MONTREAL — Quebec Premier François Legault warned his troops to stay humble on Tuesday after his Coalition Avenir Québec won a Montreal-area byelection the day prior, and as the two once-dominant parties — the Liberals and Parti Québécois — suffered disappointing results.
Less than six months ahead of the general election, Legault told reporters he is taking nothing for granted, but he admitted his party's chances of winning in October are "looking good right now."
Shirley Dorismond, a nurse who works in addictions and mental health, took the Marie-Victorin riding for the governing party with about 35 per cent of the vote. The riding on Montreal's south shore had been dominated by the sovereigntist PQ since it was created in 1981.
"You have to remember that Marie-Victorin voted for the Parti Québécois for the last 40 years," Legault said in Quebec City. "It wasn't an easy win, so that's why I think it's a big win for us."
The CAQ has remained atop the polls since the 2018 election, when the party won a majority. With Monday's byelection win, Legault's party has 76 seats in the 125-seat legislature.
Meanwhile, PQ Leader Paul St-Pierre Plamondon tried to spin the results in his favour, telling reporters his party's second-place showing at 30 per cent — relatively stable compared with its results in the 2018 general election — indicates that only the PQ can challenge the CAQ.
"I can't throw a party this morning, but I can see that the result is objectively very good," St-Pierre Plamondon told reporters. "Six months ago, everyone agreed it would be an easy win for the CAQ."
Recent polls have placed the PQ in fifth place overall, with less than 10 per cent support across the province.
The official Opposition Liberal party came fifth on Monday — behind the Conservatives, who didn't run a candidate in the riding in 2018. Liberal Leader Dominique Anglade's party secured seven per cent, down more than half compared with 2018.
"There's no question that it was disappointing," she told reporters. "I think a lot of the Liberals stayed home."
The Coalition's victory came days after evidence released at a coroner's inquest indicated two of Legault's cabinet ministers knew about the tragic situation in the spring of 2020 at a Montreal-area long-term care home 10 days earlier than they had publicly claimed. The coroner is investigating the 47 deaths that occurred at the Herron long-term care home during the pandemic's first wave, along with deaths at other institutional settings in the province.
Legault said the results of the byelection show that Quebecers accept his version of events — that his government believed the regional health authority had taken charge of the Herron care home. Voters, he added, didn't respond to criticisms from the opposition, including from Anglade.
Québec solidaire came third with 14 per cent, a decline of more than seven percentage points from the left-wing party's 2018 results. Co-spokesperson Gabriel Nadeau-Dubois said low voter turnout, particularly among young people, and a lack of polling stations on college and university campuses hurt his party.
"We knew entering that race that it was a PQ stronghold; we knew it wasn't going to be easy and considering that, and considering the absence of voting on campuses, I think a solid third place is a result that is honourable for Québec solidaire," he told reporters in Quebec City.
The Quebec Conservative Party received about 10 per cent of the vote, a result party leader Eric Duhaime said shows his team "is the only opposition party to the CAQ that is growing." The Conservatives received 1.5 per cent of the vote provincewide in 2018.
"The battle of Marie-Victorin has just trained us to be much stronger ahead of the electoral war on Oct. 3," Duhaime tweeted Tuesday.
In response to the Conservatives' results, Legault said his party is focusing on "our priorities."
"So we will continue to be the party of the economy, to be a nationalist party, to be a party that is moderate."
And Legault had a message to his team: "It's important to remain humble; it's important, every day, to earn the trust of Quebecers … so no arrogance. We stay humble and we listen to Quebecers."
This report by The Canadian Press was first published April 12, 2022.
Jacob Serebrin, The Canadian Press
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