Quebec Liberals look to revive party’s electoral fortunes as leadership race begins

Minister of Transport Pablo Rodriguez speaks to the media at the federal Liberal cabinet retreat in Halifax on Monday, Aug. 26, 2024. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Kelly Clark

MONTREAL — The Quebec Liberal leadership race kicked off on Monday with candidates picking up endorsements, as the provincial party tries to broaden its appeal after years in the political wilderness.

Four candidates have officially entered the race, including former federal Liberal cabinet minister Pablo Rodriguez; ex-Liberal MP and former Montreal mayor Denis Coderre; Charles Milliard, the former head of the federation of Quebec chambers of commerce; and tax lawyer Marc Belanger.

On Monday, a potential fifth candidate, sitting Quebec Liberal member Frederic Beauchemin, announced he was withdrawing from the race to support Rodriguez, whom he said is the one candidate who can unite Quebecers.

Rodriguez, 57, is the likely front-runner, but he carries the baggage of spending nine years in Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s Liberal government. In September he resigned as transport minister and from the Liberal caucus to sit as an Independent in Parliament until the start of the provincial leadership campaign.

Milliard was first out of the gate on Monday, receiving a major endorsement from former Quebec Liberal finance minister Raymond Bachand. At a news conference at Liberal headquarters in Montreal, Milliard said he wants to offer a “breath of fresh air” in the race, adding that at age 45, he can bring together young and older party members to create an “intergenerational alliance.”

Bachand told reporters at the news conference that Milliard, whom he said embodies both youth and experience, has the benefit of not being a career politician -- a thinly veiled reference to Rodriguez.

“The Quebec Liberal party, in the regions, does not exist or exists very little -- it is very weak,” Bachand said, lamenting how the provincial Liberals are polling in single digits with francophone voters, especially outside major cities. Rodriguez, he added, is tied to a federal political party whose fortunes aren’t that much better in the province.

Quebecers in the regions are preparing to vote massively for the Bloc Quebecois or the Conservatives in the upcoming federal election, Bachand said, a vote that could come as soon as the spring. “And the (Quebec) Liberal Party would appoint as leader someone who has been the right-hand man of the government of Canada for 10 years?”

The Quebec Liberals suffered their worst defeat in more than 60 years in the 2018 election that swept Francois Legault and his Coalition Avenir Quebec into power. They fared even worse in 2022, and now hold just 19 of 125 seats in the provincial legislature as they look to regain ground with francophone voters outside the party’s base in Montreal.

Sylvia Martin-Laforge, head of an anglophone advocacy organization -- Quebec Community Groups Network -- says the party should lean on its traditional image of economic stewardship, while casting minority rights as a matter of provincial prosperity.

Quebec Liberals will elect their new leader on June 14. They’ve been without a permanent leader since Dominique Anglade stepped down in late 2022. Marc Tanguay, a Montreal-area member, has served as interim leader.

The campaign will overlap with the Liberal Party of Canada’s leadership race to replace Trudeau.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Jan. 13, 2025.

The Canadian Press