RANDALL WHITE. HOME AND NATIVE LAND. FERNWOOD PARK, TORONTO. FRIDAY, OCTOBER 2, 2026. This coming Monday, October 5 la belle province will hold a general election to choose members of its 44th National Assembly (Assemblée nationale du Québec, finally following the nomenclature of the Assemblée nationale in France).

(1) Can Quebec Liberals finally nudge out Parti Québécois in 2026 … probably not ??

I have just noticed two in some ways quite different polls on the coming Quebec provincial election. The first (Pollara, somewhat older) suggests PQ (Parti Québécois) 29% ; PLQ (Liberals) 22% ; CAQ (Coalition Avenir Québec, the present government) 21% ; PCQ (Conservatives) 17% ; QS (Québec solidaire — as seen from the Ontario wilderness a party for hardcore left-wing francophone nationalists) 10% .

The second poll (Sondage Pallas Data, somewhat more recently) suggests a quite different ultimate victor : PLQ 32% ; PQ 29%, ; CAQ 14% ; PCQ 14% ; QS 11%.

Despite the Liberals’ first-place finish here, however, most even recent polls I’ve seen have the Parti Québécois standing first — and even possibly with a majority of seats in the Assembly (and thus a majority government), won with less than a third of the province-wide popular vote. (Thanks to five at least strong enough parties competing in a “first-past-the-post” election.)

We in the Canadian world outside Canada’s old “la belle province” (more recently “je me souviens” on auto licence plates) are just starting to realize that a Parti Québécois majority government at Québec City after October 5 — especially one led by Paul St-Pierre Plamondon — could present more than a little grief for the Canadian confederation of 1867 and (especially again) its current hard-working Prime Minister Mark Carney.

(2) “Headed to a disaster on Monday” ??

Back this past Tuesday eg the “veteran award-winning political journalist” Stephen Maher posted on Twitter/X : “We are headed to a disaster on Monday. Until now, Canadians have rallied to protect Canadian sovereignty from Trump. That becomes much more difficult with a PQ government in Québec City.”

(And some kind of PQ government — minority or majority — does seem what most close observers of Québec politics expect will happen on Monday, October 5.)

There is a further wrinkle in this disaster scenario worth noting. Current CAQ Québec Premier Christine Fréchette has recently reported that “ the U.S. approached Quebec about negotiating a separate trade deal with America, and she turned it down because Quebec wanted to maintain a common Canadian front.”

It is not at all clear that a new PQ Premier Plamondon would want to cultivate any “common Canadian front” in any context. (And one might even guess that some version of PQ founder René Lévesque would have been at least quite intrigued by the prospect of some Québec separatist trade deal with the USA!)

(3) Paul St-Pierre Plamondon — “engineer of chaos” or “centre-left nationalist but not separatist” ??

At the same time, I think the against-Canada sovereigntist side of Paul St-Pierre Plamondon can also be overestimated (?possibly?). And I’d count myself a Canadian supporter of some recently announced Plamondon Québec policies.

The bad news side of PQ leader Paul St-Pierre Plamondon is captured in this September 30, 2026 Twitter/X post from Jean-Pierre Vachon in Montreal : “Unfortunately, PSPP will not be the PM of an entire people; he will be the PM of the 30% separatists & will do everything to sow division, discord, quarrels & anger among Canadians, especially those in QC. This guy is an engineer of chaos and an objective ally of Trump and the USA.”

At the same time again, reading the Wikipedia version of the “Political beginnings” of Paul St-Pierre Plamondon does not altogether suggest some rigorously ideological Quebec separatist.

Eg : “In 2016, Plamondon was thinking of creating a new centre-left, nationalist but not separatist political party but a friend suggested that he run for the PQ in order to use it as a vehicle for his political career. Plamondon was a candidate in the 2016 Parti Québécois leadership race, finishing fourth with 6.84% support. One of his main commitments during this race was to reconnect the party with all Québécois people. Plamondon opposed holding a referendum on sovereignty during a PQ government’s first mandate.”

(4) Three cheers from Toronto for Plamondon on the monarchy in Quebec (and Canada)

And then there is right now M. Plamondon’s policy on the monarchy in Quebec’s Canadian Constitution. As in “PQ leader promises to break with monarchy if elected” ; “Could the Parti Québécois actually abolish the monarchy in Quebec? … Experts say proposal would face constitutional challenges” ; “Mr. St-Pierre Plamondon states: ‘A Parti Québécois government will abolish the monarchy in Quebec for good.’ I respect this,” and “PQ leader’s vow to break with monarchy raises prospect of constitutional showdown.”

Personally I not only respect the St-Pierre Plamondon point of view on the British monarchy in Quebec, I altogether support a similar point of view (and action) in all of Canada. And I think it’s fair to say that opinion polls have for some time suggested that strong supporters of the monarchy anywhere in Canada have now shrunk to a dwindling minority of the Canadian people who vote in elections (and form the ultimate practical sovereign power in the real-world Canadian constitution of the 2020s).

I do disagree with Paul St-Pierre Plamondon on one as it were technical point — and that’s his enthusiasm for somehow just getting rid of the office of lieutenant governor.

As the “presidents” of such present-day Canadian-style parliamentary democratic republics as Germany, Iceland, India, and Ireland make clear, some kind of “ceremonial head of state” remains necessary even in republican versions of our system — to act as ultimare referee in interpreting elections where the choice of prime ministerial head of government is not clear.

In this case the current CAQ government of Quebec has already made a sensible proposal : “Coalition Avenir Québec minister Simon Jolin-Barrette later proposed replacing the lieutenant-governor with an ‘Officer of Quebec’ in a draft Quebec constitution that died on the order paper.” Beyond this again, I altogether agree with M. St-Pierre Plamondon on the future of the British monarchy — in Canada and all its provinces! And I think this is one place where a PQ-led Quebec and the rest of Canada could happily work together (even if PM Carney does not exactly agree)!