Premier Christine Fréchette meets with Prime Minister Mark Carney, April 17, 2026

Much has been written about Mark Carney’s personal, pragmatic and strategic approach to international relations. There has been less analysis of how he has used a similar approach internally in federal-provincial relations, which has changed the game completely in the last year. This could potentially mark a change as well in the dynamics of the upcoming Quebec election.

The Carney effect in federal-provincial relations

Pierre Trudeau had a profound disdain for provincial governments in general and the Quebec government in particular, which he felt was always too nationalistic. This attitude seemed to be passed on in the genes to his son Justin. They both approached first ministers’ meetings as an unavoidable spectacle to be barely tolerated, rather than a potentially constructive opportunity. There was mistrust baked into the system which, it could be argued, often seeped down into the Ottawa civil service.

This same contempt was shared by Jean Chrétien to the point that in 2003, Jean Charest, newly elected as Quebec Premier, succeeded in turning the friendly Premiers’ Annual Meeting into the more serious Council of the Federation, encompassing provincial and territorial premiers. Under Trudeau Junior the Council of the Federation, working to build a common front, hoped there might be power in numbers in getting their message across. Instead, the usual reaction of the Trudeau government was to divide and conquer. Agreements would be signed bilaterally with the needier or more pliable provinces to break the collective proposal.

Carney, on the other hand, almost immediately took the initiative to convene the first ministers to bring them on side with his “Canada Strong” agenda. The premiers filed out of the first meeting almost dazed by the change in tone. Doug Ford of Ontario was particularly impressed and enthusiastic. The Prime Minister has continued to convene the premiers from time to time, if often with less fanfare. In the meantime, instead of using bilateral agreements to break a provincial consensus, he has used them for major projects that advance his pan-Canadian strategy, and also as “good news” stories for the individual premiers.

So what could this new approach mean for the election campaign that is now getting underway in Quebec, particularly with respect to issues that may tilt the vote such as “Quebec nationalism,” usually summed up by language and immigration, and attitudes toward Ottawa? Let’s take a look at the precampaign scene as this is being written in May.

Quebec’s election: The players and the ballot-box issues

Quebec has fixed-date elections, and the next one is coming up this fall on Monday, October 5. The formal campaign will last between 33 and 39 days. A new session of the National Assembly started May 5 with an inaugural speech (Quebec’s equivalent to a Throne Speech) and ends on June 12. Taking into consideration time for the adoption of the estimates and a week off in the ridings in May, that gives the Coalition Avenir Québec (CAQ) government, headed up since April 12 by Christine Fréchette, two weeks to adopt legislation with a view to setting the stage for the election and bump up the party in polls before the official campaign.

All the major political players are finally in place.

Fréchette, 55, was sworn in as Premier three days after being elected as leader of the governing CAQ. François Legault, who had been Premier since 2018, stepped down in January when it became clear he could not pull the party out the deep hole into which it had fallen after two terms in power.

Québec Solidaire (QS), the most left-wing party and formally independentist, has a structure with two co-spokespersons, male and female.¹ QS spent two years in turmoil at the top, changing spokespersons and interim spokespersons three or four times before settling last fall on a member of the National Assembly (MNA) from Montreal, Ruba Ghazal, 48, and one from Quebec City, Sol Zanetti, 43.

The Quebec Liberal Party² went two years with an interim leader before holding a leadership race in June of last year to elect Pablo Rodriguez, who was forced out in December over electoral financing scandals (real and perhaps imagined). In February Rodriguez was replaced without opposition by Charles Milliard, 47, a relative outsider to the party and less well-known, who had come a close second to Rodriguez in June 2025. Since 2019, Milliard has been President and Director General of the federation representing chambers of commerce across Quebec. This network should be invaluable to him in the campaign.

The Parti Conservateur du Québec (Conservatives), headed up by Éric Duhaime, 57, has never elected a member to the National Assembly, but has been polling at around 15 per cent of the popular vote since last July. Duhaime did manage to recruit a disgruntled former CAQ MNA in March, which finally gives the party a small voice in the last weeks of the National Assembly before the election.

Paul Saint-Pierre Plamondon, 49, known as PSPP, was elected leader of the Parti Québécois (PQ) in October 2020 and to the National Assembly two years later. The party had a caucus numbering four MNAs at the time and has since won enough byelections, due to frustration with the CAQ, to bring that number up to seven.

