For the Quebec Liberals, it wasn’t just another byelection

Loss to CAQ in Louis-Hébert suggests governing party’s base is eroding

Sure, it was just one byelection, in a single one of Quebec’s 125 provincial ridings. The next general election isn’t due for another year, an eternity in politics. And byelections are unreliable predictors of general elections.

No single riding’s electorate is typical of that of the province as a whole. This byelection was held in the Quebec City region, an electorally unstable, especially conservative political microclimate. In a byelection, the choice of a government is not at stake. Turnout is generally much lower than in a general election. It’s a free pass to express dissatisfaction with the government, even for voters who would cast their ballots for the governing party in a general election.

Local issues and candidates carry more weight than in a general election. In this byelection, the governing Liberals had to replace their original candidate, eventually settling for their eighth choice, and the popular former Liberal member of the National Assembly bitterly refused to campaign.

If a byelection does mark the start of a trend, it’s not confirmed until some time later. The results may have a temporary psychological effect on a party’s morale, but only until they are replaced by the next published poll results.

But still. The results of last Monday’s vote in Louis-Hébert, and the Liberals’ reaction to them, suggest that this was more than just another byelection.

To begin with, the turnout rate was exceptionally high: 52 per cent, the highest in the last 19 Quebec byelections, going back to 2011. In a vote for an MNA to serve only a year at most until the next general election, that suggests an especially motivated electorate.

In previous byelections in the past year, the once-vaunted Liberal get-out-the-vote machine had often failed to turn out the party’s vote. This trend continued in Louis-Hébert.

This time, however, the 13,894 missing Liberal voters in the riding from the last general election in 2014 didn’t simply stay home. Hundreds of them apparently swung over to the Coalition Avenir Québec, the party closest to the Liberals on the political spectrum. Even with the relatively high turnout for a byelection, 13,544 fewer valid votes were cast in the riding than in 2014. Still, the CAQ gained 2,441 votes compared to the general election.

While the Liberals’ vote share declined by 31 percentage points, the Coalition’s increased by 25.

The results in Louis-Hébert could be another sign of the “Lisée effect,” a breakdown in the polarization over Quebec independence that had favoured the Liberals. The breakdown results from Parti Québécois leader Jean-François Lisée’s pledge not to hold an independence referendum in the first term of a new PQ government.

Never mind that in Louis-Hébert, the Liberals lost a seat they had won in five general elections since 2003.

Before the byelection, the Liberals’ main concern was that in the general election, the opposition vote, now divided among three parties, would unite behind one of them to defeat the government.

Now the results in Louis-Hébert appear to confirm that the Liberal base itself is eroding, and that the party is losing votes to the CAQ. The byelection left the Liberals clearly shaken.

There were immediate rumours of an early shuffle of the Liberal cabinet in the middle of the fall sitting of the Assembly, to try to put a new face on a party that has been in power for 13 of the last 14½ years.

There were ambiguous statements from the government about the future of its controversial public consultation on systemic discrimination, creating uncertainty.

Criticism of the consultation from almost all sides has all but isolated the government, whose only remaining ally is Québec solidaire, the tiny fourth party in the Assembly.

And several Liberal backbenchers publicly blamed the consultation for their party’s defeat in Louis-Hébert. That breach of characteristic Liberal discipline indicates a lack of confidence in the party leadership, and a growing nervousness as the next general election approaches.