Party members are hoping the negative publicity for Francois Legault’s CAQ that dominated media coverage last week will bring some voters back to the fold.
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Dominique Anglade put a brave face to his party’s fortunes on Friday, promising the Quebec Liberal Party would win more seats than the 27 it had at the start of the provincial election campaign, despite poll numbers predicting otherwise.
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Over the past two weeks, the Liberals have waged a blitz of town hall meetings, marches and radio interviews in their local Montreal-area strongholds and in the ridings of Quebec and the Townships of Quebec. ‘Is up to the 2018 wave of the Coalition Avenir Québec. had been liberal strongholds.
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While polls show that support for the Liberals has barely budged since the start of the campaign, with the CAQ losing five points to 38% support versus 16% for the Liberals in the latest Léger poll, members of the party are hoping for negative publicity for François Legault’s candidate. The Coalition Avenir Québec which has dominated coverage over the past week will bring some voters back to their fold.
Earlier in the week, Legault was rocked by comments from his immigration minister that immigrants weren’t working, learning French or adhering to Quebec values. Friday, Radio-Canada announced that the CAQ government was paying $ 35,000 a day to a consulting firm during the pandemic to help the government manage its management, without informing the population of the expense.
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“The problem is that we lack information,” Anglade said, speaking to reporters outside Montreal City Hall after meeting with Mayor Valerie Plante on Friday morning. “François Legault is once again showing a total lack of transparency, as we saw with the Horne Foundry file, with the third link in Quebec, and during the pandemic. He’s someone who doesn’t want to share information so he won’t be challenged.
She reiterated her party’s demands for a public inquiry into the government’s handling of the pandemic.
In the wake of this week’s revelations, Anglade’s central theme that the Liberals are best placed to lead the economy has shifted to a promise that her party will unite Quebecers rather than divide them, as she says that Legault does.
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“I’m here to tell you that you belong,” she told a gathering of about 40 supporters at St. Paul’s Anglican Church in Greenfield Park on Montreal’s South Shore on Friday afternoon.
They told him they were worried about Bill 96, that they were worried that they wouldn’t be able to get explanations from their surgeons in English, or that their English-speaking clients with dementia would have even more difficulty finding help in their language. They told him that they were unhappy with the way the Liberal Party had handled the Bill 96 file, that it had made them lose confidence in the party.
“All I can tell you is that I am a person of principle,” Anglade said, noting that his party voted against the bill. “I was raised in a family where you were taught to value all opinions and be collaborative.”
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Anglade has pledged to stay after the October 3 elections, regardless of the outcome. The poll aggregator Qc125.com is neck and neck with its opponents from the CAQ and Québec solidaire in its Montreal riding of Saint-Henri—Sainte-Anne. Mainstreet polls and a poll commissioned by her party indicate she has a 10-point lead over her CAQ opponent.
Qc125.com predicts that the CAQ will win 92 seats (compared to 74 in 2018) and that the Liberals will win 20, making it the official opposition party. Québec solidaire should win 10 seats, as in the last election, and the Parti québécois should win three seats, compared to 10 in 2018.
Anglade visited the riding of La Pinière on the South Shore of Montreal on Thursday and Friday, as well as Laporte on Friday. Both were won by wide margins in 2018 by the Liberals. This year’s election puts them neck and neck with the CAQ.
On Saturday, the Anglade team will travel to Gaspésie, the Îles-de-la-Madeleine, then to Kuujjuaq in northern Quebec (where the CAQ should win, as they did in 2018) before returning to Montreal Sunday night.
“Wait until October 3,” she said. “I think you’ll be surprised.”
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Asked if negative publicity on immigration commentary could translate into more seats for the Liberals, Anglade did not answer directly.
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