Quebec Separatists Win, and Promise a Referendum After Trump
Paul St-Pierre Plamondon’s Parti Québécois has won the most seats in Quebec, returning to power for the first time since 2014 after taking just three seats in 2022. Canadian media project a minority; 64 of the 127 seats are needed for control. He has promised a third independence referendum in his first term, but only once Donald Trump has left office.
Support for independence runs at about 30%, low by the standards of the referendums of 1980 and 1995, the second of which was lost narrowly; there has not been one in three decades. So the immediate constitutional fight is a smaller one. Mr Plamondon has promised to “abolish the monarchy in Quebec” by defunding the lieutenant-governor’s office — which represents the King and grants royal assent to provincial legislation, so removing it would invite a serious challenge and cast doubt on the validity of future Quebec laws. He was among the members who refused to swear allegiance to the Crown in 2022, after which the oath was made optional, and says he is ready for a legal battle with Ottawa. Daniel Beland of McGill cautioned that the result reflects a fragmented multiparty system rather than a surge in secessionism, but added the point that will be read in Washington: a pro-independence party winning in Quebec a fortnight before an independence-related referendum in Alberta “might suggest to the Trump administration that national unity remains a major issue in Canada”. Mark Carney, still popular in the province but weakened there by August’s American tariffs, congratulated him and offered to work together for workers hit by them; Oxford Economics puts the tariff cost to Quebec at two billion Canadian dollars. Watch Alberta.