Montreal vs. the rest of Quebec in province

New divisions between rural and urban citizens

For half a century Quebec politics have been dominated by the split between those who wanted to stay inside the Canadian federation and those who wanted out.

But the 10 months leading up to October’s provincial election will be different.

There is a new division in Quebec, between those living in Montreal and citizens elsewhere in the province.

The consistent and sustained rise in the polls of the legislature’s third-largest party, the federalist Coalition Avenir Quebec, reflects this new reality.

Polling indicates the six-yearold party has a serious shot at government — including a ma- jority — without needing to win a single seat on the island of Montreal, a breakdown that hasn’t happened in Quebec’s modern political history.

“Whether or not it’s possible to win without Montreal, I hope to — and I will — have a certain number of ridings on the island,” Coalition Leader Francois Legault said during an end-of-year interview with The Canadian Press.

Quebec has 125 ridings, including 27 on the island of Montreal. A party needs to win 63 seats to form a majority government.

Philippe Fournier, an astrophysicist who runs the poll-aggregating blog Qc125.com, said it’s “absolutely” possible for the (Coalition) to win without the metropolis.

“There are 98 seats outside Montreal,” said Fournier, whose statistical skills have attracted serious attention across the province. “Can the (Coalition) win 63 of them? The answer is absolutely they can. We are in uncharted territory.”

This new territory was created in part by Parti Quebecois Leader Jean- Francois Lisee, who has promised to not hold a referendum if his party wins in October.

“Mr. Lisee has taken away the scarecrow of the Liberal party,” Legault said. “Quebecers are now free of this question that has divided them for the past 50 years.”

Fournier said he initially thought Lisee’s strategy was good politics when the PQ leader introduced the no-referendum idea 12 months ago.

“But in hindsight, (PQ voters) are saying, if there is no refer- endum then we’ll just vote elsewhere,” Fournier said, referring to the Coalition and to a lesser extent, Quebec solidaire, a farleft sovereigntist party popular in parts of Montreal but that has little support elsewhere.

Aside from a PQ minority government between 2012 and 2014, the Liberals have been in power since 2003. The anti-liberal vote, according to the polls, seems to be crystallizing behind the Coalition — at the expense of Lisee’s party.

A recent poll by Leger put Coalition support at 36 per cent, four percentage points ahead of the Liberals and 17 points ahead of the third-placed PQ. Another poll released Thursday by Mainstreet Research had the Coalition at 31 per cent, the Liberals at 29 per cent and the PQ at 24 per cent.