Quebec Liberal Party to kick off leadership race

Interim leader of the Quebec Liberal Party (PLQ) Marc Tanguay talks to the media as he arrives to a caucus meeting in Lac-Beauport, north of Quebec city, Tuesday January 24, 2023. (Francis Vachon/The Canadian Press)

It's an understatement to say that the Quebec Liberal Party (PLQ) is in bad shape right now: the results of the last election were the worst in its history. Its support among Francophones is diminishing and the Parti Québécois (PQ) is rocketing to the top of the polls and promising a referendum in its first mandate.

Be that as it may, the Liberals are betting that their next leadership race — which will officially begin this month — will enable their party to regain its place in the Quebec political hierarchy.

It would be presumptuous to consider the oldest party in the history of Quebec to be dead. The PLQ has survived many challenges in its 150 years history.

From domination to marginalization

In the early 20th century, the provincial Liberals dominated Quebec's political scene, holding power for almost 40 consecutive years, from 1897 to 1936.

The PLQ “elected 718 of its candidates, compared with 171 for its opponents. The provincial Liberals therefore won 87.6 per cent of the seats in the National Assembly during this period. These results convincingly demonstrate the Liberals‘ hold over the province for all those years,” writes historian Michel Lévesque in his history of the PLQ.

After nearly four red decades, there was “a long, almost uninterrupted domination by the Union Nationale from 1936 to 1960 under the leadership of Maurice Duplessis,” writes political scientist Réjean Pelletier. Times were hard for the Liberals, who were in power for only five years during this period. In 1948, despite winning 36 per cent of the vote, the PLQ elected only eight MNAs.

The comeback

The 1960s saw the return of the Liberals when they launched the Quiet Revolution. The Union Nationale regained power in 1966 with six per cent fewer votes than the Liberals. The PLQ returned to power in 1970 and remained in power for the next six years. In 1973, the Liberals won 93 per cent of the seats (102 out of 110) in a landslide victory over the PQ.

The 1960s were also a Keynesian turning point for the Liberals. “Under Lesage's leadership, the PLQ took a more statist direction and developed the public sector while distancing itself from the private sector, thus breaking with the Liberal heritage of yesteryear,” writes political scientist Frédéric Boily in a text entitled “The Quebec Liberal Party and the emergence of the centre-right (1960-1976).”

After Keynesianism, the PLQ embarked on the path of neoliberalism in the 1980s. This trend continued in the 2000s with the Liberal governments of Jean Charest and Philippe Couillard. The latter ended up with a budget surplus of $7 billion, at the cost of numerous cuts.

What does the future hold for the Liberals?

After an almost uninterrupted reign between 2003 and 2018 — with a PQ interlude that lasted a year and a half between 2012 and 2014 — the Liberals returned to official opposition benches when the Coalition Avenir Québec (CAQ) came to power. Party leader François Legault put an end to more than 40 years of PQ-PLQ alternation.

The ensuing leadership race ended with Dominique Anglade winning in May 2020, after her only opponent, Alexandre Cusson, threw in the towel.

The lack of enthusiasm for the leadership was reflected in the next election. Anglade led her party to its worst ever result, with 14.4 per cent of the vote. Although the PLQ received fewer votes than Québec Solidaire (15.4 per cent) and the PQ (14.6 per cent), it elected 21 MNAs and formed the official opposition. The setback forced the first woman to lead the PLQ to resign.

The Liberals did not wait for Anglade's successor to reposition themselves. With the CAQ's historic $11 billion deficit, the Liberals took up the cause of budgetary rigour, accusing Legault of having “spent like a sailor on the run.”

The Liberal party plays the nationalism card by proclaiming its desire to give Quebec a constitution but leadership candidates who soften or even “scrap” the reform of Bill 101 (commonly known as Bill 96), show that there are still tensions within the party.

The race will not be an easy one for interim leader Marc Tanguay, who must steer the ship as leader of the Official Opposition in the National Assembly. He refuses to comment on candidates' positions, some of them could serve as ammunition for his opponents.

The PLQ is officially against the third link, but the candidate and MNA for Marguerite-Bourgeoys, Frédéric Beauchemin — and his colleague Sona Lakhoyan Olivier, who supports him — are in favour of the project.

The Liberals want to distance themselves from Justin Trudeau's Liberal Party, which has accumulated record deficits in recent years. One of the leading candidates in this race, Pablo Rodriguez, was until recently a federal government minister. He was cautious about the speed of balancing the budget, stressing the importance of services to the public.

The caucus's change of position on funding for religious schools raised the ire of another leadership candidate, former Montreal mayor Denis Coderre.

There are still a number of issues the aspiring leaders have yet to weigh in on including health, education, immigration, and federal-provincial relations.

The PLQ is far from dead. In the past, the Liberals have adjusted their political orientations according to the moment. Will they be able to reach majority government at the next election?

To be seen in 2026.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published in French Jan. 1, 2025.