QUEBEC — Coalition Avenir Québec cabinet ministers insisted Wednesday that the party is alive and ready to fight in the fall election despite the departure of veteran Jean Boulet and polls showing the opposition is in the lead.
Labour minister Boulet announced earlier Wednesday he will not be seeking another mandate in the fall and is leaving politics.
“The recruitment is going very well. I am not worried at all,” Environment Minister Pascale Déry said as she arrived for the last cabinet meeting before the summer break.
“It’s normal” that ministers like Boulet leave, she said. “They are colleagues who have been there a long time. There was the pandemic. They experienced two heavy mandates. It’s normal that they take this pause and do other things.
“It makes room for new candidates. Believe me, we are coming with good candidates in a few days.”
“Public service is really demanding,” added Finance Minister Eric Girard, who has already announced he will run in the fall election. “We had COVID-19, now we have the trade war.
“Right now we are governing. The election campaign will happen soon enough. You can rest assured we will be competitive and credible. We have an excellent premier.”
Premier Christine Fréchette delivered her own comments on her way out of the cabinet meeting. Boulet supported Fréchette in the recent CAQ leadership race.
“I want to thank Jean Boulet for all he did for Quebecers,” she said. “He’s a man of great skill in terms of negotiations.”
But she immediately turned to the future, announcing the CAQ will present an electoral candidate Saturday in the riding of Brome-Missisquoi. The riding is currently held by the CAQ’s Isabelle Charest, who is not running in the fall election.
“It’s a woman, engaged and with great competency,” Fréchette said. “It will be the beginning of many candidates we will present.”
Boulet made his announcement Wednesday in his home riding of Trois-Rivières. He had kept observers guessing about his future for weeks.
He is the 32nd CAQ MNA to announce they will bow out of the October election, giving the impression the party is in trouble as the vote nears. There are 79 CAQ caucus members.
“I have attained my objectives,” Boulet said at an emotional news conference. “Now it is time to open a new chapter, to take on new professional responsibilities.”
First elected in 2018, Boulet has been responsible for many ministries in his time with the CAQ. He started as minister of labour, employment and social solidarity before then-premier François Legault briefly made him immigration minister in 2021, a job Boulet lost soon after making controversial remarks about new arrivals to Quebec during the 2022 election campaign.
For a few months before Fréchette became CAQ leader and premier in April, Boulet was minister of the economy.
In his time, he pushed through 16 laws, including such controversial reforms as one that modernized the workplace health and safety system. He also tried to modernize the construction industry by making labour more mobile.
Boulet made few friends in the labour movement, which saw him as a favourite CAQ government punching bag. The worst came when he presented a bill on union governance and transparency, which was adopted in April.
The union attacks were brutal, including protests outside Boulet’s home. In May, he lodged a complaint with police over a widely circulated video that showed protesters using a makeshift guillotine to behead a puppet bearing his likeness.
Boulet was not at the final cabinet meeting on Wednesday.
Earlier this week, the other Eric Girard in cabinet, who is responsible for regional economic development, announced he is also leaving politics. He is the MNA for Lac-Saint-Jean.
The latest announcements follow a series of polls showing the fall election will not be a walk in the park for the CAQ.
A Léger poll published in Le Journal de Montréal on Wednesday showed the Parti Québécois still leading the pack, with the support of 30 per cent of voters. The Quebec Liberals are in second place with 27 per cent, while the CAQ is third at 21 per cent.
With the support of 35 per cent of the francophone vote, the PQ would form the next government, the poll suggests.
But as Léger executive vice-president Sébastien Dallaire noted, with numbers this close, “nothing is decided.”
Indeed, much attention is on one consistent element of all the recent polls: high levels of uncertain voters. In the Léger poll, 51 per cent of respondents said their party choice is not definite. Forty-seven per cent said it is.
The poll also shows the level of satisfaction in the Fréchette government is down, following the recent auditor general’s report that revealed the bungling of contracts given to battery companies.
While the level of satisfaction in the government was at 47 per cent in May, it’s now down nine points to 38 per cent.
The Léger poll was conducted online from June 12 to 15 and is based on answers from 1,014 people.
The other parties are charging ahead with their new candidates. In the riding of Verdun on Wednesday evening, Antoine Dionne Charest, son of former premier Jean Charest, was nominated as Liberal candidate.
The legislature will be dissolved around Aug. 29, setting in motion the official campaign leading to the Oct. 5 election.
The Gazette’s On Quebec Politics newsletter by Andy Riga breaks down key election issues, from polling shifts to legislative manoeuvring to ideas circulating in francophone commentary that don’t make it into English-language coverage.
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Philip Authier joined The Gazette in 1989 and has spent most of his career covering Quebec politics and government. From Sherbrooke, he is the Gazette reporter covering the National Assembly in Quebec City.
pauthier@postmedia.com