Fréchette gaining support, Drainville to hold first campaign event Sunday

While Christine Fréchette is starting to pull further and further ahead in the race for the leadership of the Coalition Avenir Québec (CAQ), Bernard Drainville announced on Thursday that he will officially launch his campaign on Sunday. 

He will hold a press conference Sunday morning in a restaurant in Lévis, the riding he has represented since the 2022 election.   

The race to succeed François Legault has barely begun, but Drainville will already have a lot of work to do to catch up with his opponent Fréchette in the tally of support in the cabinet and in the CAQ caucus.  

She has the support of 11 ministers and 13 members of parliament, while Drainville has the support of one minister and eight members of parliament. 

Fréchette has practically the support of half the cabinet: there are 25 ministers, but three of them have indicated that they will remain neutral. 

Of the 79 members of the CAQ parliamentary group, 33 have taken a position so far.  

On Thursday, Fréchette announced that the Minister of Economy and Energy, Jean Boulet, and his colleague responsible for Regional Economic Development, Éric Girard (not to be confused with the Minister of Finance of the same name), were joining her, and at the end of the day, MNAs Robert Bussière, from Gatineau, and Suzanne Roy, from Verchères, added their voices. 

In a message posted on the X platform, Boulet justified his support for Fréchette. 

“Her leadership, her values, and her ability to pursue the economic and nationalist mission of our coalition inspire my confidence,” he wrote. “She has the energy, rigor, and vision necessary for the future.”

Incidentally, when Fréchette launched her campaign last Sunday, François Legault had to relieve her the next day of her responsibilities as Minister of Economy and Energy, since a leadership candidate cannot hold a position in the Council of Ministers, and Boulet inherited her responsibilities.

For his part, Girard wrote a long message, also on X.

He explains that during the last five months, as junior minister, he has had the opportunity to collaborate with Fréchette on many important issues and this has allowed him to get to know her better “on a personal level but also as a minister, manager and leader of a large team”.

He added that she “knows how to surround herself with competent people” and that she “demonstrates good listening skills” and “possesses great skills”.

Girard says he is convinced that she is the right person to embody the future of the party, but also to make decisions “for all of Quebec”.

As for Bussière, in a Facebook post, he wrote that Fréchette “has always distinguished herself by the accuracy and relevance of her interventions.”

He added that she “impresses with her calm, composure, and listening skills. She knows how to stay the course even when the pressure is high. These are rare qualities that inspire confidence and respect.”

Along with Boulet and Girard, Fréchette has so far collected the support of 11 ministers: Pascale Déry, Jean-François Roberge, Gilles Bélanger, Kateri Champagne-Jourdain, Benoit Charette, Mathieu Lacombe, Ian Lafrenière, Amélie Dionne and Chantal Rouleau.

In addition to this, there are 13 members of parliament who are not ministers: so in addition to Bussière and Roy, Louis-Charles Thouin (Rousseau), Catherine Blouin (Bonaventure), Céline Haytayan (Laval-des-Rapides), Audrey Bogemans (Iberville), Chantal Jeannotte (Labelle), Vincent Caron (Portneuf), Karine Boivin Roy (Anjou-Louis-Riel), François St-Louis (Joliette), Valérie Schmaltz (Vimont), Mario Laframboise (Blainville) and Marie-Louise Tardif (Laviolette).

Drainville, for his part, collected nine endorsements: Minister Samuel Poulin, MNA’s Louis Lemieux (Saint-Jean), Luc Provençal (Beauce-Nord), Shirley Dorismond (Marie-Victorin), Yannick Gagnon (Jonquière), Kariane Bourassa (Charlevoix-Côte-de-Beaupré), Suzanne Blais (Abitibi-Ouest), Isabelle Lecours (Lotbinière) and Marilyne Picard (Soulanges).

–This report by La Presse Canadienne was translated by CityNews