Liberals closing gap with CAQ: poll
Only five points separate parties as pre-election mudslinging resumes
QUEBEC With a new poll showing the gap between the Coalition Avenir Québec and the Liberals narrowing, politicians resumed their pre-election mudslinging on Tuesday over identity issues.
Six months before Quebecers go to the polls, a new Léger poll shows the CAQ’s 11-percentage-point lead over the Liberals in January has melted to five points as Quebecers increasingly tune in to what their politicians are up to.
The CAQ is still well ahead in voter support at 34 per cent, but that is a three-percentage-point drop from the last Léger poll in March. The Liberals, on the other hand, are up three points to 29 per cent.
The Parti Québécois, down a point from March, remains mired at 21 per cent while Québec solidaire’s support is unchanged at nine per cent.
The numbers would still translate into a CAQ minority government in October, but the poll shows the climate is volatile and the game is far from over.
“There are those who believed the Liberals beat, but no, they are not,” said Jean-Marc Léger, president of the Léger polling firm, which conducted the poll for the LCN television network.
The francophone vote is still largely attached to the CAQ (41 per cent) compared with the PQ with 25 per cent and Liberals 16 per cent.
The Liberals owe most of their increase in support to the nonfrancophone vote, which has gone from 66 per cent to 75 per cent in a month despite the CAQ’s recent wooing efforts.
The Liberals recently renewed their own efforts to shore up support with non-francophone Quebecers by announcing the creation of an English-speaking community secretariat. In the March budget, Finance Minister Carlos Leitão equipped it with a budget of $24.5 million.
Where the CAQ has all the parties beat is in the war over who best incarnates change, a key factor in the election. In the eyes of 31 per cent of those polled, the CAQ best represents change. Only 10 per cent picked the Liberals in this category.
CAQ Leader François Legault is seen as the best person to be premier by 28 per cent of those polled followed by Liberal Leader Philippe Couillard with 16 per cent. PQ Leader Jean-François Lisée scores 11 per cent and QS spokesperson Manon Massé five per cent.
Thirty six per cent, however, still believe the CAQ will win the next election.
The internet poll of 1,019 Quebecers was conducted from April 6-8. A poll of this size is considered reliable plus or minus 3.1 per cent 19 times out of 20.
It landed at the end of a day on which — after a week spent in their ridings — MNAs returned to the legislature raring to duke it out.
The spark again was the issue of immigration and identity with opposition politicians ganging up on Couillard over a comment the premier made Monday in Montreal when answering a question about the government’s position on religious symbols in the public sector.
Saying he considers the issue closed because his government adopted Bill 62, which requires services be delivered and received with the face uncovered, Couillard said he believes people want to move on to other issues.
“We fulfilled our commitment (with Bill 62),” Couillard said following an announcement about the métro’s Blue Line.
“We are now moving ahead with real issues, the real issues of the real citizens of Quebec.”
The opposition objected to his use of words “real citizens.”
“He has crossed the line in terms of disrespecting Quebecers,” Lisée told reporters. “I mean, this disrespect for other people is intolerance.”
Added CAQ house leader François Bonnardel: “I am fed up with Mr. Couillard looking down on people, saying ‘Because you don’t think like me you are not real Quebecers.’ ”
The issue later led to a nasty exchange in question period with Couillard lashing out at the PQ, saying it would like nothing better than to recreate the atmosphere that surrounded its old, failed charter of values.
“They (the PQ) will stop at nothing,” he said. “Why not a good old crisis to divide Quebecers?”
But it got really nasty when the CAQ point person on secularism, Nathalie Roy, and Quebec Justice Minister Stéphanie Vallée, who steered Bill 62 into law, went at it.
After Roy asked if the government thinks people who would like to ban religious symbols for persons in authority are not “real citizens,” an enraged Vallée lashed out.
Displaying a CAQ anti-chador campaign poster of the past, Vallée accused the party of picking on minorities and immigrants.
“This is the real face of the CAQ,” Vallée told the house, pointing at the poster.
When Roy said the real face of the CAQ are Quebec families, Vallée fired back.
“According to her, who are the real families of Quebec? White francophone families? Is that it? Those are the families the CAQ is thinking of ? We are here to govern for all Quebecers regardless of their origins.”
Later, well out of earshot of the opposition, Couillard conceded to reporters that he slipped up when he used the term “real citizens.”
“Anyone who knows me knows I have spent all of my career defending the rights and equality of citizens,” he said.
“It can happen to anyone; not saying what we want to say correctly.”