Pierre Poilievre’s successful bid to lead the federal Conservatives bodes well for the Conservative Party of Quebec, which is running in the provincial election with similar messages, analysts say.
Sylvie Trottier said she jumped for joy when she learned that Poilievre had won the leadership race on September 10 with an overwhelming 68% on the first ballot.
Trottier, a Conservative Party of Quebec supporter who recently attended a campaign event in Montreal with party leader Eric Duhaime, said Poilievre won her over when he traveled to Ottawa last winter to visit the “Freedom Convoy” – the massive protest against COVID-19 restrictions that blocked the streets surrounding Parliament Hill.
Poilievre “has a lot of ideas that sound like Duhaime,” said Trottier, 66. “He wants to take care of people, and he’s for free speech and for individual freedom. … It’s going to create a wave for the conservatives here.”
Louise Poudrier, Quebec’s Conservative candidate in the Montreal riding of Hochelaga-Maisonneuve, said her party – which has no official ties to the Conservative Party of Canada – shares values with Poilievre such as freedom of speech and a smaller government.
“For people who are part of the Conservative alliance, the fact that Mr. Poilievre has been elected leader of the federal Conservative Party is a good sign; it’s encouraging for us,” Poudrier said in an interview. “It tells us that we are not alone in sharing these values.”
Frederic Boily, a professor at the University of Alberta who studies Canadian and Quebec politics, said the federal Conservative leadership race is “good news for Eric Duhaime in that it reinforces his message, which bears similarities to that of Pierre Poilievre”.
Boily said Duhaime and Poilievre have benefited from dissatisfaction with public health measures introduced during the COVID-19 pandemic. And although nearly all of those measures have now been lifted, public resentment lingers, he said.
“It creates the conditions for a certain type of political message, one that finds that the state is going too far, that the state is spending too much, that the state is going into debt,” he said in a recent interview, adding that inflation has contributed to this resentment against the government.
The Russian invasion of Ukraine also allowed Poilievre and Duhaime to talk about their support for a liquid natural gas plant and pipeline in Quebec’s Saguenay region. The day after Poilievre’s victory, Duhaime emphasized their shared support for the natural gas project, describing Poilievre as a longtime friend who volunteered during his failed 2003 provincial election campaign.
“We have a common understanding of many issues,” Duhaime told reporters, adding that like many supporters of his party, he is also a member of the Federal Conservative Party.
Poilievre won nearly all of Canada’s 338 ridings in the leadership race, including 72 of Quebec’s 78 ridings.
Frederick Guillaume Dufour, a professor at the University of Quebec in Montreal who studies political sociology, said Poilievre’s performance in Quebec was surprising because the province has not traditionally supported politicians like Poilievre who have a caustic style and libertarian leanings.
“I think it demonstrates that there is a market for more populist, more libertarian ideas in Quebec, and right now Eric Duhaime is occupying that political territory,” Dufour said in a recent interview.
Support for a smaller government is not entirely foreign to the province. The Action Démocratique du Québec – the party that Duhaime represented in 2003 – advocated reducing the role of the state in Quebec society. This party merged with the Coalition Avenir Québec in 2012.
Since taking office in 2018, the CAQ has shifted to the centre-right, and the pandemic-related health measures introduced by the CAQ government have been accompanied by significant state intervention in the economy. The CAQ’s move to the center created space for a more fiscally conservative party on the right, Dufour said.
Additionally, CAQ leader Francois Legault sees the state as a tool for his nationalist economic policies, Dufour said, adding that Duhaime is a supporter of more free markets.
Despite Poilievre’s impressive success in Quebec during his leadership campaign, Boily and Dufour say it’s unclear whether the new Conservative leader is well known to Quebecers who aren’t members of the federal Conservative party.
And with recent polls putting support for the CAQ above 40% — compared to just under 20% for the provincial Conservatives — Legault’s party appears to remain the choice of conservative Quebecers, Boily said. “Most of the Quebec right remains embodied by the Coalition Avenir Québec.
Quebecers go to the polls on October 3.
This report from The Canadian Press was first published on September 17, 2022.