Lisée embraces underdog role, unfazed by polls

Parti Québécois Leader JeanFrançois Lisée is looking to some sovereignist heavyweights for inspiration with his party struggling in third place in the polls.

Lisée says he is relishing his underdog status about a week before the Quebec election campaign officially gets underway.

He told reporters on Wednesday that he was in a similar position at the outset of the PQ leadership race he won two years ago.

“I feel like an underdog and I like it,” he said. “Because that’s where I was at the beginning of the leadership race in 2016 — and here I am.

“René Lévesque was an underdog in the 1976 election. We (the Yes side) were underdogs coming into the (1995) referendum debate and we came very close to 50 per cent.”

Besides the reference to Lévesque’s stunning victory 42 years ago, Lisée also mentioned the 1998 election campaign in which Lucien Bouchard led the PQ to victory after it appeared Jean Charest’s Liberals would win.

Lisee appeared unfazed by recent opinion polls that have consistently suggested the PQ is trailing the front-running Coalition Avenir Québec and the governing Liberals.

“I’m feeling great because our team is extremely confident all across Quebec,” he said. “Our proposals are credible.”

He dismissed the Coalition’s proposals as unsound and said, “that helps a lot.”