Quebecers vote as final projections put the PQ on the edge of a majority and the CAQ near wipeout

Quebecers are voting Monday in a provincial election that final polls suggest will return the Parti Québécois to power after eight years of Coalition Avenir Québec government. Polling stations are open from 9:30 a.m. to 8 p.m. ET, according to Élections Québec, and about 6.4 million electors were on the list when the election was called. The vote is being held on a new electoral map with 127 ridings, up from 125, after the creation of Bellefeuille in the Laurentides–Lanaudière region and Marie-Lacoste-Gérin-Lajoie in Estrie–Centre-du-Québec.

Early turnout was strong. Some 1.6 million electors, or 25.59 per cent, cast ballots at advance polls between Sept. 25 and Oct. 1, compared with 24.8 per cent who voted early in 2022, the agency said. There are 908 candidates on the ballot, more than 15,000 polling stations in nearly 3,000 locations, and some 60,000 election officers working the campaign. Turnout in the last two general elections was about two-thirds: 66.15 per cent in 2022 and 66.45 per cent in 2018, according to CBC News.

Final projections point to a PQ government, with the size of its win unresolved. The Writ’s seat model, updated late Sunday by analyst Éric Grenier, had the PQ winning in 94 per cent of simulations but reaching the 64-seat majority threshold in only 36 per cent, with a minority in 58 per cent. The model had the party leading in 65 seats, at the high end of its range, and winning 58 on average, calling the majority-or-minority question “on a knife’s edge.”

The same model projected the Liberals under Charles Milliard to form the official opposition with about 37 seats and Éric Duhaime’s Conservatives to win about 17 seats and party status in the legislature. For the CAQ, which took 90 of 125 seats in 2022, Grenier wrote that a complete wipeout was “a distinct possibility,” with the party projected to lead in no ridings. The last Pallas Data poll, conducted Saturday, had the PQ at 29 per cent, the Liberals at 24, the Conservatives at 20, the CAQ at 15 and Québec solidaire at 11.

A PQ victory would cap a sharp reversal for a party that won only three seats in 2022, its lowest total since it was founded in 1968, The Canadian Press reported. Leader Paul St-Pierre Plamondon has promised to hold a sovereignty referendum within four years if he forms government, even though polls show most Quebecers do not favour separation. “If people give you the mandate to be premier, you have a moral obligation to be the premier for absolutely everyone,” he said Friday in Quebec City.

Wrapping up his campaign with a stop in Montreal’s Rosemont district on Sunday, St-Pierre Plamondon declined to predict a majority or minority. “Every election is about history, but this one is about changing paths after eight years of the Coalition Avenir Québec not leading us to where we should be,” he said, according to the Montreal Gazette. Asked how he felt about possibly becoming Quebec’s 34th premier, he answered: “Excited and serene.”

His rivals spent the final days warning about a referendum. Duhaime asked voters to hand his party the balance of power, which he has promised to use to block one, and on Friday posed in front of buses bearing the 1995 Yes and No campaign signs. Milliard has pitched himself as the only federalist leader in the race and suggested the CAQ was “game over.” CAQ Leader Christine Fréchette, who succeeded François Legault after his resignation earlier this year, slipped after suggesting Americans were trying to help sovereigntists take power, a claim she quickly walked back, CP reported.

Electors must show one of five accepted pieces of identification: a health insurance card, driver’s licence, Canadian passport, Indian status card or Canadian Forces identification card. Employers must give workers at least four consecutive hours to vote without loss of pay, and polling staff have been told to ask whether voters have the right to be served in English, to comply with Bill 96, CBC reported. BIXI and àVélo bike-share rides are free from 8 a.m. to 8:30 p.m.

Preliminary results will be posted on the Élections Québec website after polls close at 8 p.m., with the first numbers expected between 8:30 and 9 p.m. ET. Official results will follow once votes are added up and the deadline to request a judicial recount has passed, the agency said.

Sources: Élections Québec (press release); Élections Québec; Gouvernement du Québec; CBC News; CBC News / The Canadian Press; Montreal Gazette; Pallas Data; The Writ.