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One Goverment and two oppositions lose in Quebec

No one seems to have seen the Quebec election result coming - and it leaves a tough situation for Liberals in Quebec and Ottawa.
Submitted by Peter Welch on 28 March 2007 - 12:53pm

The result saw the Quebec Liberals hold on as largest party, with 33% of the vote. Quebec Nationalists got 28% and a party of social conservatives - the ADQ - backing a stronger Quebec cultural identity within Candada came from nowhere to second place with 31% of the vote.

Charest will remain Prime Minister of the province - but this result amounts to a defeat. It is also bad news for the Liberals at federal level.

The Prime Minister of Canada, Stephen Harper has probably gained most. He will deal with a weak but federalist government in Quebec, and the success of the ADQ is a success for a party with a programme close to Harper's small town conservatism.

The politics of the ADQ are, incidentally, close to those of the old Union Nationale that ran Quebec for most of the period between the second world war and the late 1960s.