---
title: "Quebec’s Separatists Win Power With the Votes of Less Than a Third of Quebecers"
description: "The Parti Québécois returns to government promising a referendum, but its minority is a strange kind of mandate"
author: "Nate Ledger"
published: 2026-10-06T07:01:50.270Z
modified: 2026-10-06T08:19:02Z
url: https://rews.cc/a/quebec-s-separatists-return-to-power-promising-a-referendum--48eda4
language: en
tags: ["politics", "quebec", "canada", "elections", "trump", "us", "world"]
publisher: "Rews (https://rews.cc)"
---

# Quebec’s Separatists Win Power With the Votes of Less Than a Third of Quebecers

*The Parti Québécois returns to government promising a referendum, but its minority is a strange kind of mandate*

By Nate Ledger · October 6, 2026 · https://rews.cc/a/quebec-s-separatists-return-to-power-promising-a-referendum--48eda4

## In brief

- The Parti Québécois won Quebec’s election and will form a minority government, its first time in power in over a decade
- The PQ was on track for nearly 60 seats, short of the 64 needed for a majority in the 127-seat National Assembly, on under 30% of the vote
- Leader Paul St-Pierre Plamondon promises a third independence referendum but says he will wait until Trump leaves office
- The governing CAQ was wiped out entirely, losing all 79 of its seats; leader Christine Fréchette lost her own riding
- Liberals (40 projected seats) and Conservatives (19) both vow to fight any referendum; the result comes two weeks before Alberta’s separation vote

Here is a fun thing that can happen in a first-past-the-post election: a party can win less than 30 per cent of the popular vote and end up running the government. That is roughly what happened in Quebec on Monday, where the separatist Parti Québécois won the provincial election and will form the next government — a minority one — after more than a decade out of power. According to the Associated Press and Reuters, the result revives the question of whether the predominantly French-speaking province should leave Canada, which is exactly the question the PQ exists to ask. Whether the answer is one most Quebecers actually want to hear is a different matter.

Start with the arithmetic, because the arithmetic is the story. The PQ was on track to win nearly 60 seats as the final votes were counted, according to the Associated Press, which is a lot of seats but short of the 64 needed for a majority in Quebec’s 127-member National Assembly. CBC News projected the seat counts somewhat differently — 40 for the Liberals, a jump from 18; 19 for the Conservatives, up from zero; and those numbers plus the PQ’s projected total suggest the legislature will be scattered across four parties with nobody in control. The PQ, meanwhile, did all this with less than 30 per cent of the popular vote, per CBC. A government elected by a small plurality, governing a province of 9.1 million people, on a platform whose centrepiece only about 30 per cent of the province supports. Sure.

The centrepiece is, of course, a third referendum on independence. Quebec voters have rejected sovereignty twice, most recently by a razor-thin margin in 1995, and support for independence remains at about 30 per cent, low by historical standards. Daniel Béland, a political science professor at McGill University, told the AP plainly that “this was not an election about independence, which is not popular in Quebec right now, but about getting rid of the CAQ, the party in power since 2018.” This is the eternal problem of single-issue parties that win elections: they get to govern for all the ordinary reasons — voters were tired of the other guys — and then they must decide whether to treat the victory as a mandate for the one issue. PQ leader Paul St-Pierre Plamondon, to his credit, is at least honest about which interpretation he prefers. “I continue to dream and visualize that country,” he told supporters in his victory speech. “That dream will be realized one day.”

He also acknowledged the constraint. “Quebecers elected the Parti Québécois asking it to work with the other parties, and I heard that message,” he said, per the AP. And the other parties heard their own messages. Liberal leader Charles Milliard, whose party had its big boost to 40 seats, pledged to collaborate on many issues but was unambiguous on the main one: “Preparing your referendum will find you facing a clear opponent in the Liberal Party.” Switching to English at his headquarters, he added that “there is no way we will collaborate on a potential referendum.” Conservative leader Éric Duhaime, who campaigned on tax and spending cuts and whose party leapt from zero seats to a projected 19, is also expected to fight a referendum, the AP reports. Which leaves Québec solidaire — another pro-independence party — potentially holding the balance of power, and potentially willing to support the PQ on the one file where everyone else says no. Minority governments are wonkish fun like that: the whole constitutional future of the country can hinge on the smallest party in the room.

