Separatists win Quebec election in test for Canada PM

• Quebec separatists, led by Paul Saint-Pierre Plamondon, aim to return to power due to frustrations over affordability and protecting the French language, not as a direct response to US-Canada tensions.
• PSPP plans a referendum on Quebec independence but not until after 2029, citing the need for calm debate away from unpredictable US political influence.
• PSPP also seeks to abolish the British monarchy's provincial role, proposing to redirect related funds to fight homelessness, reflecting strong local sentiment against the monarchy.

MONTREAL – Separatists won provincial elections in Quebec on Oct 5, with a promise to hold a vote on leaving Canada after US President Donald Trump leaves office, testing Prime Minister Mark Carney’s message of national unity to confront the United States.

Public broadcaster CBC and private outlets predicted the Parti Quebecois (PQ) will form the next government in Canada’s French-speaking province, but it was not yet clear if they will control a legislative majority.

Carney is popular in Quebec, and the success of the separatist PQ is not seen as a repudiation of his stance toward US President Donald Trump, whose trade war and annexation threats have infuriated Canadians.

Instead, the PQ’s rise after 12 years in opposition has been tied to frustration over affordability, and an enduring desire to protect the French language in an increasingly anglophone country.

Jubilant separatist supporters erupted in cheers and song at an election night party in Montreal.

“We have the right in a democracy to pose the question (to leave Canada),” 26-year-old oil worker Felix Marineau told AFP, before the result was called as promising results trickled in.

“For me, to be against (an independence) referendum is being against democracy.”

Independence after Trump?

The PQ victory makes its leader Paul Saint-Pierre Plamondon, a 49-year-old lawyer known by his initials as PSPP, Quebec’s next premier.

He has maintained he will call a referendum on leaving Canada if elected, just not while Trump is in office.

He has said a decision on Quebec’s independence “requires conditions that allow for an informed and calm debate”.

That should not be “hijacked by the theatrics of an unpredictable president,” he added, ruling out a referendum until at least 2029.

First-time voter Alexia Gomez, 19, invoked the current “preoccupying” relationship between the United States and Canada when she told AFP she would be against an independence referendum.

“If Quebec becomes independent it would make us politically, economically and militarily vulnerable,” she said.

Quebec has held two previous votes on leaving Canada. Federalists won comfortably in 1980, but the 1995 result was excruciatingly close, with just 50.58 per cent voting to stay in Canada.

For Carney, the Quebec vote comes amid a fraught political season.

His Liberal government enjoys broad support, and many Canadians credit him with leading national, and at times international, opposition to Trump.

But in addition to the possible return of separatist governance in Quebec, voters in the oil-rich province of Alberta will hold a non-binding vote in October on whether they want independence.

‘Abolish the monarchy?’

PSPP may not have majority backing for an independent Quebec, but his plans to target the British monarchy appear far more popular.

Canada is part of the British Commonwealth. King Charles III, Canada’s head of state, is represented in Ottawa by the governor general. Lieutenant governors represent the monarchy in the provinces, including Quebec.

In a 2025 Leger poll, 87% of Quebecers said they felt no attachment to the British monarchy, and only 31% expressed a favourable view of King Charles.

“There is nothing preventing (Quebec’s) National Assembly from acting as a sovereign Parliament and passing a law that abolishes the activities of the lieutenant governor and no longer allocates a budget to this masquerade that wastes money,” said PSPP.

He has proposed reallocating the lieutenant governor’s budget to combat homelessness.

Pasquale Zgambatte, an 80-year-old Montreal voter, told AFP he does not support another independence referendum, but wanted British royals out of Canadian life.

“If we’re a country, Canada, then we have nothing to do with England,” he said. AFP