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Christine Fr\u00e9chette, Quebec’s economy minister, will be running to be the next leader of Coalition Avenir Qu\u00e9bec \u2014 and the province’s next premier.<\/p>\n
Fr\u00e9chette, 56, will launch her campaign on Sunday at an event in her hometown of Trois-Rivi\u00e8res, Que. The information was first reported on 98.5 FM and confirmed by Radio-Canada.<\/p>\n
Fr\u00e9chette was first elected with the Coalition Avenir Qu\u00e9bec (CAQ) in 2022, and served as immigration minister before taking over as minister of economy, innovation and energy in 2024.<\/p>\n
She previously served as the chief of staff to Jean-Fran\u00e7ois Lis\u00e9e in the\u00a0Parti Qu\u00e9b\u00e9cois government of Pauline Marois. <\/p>\n
Fr\u00e9chette has secured the support of at least 11 MNAs, including fellow cabinet ministers Kateri Champagne Jourdain, Mathieu Lacombe and Benoit Charette. <\/p>\n
The race officially got underway Thursday, and will conclude with a vote at a leadership convention on April 12, 2026. <\/p>\n
The leader will become premier until the next election, slated for this fall.<\/p>\n
Premier Fran\u00e7ois Legault resigned earlier this month after more than seven years in power, though he is planning to stay on until a replacement is found.<\/p>\n
Environment Minister Bernard Drainville and Natural Resources Minister Jean-Fran\u00e7ois Simard have also indicated they are mulling a run. <\/p>\n
Meanwhile, Justice Minister Simon Jolin-Barrette said in a statement on Friday that he has decided not to run.<\/p>\n
Jolin-Barrette said many people had encouraged him to run, but “for family and professional reasons, this is not the right time for me.” <\/p>\n
He said he would continue to work on the CAQ’s promised Quebec constitution \u2014 a document slammed by opposition parties as political theatre. <\/p>\n
On Friday, Granby MNA and former public security minister Fran\u00e7ois Bonnardel also announced on social media that he would not be running for leadership.<\/p>\n
Ministers who wish to run must step down from their cabinet positions to prevent conflicts of interest.<\/p>\n
To qualify for the leadership, a candidate must obtain the support of 1,000 party members across at least 75 ridings, including 15 MNAs and 100 members of the CAQ’s youth commission.<\/p>\n
Candidates must also pay a non-refundable deposit of $30,000 and adhere to an election spending cap of $150,000.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Listen to this article Estimated 2 minutes The audio version of this article is generated by AI-based technology.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":429135,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[22],"tags":[49,48,295,66],"class_list":{"0":"post-429134","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-environment","8":"tag-ca","9":"tag-canada","10":"tag-environment","11":"tag-science"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/429134","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=429134"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/429134\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/429135"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=429134"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=429134"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=429134"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}