Liberals surge to majority win
MONTREAL (CP) — The doctor is in.
Philippe Couillard, a former neurosurgeon, led his Liberal troops to a majority win in the Quebec election Monday night, 18 months after the party was turfed out of power under Jean Charest.
The defeat of Parti Quebecois Leader Pauline Marois was stunningly similar to one that brought her to the PQ’s top job after Andre Boisclair suffered the worst electoral thrashing in the party’s history in 2007.
The total of seats won under Marois was hauntingly close to Boisclair’s total of 36 as votes were counted.
The PQ nearly collapsed after the 2007 election and Marois won the leadership by acclamation. The devastating blow to sovereignty in 2014 will likely throw the party into upheaval again as it ponders its next move.
The red Liberal tide flowed early across Quebec’s electoral map, sweeping over the incumbent PQ, which had been battered by questions about its plans for a third sovereignty referendum that most Quebecers flatly said they didn’t want.
With about 75 per cent of polls reporting, the Liberals had more than 40 per cent of the popular vote and won or were leading in about 70 of the province’s 125 ridings.
In terms of popular support, the PQ was just a few percentage points ahead of the Coalition for Quebec’s Future, which still trailed badly in third place in terms of seats.
Marois wasn’t even sure of winning her seat in CharlevoixCote- de- Beaupre and was involved in a nailbiter with the Liberals’ Caroline Simard.
A dejected Coalition Leader Francois Legault was shown watching as the results came in, one hand gripping the side of a white couch as his wife sympathetically patted his knee.
While no pundit would be foolish enough to declare sovereignty dead, the option has likely been put to sleep for a while. Some observers have suggested it could be years, if not decades, before it is revived.
Couillard, who was a popular health minister under Charest until 2008, stoked the fears of a referendum after star PQ candidate Pierre Karl Peladeau entered the election and declared he wanted to build an independent Quebec.
Marois mused what a sovereign Quebec would be like for days after that, something that allowed her party to be knocked off its message to the point where it never really recovered.
Peladeau, meanwhile, emerged victorous in SaintJerome.
“This is not the result we wanted,” he told supporters.
The media tycoon urged PQ supporters to take a few days to let the dust settle.
Peladeau also had kind words for Marois, who he may end up succeeding as PQ leader.
“She is a woman of courage and of determination. A woman who loves Quebecers.”
Monday’s results in Quebec no doubt prompted a sigh of relief in Ottawa as well.
With the PQ out, it means Prime Minister Stephen Harper won’t have to worry about a national unity crisis as he heads toward the 2015 election.
It will also not preoccupy Opposition Leader Tom Mulcair, who draws most of his New Democratic Party caucus from the province, some of whom expressed sovereigntist sympathies at one time or another.
The 33-day campaign had been considered as one of the nastiest in decades.
Voters had complained in the weeks leading up to the vote that bread- and- butter issues had received little attention as politicians fired potshots over the possibility of another sovereignty referendum or challenged each other on ethics.
Marois, whose party formed a minority government in 2012, was hoping to win a majority of the 125 ridings — a scenario that could have eventually led to another referendum.