Paul St-Pierre Plamondon loyal to sovereignty, come what may for PQ

For the first time in more than a decade, the Parti Québécois has chosen to put Quebec independence front and centre in an election campaign.

The most recent polls have the PQ mounting a marked surge in support in the final days of the race. But the advances appear to be linked to a strong performance by party leader Paul St-Pierre Plamondon as opposed to a rekindled thirst for separation.

Under Pauline Marois the PQ remained coy in 2012 and 2014, saying it would hold a referendum “at a time it deems appropriate,” while suggesting that wouldn’t be any time soon.

In 2018, with support for separation at record lows, Jean-François Lisée promised there would be no referendum in a first mandate.

The pledge failed to stem the party’s decline. In their worst setback in nearly 50 years, the PQ won only 10 seats as the Coalition Avenir Québec and Québec solidaire siphoned off much of the sovereignist vote. It was the first time since 1973 the PQ would neither form the government nor serve as the official opposition.

This time around, despite the fact support for sovereignty has not risen — only 33 per cent of Quebecers said they would vote for independence in a June Mainstreet poll — the PQ promised if elected to hold a referendum in their first term.

At the forefront of this charge is St-Pierre Plamondon, also known as PSPP, a youthful 45-year-old former lawyer who has promised since he was named leader in October 2020 the party’s focus would be on its foundational raison d’être.

“That’s what the PQ is, a whole movement, an authentic movement,” St-Pierre Plamondon said to a thundering ovation at a national policy convention soon after he was named leader. “We, in the PQ, will never renounce our convictions, never.”

At this point, the PQ has few options other than focusing on Quebec sovereignty, Philippe J. Fournier, who runs poll aggregating website QC125.com, told the Canadian Press at the campaign’s start.

“It’s absolutely the right strategy. This will antagonize a majority of Quebecers, but they’re not looking to please the majority of Quebecers, they just want the sovereignists to come back into their fold,” Fournier said. “Even though it sounds a bit desperate, it is the right strategy because that’s what defines them.”

Trailing in last place among the five main parties throughout the campaign, with only 9 per cent support at the start, polls were predicting the party that has dictated the political discourse for half a century could be reduced to one seat in the National Assembly. Poll aggregator QC125.com had forecast St-Pierre Plamondon would not win his bid to gain a seat in the Montreal riding of Camille-Laurin.

His political fortunes changed quickly on Monday when the Québec solidaire candidate in his riding, Marie-Ève Rancourt, was forced to withdraw after she was filmed filching St-Pierre Plamondon’s PQ campaign flyers from a mailbox. That, and a strong showing in the leaders’ debates where he exhibited calm and a strong grasp of the issues, have helped spur the PQ to a 6-point gain in the latest poll issued Tuesday, the only party to exhibit a surge in support.

(Meanwhile, St-Pierre Plamondon stood by PQ candidate Stéphane Handfield in Masson riding Tuesday as Handfield apologized for hijinks of a similar sort by a volunteer caught removing CAQ flyers there.)

Still, with the threat of sovereignty distant, Quebec’s political landscape has shifted to a more traditional left-vs.-right battle, and has left the PQ largely flailing, said Daniel Béland, director of the McGill Institute for the Study of Canada.

“There is still support among some older francophones, but it is not as high as it used to be. And I think the CAQ has stolen the thunder of the PQ in terms of the nationalist vote. Older nationalist are drawn to the CAQ.”

Younger nationalists, meanwhile, are opting for Québec solidaire, which is sovereignist but emphasizes social justice and the environment as its key issues.

In St-Pierre Plamondon, 45 years old and the father of two young children, the PQ has elected someone who says he is dedicated to the cause and willing to stick with it, even if it takes several years.

He’s also someone who has overcome long odds in the past, and says he isn’t afraid to try again. (The PQ did not respond to a request for an interview with the Montreal Gazette for this story.)

Born in Trois-Rivières, St-Pierre Plamondon received his law degree at McGill University. He studied for his MBA at Oxford, where he declared he would become the university team’s starting hockey goalie, even though he’d never played the position before, or even minor league hockey.

“I was a sieve in every way,” he recounted in an interview with l’actualité magazine. He would move up from backup goalie to starter and Oxford went on to beat Cambridge University to win the Patton Cup, with him in nets.

“My father taught me that everything is possible,” he said. And that “those who dream and persist even when all is going badly, can sometimes make miracles.”

As a young lawyer he did volunteer prosecution work for the Permanent Assembly for Human Rights in Bolivia, before taking a job with the prestigious Stikeman Elliott law firm.

He ran for the leadership of the PQ in 2016, finishing dead last. Impressed by his intellect, Lisée put him in charge of drafting a plan to relaunch the PQ. He spent five months doing 162 consultations, canvassing entrepreneurs and young people throughout the province.

In 2018, he ran in Prévost and lost badly to the CAQ candidate. Two years later, he won the PQ leadership race, even though his initial odds of winning were pegged at five per cent.

In this campaign, the PQ is focusing on protecting the French language in part by cutting immigration levels to 35,000 people a year, providing better services for the elderly, and reducing greenhouse gas emissions. Analysts have praised his performance in the debates, but his decision to dare Québec solidaire’s Gabriel Nadeau-Dubois to name a 1968 book by Pierre Vallières that has the N-word in its title was seen as a low point of the first debate by many.

The coming battle will be his hardest, Béland predicted.

“The PQ, as long as sovereignty doesn’t return to front stage, they are in a really difficult situation,” he said. “And Québec solidaire has been much more successful in courting young people.”

Facing declining support in successive elections, the PQ is in a process of “deinstitutionalization,” said Eric Montigny, a political science professor at Université Laval. With fewer deputies comes fewer resources, a smaller budget and less place in the National Assembly. If it fails to win 12 seats in these elections, which is likely, it will no longer have official party status.

“When you deinstitutionalize, there is a risk of disappearing,” Montigny said.

While some analysts have posited the PQ is a generational party whose time has passed, both Béland and Montigny said it’s too early to count them out, particularly as nationalism and the protection of the French language remain key concerns. The PQ is also in second place among the five parties in terms of fundraising, testimony to its loyal base.

Similar predictions were made of the sovereignist Bloc Québécois party, which dropped to 10 MPs in the 2015 elections, but then surged back to 32 seats in 2019, and again in 2021.

Right now, things look “pretty dire” for the PQ, Béland said. But “we could imagine the PQ being dormant for a while or facing a strong decline, but it could resurface as a major force in Quebec politics.”

For now, he predicted the PQ will “be on life support after the elections, unless they win more than five seats — which based on polls is unlikely.”

St-Pierre Plamondon said he’s undeterred by the polls or the naysayers.

“My father taught me that you don’t do things because of what people are saying,” he told l’actualité. “You do them because they are part of your values and the project that you want to accomplish.”

rbruemmer@postmedia.com

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