Parti Québécois has won hotly contested byelection in Quebec City riding of Jean-Talon

The Parti Québécois (PQ) candidate, lawyer Pascal Paradis, won the byelection in the riding of Jean-Talon on Monday night, in Quebec – taking the seat away from the governing Coalition Avenir Québec (CAQ).

This is a historic victory, since a PQ candidate has never been elected in Jean-Talon. In fact, before the CAQ took over, the riding was considered a Liberal fortress, with Liberal elected officials succeeding one another from 1965 to 2019.

From the start of the evening, Paradis, who succeeds the former CAQ MNA Joëlle Boutin, took the lead and displayed an almost insurmountable lead. After counting 57 ballot boxes out of 163, he had acquired 44% of the vote and a comfortable majority of 4,105 votes.

The preliminary results provoked cries of joy from PQ supporters who were gathered in a restaurant, while the CAQ election night premises became silent. People were murmuring and you could feel the nervousness.

One in five voters voted in advance and at 4 p.m. Monday, the participation rate reached 39.11%. During the last byelection in Jean-Talon, in 2019, the participation rate was 49.2%.

There were a total of 10 candidates.

Mr. Paradis faced Marie-Anik Shoiry of the Coalition Avenir Québec (CAQ), Olivier Bolduc of Québec Solidaire (QS), Élise Avard Bernier of the Liberal Party of Quebec (PLQ) and Jesse Robitaille of the Conservative Party of Quebec (PCQ).

The head of Climat Québec, former PQ minister Martine Ouellet, also appeared on the ballot.

The county of Jean-Talon mainly includes the districts of Sainte-Foy and Sillery. Nearly 93% of the people who live there speak French at home; the average age is 42.6 years old and the average household income is $133,000.

Nearly 25% of the constituency’s citizens have a bachelor’s degree, and 22.9% have a university degree above the baccalaureate (compared to 8.9% across Quebec).

This electoral campaign was a close fight on the ground between the CAQ and the PQ.

Mr. Paradis, the PQ candidate, already discussed with the CAQ the possibility of running as a candidate in the riding of Charlevoix-Côte-de-Beaupré before last year’s general elections.

During the campaign, the leader of the PQ, Paul St-Pierre Plamondon, announced that he was postponing the publication of his budget for a sovereign Quebec until October 23, even though space had already been reserved for September and that the budget was already ready to be presented.

Despite its second place in this riding in 2022, QS had more difficulty making its voice heard in this CAQ-PQ duel, being splashed by some controversies along the way.

First, the management of QS lined up behind a candidate for the nomination, Christine Gilbert, but the members had the last word by choosing again Mr. Bolduc, who is on his third attempt to be elected in this riding.

Also, QS came under criticism for placing advertisements on Facebook, thus deviating from the boycott of Meta called by the parties.

Without a leader and adrift in the French-speaking electorate, the PLQ had a lot to do to reconquer what had always been its citadel until 2019. Ms. Avard Bernier, its candidate, is co-founder of the site Viedeparents.ca.

For its part, Éric Duhaime’s PCQ, with its candidate Jesse Robitaille, focused mainly on its opposition to the Quebec tramway project, even if it is mainly an issue debated on the municipal scene.

The Caquists had pulled out all the stops to keep Jean-Talon in their fold, while ministers, deputies, political staff and Prime Minister François Legault himself campaigned in the constituency.

The CAQ has had an almost perfect record in the complementary since October 2, 2017, during its unexpected victory with Geneviève Guilbault in Louis-Hébert against the PLQ then in power.

Many agree that this gain was a turning point in the history of François Legault’s party.

The Caquists notably won Roberval, a seat left vacant by the departure of liberal leader Philippe Couillard, in 2018, Jean-Talon in 2019 and Marie-Victorin in April 2022.

But exception this year: in March, voters elected a Québec solidaire deputy, Guillaume Cliche-Rivard, during the complementary election in Saint-Henri-Sainte-Anne, in Montreal, to fill the seat left vacant by the departure of the former liberal leader Dominique Anglade.