominique Anglade, who labored as a administration advisor earlier than getting into politics, says her get together is providing a unifying various to Legault’s “smug” and “divisive” authorities.

Anglade, a former president of the CAQ who left Legault’s get together in 2015 over its stance on immigration and id points, is promising tax cuts for these making lower than $92,500 and a $100-billion inexperienced hydrogen plan.

Québec solidaire

Whereas Québec solidaire doesn’t have a standard chief — it as an alternative names one feminine and one male as “co-spokespeople” — get together co-spokesman Gabriel Nadeau-Dubois is the get together’s candidate for premier. He grew to become well-known within the province as a pacesetter of the 2012 pupil protests that led to months of demonstrations and garnered worldwide headlines.

Nadeau-Dubois has mentioned his get together will marketing campaign on addressing Quebec’s reasonably priced housing scarcity, serving to individuals take care of the rising value of dwelling and preventing local weather change.

If elected, Québec solidaire would change the province’s secularism regulation to permit public sector employees affected by the laws to put on spiritual symbols at work — so long as their faces are uncovered.

And whereas the get together expressed concern in regards to the potential adverse impact of the CAQ’s language-reform regulation on Indigenous communities, Québec solidaire supported the invoice.

In 2018, Québec solidaire went from three seats in Quebec’s legislature to 10 because the left-wing get together made positive factors exterior of Montreal for the primary time.

Parti Québécois

The 2018 election was solely the second time since 1973 that the Parti Québécois was not elected Quebec’s authorities or official opposition. And whereas the get together received 10 seats in that election, it had seven members initially of the 2022 election marketing campaign as a result of over the previous 4 years, two resigned and one was kicked out following a sexual assault allegation.

Current polls have positioned the PQ in fifth place with about 9 per cent of the vote.

Chief Paul St-Pierre Plamondon, a lawyer who studied at McGill College and has an MBA from Oxford College, says he desires to focus his marketing campaign on Quebec sovereignty. He says the truth that Legault should ask Ottawa for extra energy reveals the necessity for independence.

The Conservative Celebration of Quebec

Quebec’s Conservative get together acquired lower than two per cent of the vote within the 2018 election, however since nominating former Quebec Metropolis radio host Eric Duhaime as chief in April 2021, the get together has been usually polling round 14 per cent.

Duhaime has collected assist from disaffected former CAQ voters upset on the get together for imposing a number of the most stringent COVID-19 restrictions within the nation, together with a curfew that lasted 5 months. The get together has additionally garnered assist from individuals against COVID-19 vaccine mandates.

The Quebec Conservatives, who usually are not affiliated with the Conservative Celebration of Canada, are campaigning for extra privatization within the health-care system, decrease taxes and smaller authorities. Duhaime has mentioned he opposes Legault’s language regulation reform however helps the spiritual symbols ban.

Earlier than the dissolution of the legislature, Legault’s get together had 76 seats, whereas the Quebec Liberals had 27, Québec solidaire had 10 and the Parti Québécois had seven. The Conservative Celebration of Quebec held one seat and there have been 4 Independents.