Let’s not forget that there is no proportional representation in Québec and it’s how the francophone vote will split, particularly outside the Montreal metropolitan area, which will make the difference. In the past, when there were only two parties in Quebec, the francophone vote split pretty evenly between the Liberals, drawing from the federalist centre-right, and the PQ, attracting the sovereigntist centre-left. In fact, one researcher calculated that it only took 10 per cent of non-francophone votes in a riding to flip it to the Liberals. Today, 35 to 40 per cent of the francophone vote is with the PQ, but the rest is split among the other four parties.

TABLE 1: QUEBEC ELECTION PROJECTIONS, JUNE 10, 2026

Party	Popular vote projection (%)	Seat projection (64 needed for majority*)	Francophone vote (%)
Parti Québécois (PQ)	30 (±4)	61 (45–72)	PQ	37
Liberal Party of Quebec (PLQ)	26 (±3)	40 (35–47)	CAQ	24
Coalition Avenir Québec (CAQ)	21 (±4)	9 (1–22)	PLQ	16
Parti Conservateur du Québec (PCQ)	13 (±2)	8 (4–12)	QS	12
Québec Solidaire (QS)	9 (±2)	7 (3–8)	PCQ	11

* The total number of seats will be 127 in October, rather than the current 125, so the number needed for a majority will be 64.

Sources: QC125 (popular vote and seats); Synopsis, June 7, 2026 (francophone vote).

Realistically, only the PQ or the Liberals could form a government (table 1).

Also, among the five parties, three – CAQ, Liberals and Conservatives – are officially nonsovereigntist, while the other two – PQ and QS – are officially sovereigntist. On the traditional left-right spectrum, QS is the furthest to the left and the Conservatives furthest to the right. The PQ is no longer viewed as a party of the left, and it is difficult to say which of the PQ and the CAQ is more to the right. The Liberals are the closest to the middle.

A PQ minority government, although a distinct possibility, would likely be short-lived because there is no obvious ally among the other parties which could be counted on to help it stay in power.

Although health and social services and the cost of living are, by far, the top ballot-box issues according to the polls, two other factors will also likely play a prominent role in the voting booth. The first is a vote for change in government which is very strong (72 per cent in March) and the second is the issue of independence and a referendum on independence. Two thirds of Quebecers (including francophones) are against independence and have been for many years. If the electorate wants to vote for a party that offers both a change in government and no referendum, the Liberals have the advantage. They need, however, to reconcentrate the nonsovereigntist francophone vote into their ranks, in particular from the CAQ. This will be their biggest challenge.

Quebec autonomy and nationalism

The media will concentrate on essentially two issues:

• “Quebec autonomy within Canada,” sometimes referred to in Quebec as “the Third Way,” meaning a path between independence and the status quo, and
• “nationalism,” meaning of course Quebec nationalism, which will come down to protecting the future of the French language and, to a certain extent, immigration.

The nationalism issue is less important for Quebecers according to the polls, but it is better for headlines and could therefore carry more influence than it would otherwise.

In the past, the tension between the federal and Quebec governments has been used as a “tilt” factor in Quebec election campaigns (and also in federal election campaigns). The PQ and the CAQ have consistently tried to outdo each other in their adversarial approach to relations with Ottawa. Everything that goes wrong in Quebec is the fault of the intransigent federal government. The Trudeau attitude of contempt reinforced the credibility of this rivalry.

However, in her speech at the swearing in of her new cabinet on April 21, Christine Fréchette made a remark that may be a signal of a significant shift. She stated that Quebec must become a better partner with the federal government. She also mentioned the First Nations, small and medium-sized businesses, the regions and community organizations, but the federal government was at the top of the list. And many commentators noticed. The first concrete sign of this new partnership approach was her meeting with Mark Carney and some of his top-level trade advisers before she visited Washington. It has been noted that she was left to meet with Jamieson Greer, the U.S. Trade Representative heading up the CUSMA negotiations, without any “chaperone” from the Canadian Embassy.

This places the Parti Québécois in the position of facing two parties that believe that Quebec can advance its interests by partnering with the Canadian federal government.

Éric Duhaime’s approach is still adversarial, proposing to conservatives in other parts of the country that provincial governments should push back against federal incursions into provincial jurisdiction. He seems to want to keep sovereigntist parties in the opposition as leverage with the feds, rather than in government where another failed referendum would simply set Quebec back again in its demands for more power.

Carney has already used his “partnership,” pragmatic approach to influence provincial politics. He is moving quickly on the pipeline deal with Alberta. Many speculate that this is meant as a signal not only to Alberta separatists, but also to Quebec separatists, that the “new” Canadian government does listen to provincial concerns. Quebec concerns, however, are more than economic. Quebecers need to feel cultural security as well, which brings us back to “Quebec nationalism” as measured by positions on the French language and immigration.

