Time for some hard anal(ysis)!
The results have rolled on in, and man oh man was this an exciting race. Our TNT in-house poll projected: PLQ – 66, PQ – 46, CAQ – 11, and QS – 2. What we didn’t count on was the PQ’s support completely collapsing, leading to last night’s results. With the voter turnout at about 70%, for some reason Quebecers actually cared about this election. Let’s have a look at what they said.
Parti Liberal du Quebec
Couillard won the Roberval riding, a huge upset in a PQ stronghold. Couillard originally won the Outrement riding in Montreal during a by-election, but chose the Roberval riding precisely to see if he could steal it from the PQ. Supposedly he also has a house out there, but who would really WANT to live in Northern Quebec? It must have been to steal a seat. That result turned out to be indicative of what was happening across the province. PQ MNAs who had been happily sitting on their thrones daydreaming of a time when they could remember the old days of bilingualism and write on their Republic of Quebec letterhead were tossed off of the porcelain thrones they use instead of showing up to sessions of the National Assembly, unseated by new Liberal candidates.
The Liberal performance has been a demolition derby. Old faces and new candidates have been taking their best sledgehammers and wrecking balls, knocking down PQ strongholds and laughing their way into a strong majority that nobody ever could have predicted a few months ago. They were obviously the big winners in this election, and with a majority this large and well over 40% of the popular vote, the PLQ can basically do whatever they want for a few years. Time for a Canadian themed party.
Parti Quebecois
Calling the PQ “the big loser” in this election would be the understatement of the century. That combines with the PQ thinking that calling a snap election would get them a majority, which has won the award for “worst attempt at predicting the future” of the century. The collapse of the PQ is epitomized by the fact that Marois lost her own riding of Charlevoix-Cote-de-Beaupre, which everyone assumed to be safe. When the notoriously unpredictable voters of Quebec are on a crusade singing “Ding dong the witch is dead” nothing is safe. Nothing I tell you. Her soul-crushing loss means that she will no longer be leader of the party, leaving her to wander the wilderness looking for a new purpose. Maybe she’ll join a rebel movement in some other nice country. Some province of Ukraine maybe.
Her resignation means the PQ will be looking forward to four years of soul searching while they choose a new leader. Who will that be? PKP is a logical guess, but the fact that many PQ supporters will be blaming him and his fist-bump for the loss, he may face some resistance from the PQ caucus if they ever recover from the shellshock and PTSD of this election lost. For his part, PKP is already telling the press not to blame him for the loss. He can tell them that very firmly, because he can fire about 40% of them if they don’t listen. Rather, his blind trust can fire them, or something like that.
In the mean time, The True North Times forecasts that the CAQ will be doing the bulk of the work countering the Liberals in the National Assembly.
Coalition Avenir Quebec
While they may not be forming a government, which the sometimes delusional leader Legault pretended was a possibility, they did make some gains in this election. Well, so did everybody other than the PQ, but still. A 4 riding gain is nothing to scoff at (unless you’re the PLQ).
In his home riding, Legault’s assumption in L’Assomption led to a discussion eruption, and a PQ corruption destruction. Guess the Charter was an injunction dysfunction. Last week pollsters talked about the aberration of the CAQ, how the middle wasn’t big enough, but Legault is here to stay for the next four years and made that very clear in his speech. They won almost as much of the popular vote as the PQ, which either says something very scary about the PQ performance or is encouraging for the CAQ. Legault will assume the latter, we’re going to let you decide what you think.
Quebec Solidaire
The story of Quebec Solidaire in this election is their enormous disdain (read:hatred) for everyone else on the planet. Leader Francoise David, who won her riding by a solid margin, hates everyone who didn’t vote for her, everyone right of her on the political spectrum (aka everybody other than Trotsky and Mao), everyone who smiled at her and everyone who didn’t.
Their actual electoral performance has been mostly predictable. Both David and her jailbird friend Amir Khadir were both re-elected to the National Assembly. The riding race that had us grinding our teeth until the very last minute was that of Manon Masse, whose mustache some voters have already made tasteless jokes about. We would never stoop that low. A win for her would be a 50% increase in QS seat holdings, meaning that at this rate Quebec Solidaire would be the ruling party in 2254. So much to look forward to.