Then there is the Coalition Avenir Québec, the party that made all of this possible by losing everything. Four years ago the CAQ won a massive majority — 71 per cent of the seats on 41 per cent of the vote, as CBC notes — and it entered this election with 79 seats. It is now projected to win zero. Not zero minus a few. Zero. Leader Christine Fréchette conceded defeat, said she took full responsibility for the “difficult result,” and lost her own seat in Trois-Rivières. Wiping a governing party entirely off the map is the kind of thing voters do when they really, truly want you gone, which lends some support to Béland’s reading of the night.

The genuinely interesting wrinkle is timing. St-Pierre Plamondon has said he would wait until Donald Trump is no longer in office before holding a referendum — the U.S. president’s tariffs and 51st-state rhetoric have, per the AP, stirred Canadian nationalism and given some French-speaking Quebecers a fresh reason to value staying in the federation. Trump’s threats were a defining issue in the 2025 federal election, helping lift Mark Carney’s Liberals to victory. So the PQ’s independence project is, in effect, waiting for a foreign head of state’s departure from office for favourable conditions to return. You can see why: Quebec is about 80 per cent French-speaking, collects its own income tax, has immigration policies favouring French speakers and laws giving French priority over English; independence asks voters to risk all of that on the argument, as St-Pierre Plamondon frames it, that it is a “question of survival.” He says Quebec “just wants to exist on its own like other countries of the world.” To Canadians outside Quebec, he offered reassurance: “The project for independence is not about excluding you. Quebec will never change its geographical position, so we have an interest in working together.” Which is true! Geography is famously hard to secede from.

For Carney, this is all a test arriving at an awkward moment. He congratulated St-Pierre Plamondon and signalled Ottawa would work with the incoming government — “Building a stronger Québec is core to our mission of building a stronger Canada” — promising cooperation on businesses and workers hit by U.S. tariffs, jobs and housing. But the Quebec result lands two weeks before Albertans vote on October 19 on whether to hold a referendum on separation from Canada, a vote Ottawa is [quietly pricing](https://rews.cc/a/ottawa-is-quietly-pricing-an-alberta-exit-and-the-recurring--f458fa) in internal documents. “Seeing that a pro-independence party won in Quebec barely two weeks before an independence-related referendum takes place in Alberta might suggest to the Trump administration that national unity remains a major issue in Canada despite the popularity of Mark Carney,” Béland said. CBC’s Rosemary Barton noted the premiers’ “Team Canada” front against the trade war may now fracture.

One last detail, because it captures the night. Convention dictates the runner-up speaks before the winner; St-Pierre Plamondon went first anyway, to the dismay of Liberal staffers, and a Liberal source told CBC he knew the order and spoke regardless. Milliard waited him out, then got his revenge on stage: “Mr. St-Pierre Plamondon, you spoke before me, but I want to speak to you.” A minority premier who takes what isn’t quite his, and an opposition that can only respond after the fact. Anyway, that’s the legislature in miniature.

## Sources

- [Secessionist party wins Quebec election in Canada](https://aljazeera.com/news/2026/10/6/secessionist-parti-quebecois-wins-quebec-election-in-canada) — aljazeera.com
- [Parti Québécois to form minority government in Quebec, CBC News projects](https://cbc.ca/news/canada/montreal/livestory/quebec-election-2026-results-9.7369473) — cbc.ca
- [Quebec separatists win provincial election but fall short of majority](https://cnn.com/2026/10/06/americas/quebec-separatist-party-elections-result-win-intl-hnk) — cnn.com