Boisclair wins in Pointe-Aux-Trembles: PQ leader off to Quebec City

I don't normally report the news but for those outside of Quebec you may not have heard that Andre Boisclair, the leader of the Parti Quebecois won a seat in the National Assembly last night and will sit as an MLA. The Liberals under Jean Charest did not run anyone against him. He won with 70% of the vote.

This was one of two by-elections won by the Parti Quebecois last night. The other was on the South Shore of Montreal in a PQ stronghold; the PQ won that one with 44% of the vote.

While the PQ might want to promote these victories as indicators that Quebec is poised to separate the next time there is a chance, the current polls suggest otherwise. The same is true with respect to the likelihood that the Quebec Liberals under Premier Jean Charest will not maintain office in the next provincial election, which reportedly will not happen for another year or so.

Unless something dramatic changes, the status quo will prevail. Charest, who is acting more like a Conservative with his public and infrastructural support for Stephen Harper, has run with textbook "bad news" then "good news" agenda. Very unpopular amongst Quebecers during his first two years in office, Charest has recently taken and maintained a commanding lead in the polls, in part by making statements mitigating the PQ's message internationally, such as those in France recently stating that Quebec has the economic wherewithal to make it on its own. This seems to have diffused some "soft nationalist" support that my otherwise have gone to the PQ. However, support remains for the Liberals perhaps as a result of such statements and perhaps due to the controversial Boisclair at the helm.

Let's see if another crisis changes this current landscape in Quebec. The PQ sure hope so...