MONTREAL - The ADQ is no more; long live the CAQ.

Coalition Avenir Quebec leader Francois Legault is gratefully taking new blood and new cash from the now-defunct ADQ and charging ahead with his new plan for Quebec.

However the Coalition Action Quebec is still short on details on how to improve the province.

At a news conference the morning after 70 per cent of Action Democratique du Quebec members who cast a ballot voted in favour of merging with the CAQ, Legault dismissed news that just over half of existing ADQ members bothered to vote.

"When you try to put together people from the right and the left, that people from the extremes don't want to be part of that," he said.

Regardless of how many members voted, the merger is important to the CAQ for one important reason: the ADQ currently has official party status within the National Assembly despite its small roster of elected MNAs, and as such is eligible for extra funding for researchers and expenses.

The merger means that when the next sitting of the National Assembly begins on Feb. 14, the CAQ will have nine sitting members.

In addition, the CAQ now has a new president; 37-year-old former Procter & Gamble engineer Dominique Anglade.

"I think Quebecers deserve better," she said, explaining why she chose the CAQ.

While celebrating the merger, Legault reiterated that the CAQ is not a covertly separatist party, and that he will be trying to entice anglophone voters.

"It's about time that we stop taking them for granted like the Liberal party did for many years," said Legault.

"It's about time that they have an alternative, and I think we can be this alternative because it's very clear. I said it very clearly; I am coming back in politics for 10 years. I have no intention working on the national question or on the sovereignty of Quebec."

Once again Legault pledged that the CAQ would concentrate on improving schools, integrating immigrants, and getting every Quebec their own family doctor, but did not provide any concrete examples of how these goals could be achieved.

The ADQ's founding father Mario Dumont said the CAQ may struggle for a pair of reasons.

Dumont said the apparent rift with some ADQ members who did not show up to vote, or voted against the merger, could spell trouble for the fledgling party, especially if dissenters form their own party.

"If they create another option, which could just get 5, 6, or 7 per cent of voters from the right. That would subtract directly from Francois Legault," he said.

Dumont also feels the CAQ may be peaking too soon.

"Pauline Marois is not finished; she could have a rebound. And the Liberals are never finished," he said.