The April 7 Quebec Election

Some Observations on the

April 7 Québec Election

 

The recent Québec election was a disaster for the governing Parti Québeçois (PQ) and Premier Pauline Marois and an astonishing revival for the Liberal Party under its new leader, Philippe Couillard.

The extent of the Liberal revival and the PQ disaster is illustrated by two contrasting facts. The Liberal share of the vote rose, compared to the previous election in 2012, in 124 of the 125 constituencies in Québec (the only exception being Arthabaska where it fell by a mere 0.2 percentage points). The PQ share of the vote fell in all but 3 constituencies and in two of those (Nicolet- Bécancoeur and Soulanges) they benefited from the absence of an Option Nationale candidate who took 27% of the vote in 2012 and of the failure of the CAQ to run a candidate in a constituency where they has taken 28% of the vote in the previous election. The PQ did gain one seat from the CAQ in St. Jerome, where Pierre Karl Peladeau won, but even here their share of the vote was lower than in 2012 and the incumbent CAQ member did not re-offer. Only in Matane-Matapèdia, where incumbent member Pascal Bérubé’s share of the vote rose from 59% to 61.2%, did the PQ do better than 2012 in a constituency where special circumstances were absent.

The third party in Québec, the nationalist right-of centre CAQ (Coalition pour L’Avenir du Québec) managed to improve its share of the vote in 17 constituencies and to maintain their share of the vote in two others. They won nine seats from the PQ, lost one to the PQ and lost five to the Liberals for a net gain of three, although their share of the provincial vote fell by 4 percentage points. The fourth party, the leftist and sovereigntist QS (Quebec Solidarity) increased its share of the overall vote by 1.6 percentage points and gained a seat from the PQ in central Montreal.

The Liberals gained twenty seats- 15 from the PQ and 5 from the CAQ- to go from 50 to 70 seats in the National Assembly, increased their share of the popular vote from 31.2% to 41.5% and polled almost 400,000 more votes than in 2012 although the total number of votes cast fell by over 130,000 . While overall turnout fell slightly from 73.7% in 2012 to 70.4% in 2014 it rose in 23 constituencies, all of them won by the Liberals except for Bonaventure. In 12 constituencies the Liberals lost by a margin of less than 5 percentage points of the popular vote, meaning they were highly competitive in 82 of the 125 constituencies.

It appears that the PQ was hurt, not only by vote-switching to other parties, but also by large numbers of their 2012 supporters simply staying home. In 80 of the 102 constituencies where the turnout fell from 2012, the decline in the PQ vote accounted for more than the decline in the overall vote.