It’s important that protection of the future of the French language be understood as a legitimate and essential public policy goal for Quebec. The issue goes beyond the cavalier attitude toward French of the CEO of Air Canada or a unilingual invitation to a protocol event. Trudeau Senior conceived the federal bilingualism policy and entrenched it in the Constitution in such a way that the federal government not only doesn’t support French in Quebec but has also, since 1978, pumped close to $3.5 billion into the promotion and protection of English in Quebec, which is gaining ground with each new census.

When we talk about breaking down interprovincial trade barriers, it must be understood that what some may see as an obstacle to labour mobility may be essential to ensuring that French remains the language of work in Quebec. Being able to live day-to-day life in French in Quebec also means product labels which include French. And it means ensuring French media content, preferably from Quebec, a decision that often comes down to licence renewals at the CRTC.

The other major “identity” issue for Quebec is immigration. Quebec already has a form of recognition of its cultural specificity thanks to the Canada-Quebec Agreement on Immigration signed by the Mulroney and Bourassa governments in 1991. The immigration system has, in the last ten years under Trudeau and the CAQ, become akin to being trapped in M.C. Escher’s Relativity – impossible to navigate and extremely costly for both the newcomers and the federal and Quebec administrations, meaning Canadian taxpayers.

M.C. Escher, Relativity, 1953

Quebec has been trying for some time to obtain a review of the interpretation of the 1991 agreement to clarify the sharing of responsibility in this field in the light of how the system has evolved. There has been little collaboration from the federal government, at either the administrative or the political level. The proposed review could go a long way toward achieving another of Carney’s goals: eliminating duplication and cutting costs, a win for all concerned.

It is worth noting that, in her April 21 speech, Fréchette also asserted that it is time for a more humane approach to immigration – another rupture with the Legault discourse. Under Legault’s leadership the CAQ seemed to be in a contest with the PQ on which party could take the hardest line on lowering immigration levels and blaming many problems on “mass immigration” imposed on Quebec by the federal (Justin Trudeau) Liberals.

However, a decision of the Quebec Immigration Minister last November to cut off a popular pathway to permanent residency in Quebec provoked a huge backlash in civil society. A major coalition of unions, community groups, business groups and municipalities sprouted, representing all the regions of Quebec. All parties will have to play it more carefully in the coming campaign, balancing legitimate cultural concerns with Quebecers’ generally open and welcoming nature. With population numbers going down, in Quebec as elsewhere, the “mass immigration” argument should also lose some steam.

Could Fréchette’s more sensitive approach to immigration ease stressors with the federal civil service? All the time she was Minister of Immigration (2022–24), she never publicly took on the hard line of her leader, even though she toed the government line on overall policy.

Living the impossible?

Trudeau Senior adopted his landmark multiculturalism policy in 1971. Then–Quebec Premier Robert Bourassa rejected the policy, and wrote the following in an open letter to the major daily newspapers:

If the federal government assumes general commitments vis-à-vis all the cultures that meet in Canada, Quebec must assume the role of primary responsibility on its territory for the stability of the French language and culture. The Government of Quebec therefore feels a special responsibility to ensure the standing of French culture in the North American context and it intends to continue to do so by all the means at its disposal. This does not mean that there can be any discrimination against other cultures.

Carney’s pan-Canadian vision must make room, in a concrete way, for Quebec’s cultural concerns. If Carney makes gestures of recognition of these concerns during the months leading up to the election, which party would benefit the most?

One might assume it would be the Quebec Liberal Party, given the popularity of Carney and the “new” Carney Liberals. The Quebec Liberals have the advantage of being the party that opposes both sovereignty and a referendum and that can form a government that isn’t the CAQ, but they have a serious credibility problem when it comes to defending French, thanks in large measure to the Trudeau family legacy.

The CAQ is viewed much more favourably than the Liberals when it comes to protecting the French language, but while Fréchette is making a good effort to show she represents change, will she have enough time to prove it? For the next five months, all the other parties will be reminding her and the voters of the multiple scandals and failures of the CAQ government.

It may all come down to which Quebec party can best demonstrate that it can defend the Quebec French language and culture through partnership with Carney’s Liberal Party of Canada – an unthinkable goal after 55 years of the Trudeau legacy. Is Carney’s pragmatism-and-partnership approach up to the challenge?

Notes

¹ The party decides who will take on the leadership debates in an election campaign and the premiership.

² Of the five major political parties in Quebec, only the Liberals have a name registered in both French and English.