Quebec Election: Parti Québécois Wins 59 Seats to Form Minority Government, Sovereignty Back on the Agenda
Quebecers voted on Monday, October 5, 2026, and returned the sovereigntist Parti Québécois (PQ) to power with 59 of the National Assembly's 127 seats, enough to form a minority government. Policy Magazine, Le Monde and the official results put the PQ at about 28 percent of the popular vote, five seats short of the 64 needed for a majority. The Quebec Liberals won 40 seats, the Conservative Party of Quebec 19 and Québec solidaire nine, while the Coalition Avenir Québec, in power since 2018, was swept aside without a single seat.
PQ leader Paul St-Pierre Plamondon will become premier. In his victory speech he said the party had rekindled hope among hundreds of thousands of Quebecers, as supporters chanted for a sovereign Quebec. The party has pledged a third referendum on independence, though Plamondon has said he would wait until Donald Trump is no longer U.S. president before holding one. The PQ had held just three seats after the 2022 election, making the jump to 59 a political earthquake in the province.
The result also exposed the magnifying effect of first-past-the-post: the PQ took 46 percent of seats with roughly 28 percent of the vote, a record low for a winning party in Quebec, while the CAQ won no seats with about 13 percent. Fair Vote Canada noted that a few more swing ridings could have produced a PQ majority on about 30 percent of the vote, even though polling suggests only about a third of Quebec voters would vote to leave Canada.
In Ottawa, Prime Minister Mark Carney said the federal government will work with the incoming Quebec government on infrastructure, economic growth and support for workers affected by U.S. tariffs. The PQ's first-100-days plan includes new funding against homelessness, a government efficiency secretariat and lower immigration admission thresholds. As a minority government it will need opposition support to pass legislation, and the timing and conditions of any referendum will sit at the centre of Canada's national-unity debate; independence was defeated in the referendums of 1980 and 1995.
Published by GSM · USA (original Chinese edition)
Photo: 图：魁北克省议会大厦（国民议会所在地）。摄影：Wilfredor，CC0，来源：Wikimedia Commons
