The latest Angus Reid poll (December 2024) announces a conservative tsunami in English Canada in voting intentions at the federal level in 2025 with the exception of Quebec. Is this a phenomenon of reverse politics where Canada decides to separate from Quebec?
Curiously, the political divide appears more and more obvious to me between two social projects that are the opposite of each other. On the one hand, English Canada, which, like America of trumps turns everything to the right (religion, taxation and inequalities) and social-democratic Quebec which still holds to its secular society, the equality of women and men and its welfare state of social solidarity resulting from the Quiet Revolution.
The Bloc of Resistance to North American Conservatism
The Bloc Québécois increasingly appears to be the refuge party resisting North American conservatism. According to Angus Reid, the Conservatives received 45% of voting intentions across Canada, ahead of the NDP at 21% and the Liberal Party at only 16%. In all provinces except Quebec, the Conservatives have an average lead of 27% over the Liberals or the NDP. In Quebec, it is the opposite, the Bloc Québécois would obtain 47% of the vote against 24% for the Conservatives, the Liberals collapse to 13% and the NDP to 11%.
With a 23% lead over the Conservatives, the Bloc Québécois could win more than 50 ridings, which would lead it to form the official opposition in Ottawa, as was the case in 1993 when the Bloc Québécois won 54 seats under the leadership of Lucien Bouchard. Two years later, in 1995, Quebec held a referendum on its political sovereignty which it narrowly lost by almost only 50,000 votes (50.6% for no and 49.4% for yes).
A close result in a context of fraud revealed by the Grenier Commission investigation, the content of which remains secret in the hands of the Director General of Elections of Quebec who refuses to make it public despite two motions from the National Assembly of Quebec. But why is Quebec still resisting the conservative siren song?
Will Canadian separatism promote the spirit of independence?
The hard core of the anti-conservative vote finds its roots in the nationalist and independence identity movement. Will the year 2025 put in place the first milestones of a political separation between Canada and Quebec? Will the next federal election be decisive for the future of Quebec in Canada by favoring an independence party, the Bloc Québécois, as the official opposition in the House of Commons? Would this situation also favor the election of another independence party, the Parti Québécois, to the National Assembly of Quebec in 2026? The divides between our two cultures and ways of life have never been so evident, not only in terms of voting intentions, but also in terms of the vision of the type of society in which we want to live.
All this, of course, in the essential political context of the election of Donald Trump to the American presidency, whose profile and values are very similar to those of Pierre Poilievre, leader of the Conservative Party and potential future Canadian Prime Minister. Would this political chaos favor a possible “Yes” victory in a future referendum on the political sovereignty of Quebec in 2027 or 2028? The political situation opens a window for a new meeting on the political future of Quebec and Canada. Will 2025 be the first milestone where Canada will separate from Quebec? Many hypotheses which remain unanswered for the moment!
Jean Baillargeon
Strategic communications analyst and consultant
