{"id":599453,"date":"2026-04-12T16:33:11","date_gmt":"2026-04-12T16:33:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/599453\/"},"modified":"2026-04-12T16:33:11","modified_gmt":"2026-04-12T16:33:11","slug":"quebec-is-about-to-learn-who-will-be-next-premier","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/599453\/","title":{"rendered":"Quebec is about to learn who will be next premier"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>\n\t\t\t\tBy The Canadian Press<\/p>\n<p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tThe Canadian Press\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n<p>\n\t\t\t\t\tPosted April 12, 2026 8:14 am\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n<p>\n\t\t\t\t1 min read\n\t\t\t<\/p>\n<p>\t\t\tDescrease article font size<\/p>\n<p>\t\t\tIncrease article font size<\/p>\n<p>Quebecers will find out Sunday who will become their next premier after the Coalition Avenir Qu\u00e9bec counts the votes in a race to replace the only leader the party has ever had.<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/70c8fc80.png\" alt=\"\" style=\"position:absolute;width:1px;height:1px\" referrerpolicy=\"no-referrer-when-downgrade\"\/><\/p>\n<p>Christine Fr\u00e9chette, a former economy minister, and Bernard Drainville, an ex-environment minister, threw their names in the hat after outgoing Premier Fran\u00e7ois Legault announced in January he was stepping down.<\/p>\n<p>\n\t\t\t\t\t\tRelated Videos\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n<p>\t\t\t\t\t\t<img decoding=\"async\" class=\"c-video__image\" alt=\"Click to play video: 'CAQ hopefuls Fr\u00e9chette and Drainville face off in first leadership debate'\" width=\"640\" height=\"360\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/Frechette.jpg\" loading=\"lazy\"   data-\/><\/p>\n<p>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t0:54<br \/>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tCAQ hopefuls Fr\u00e9chette and Drainville face off in first leadership debate\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n<p>\t\tPrevious Video<\/p>\n<p>\t\tNext Video<\/p>\n<p>Story continues below advertisement<\/p>\n<p>About 20,500 CAQ members were eligible to cast a vote and choose the new leader.<\/p>\n<p>\n\t\t\tMore on Politics<br \/>\n\t\t\tMore videos\n\t\t<\/p>\n<p>\t\t\t\t\t<img decoding=\"async\" width=\"170\" height=\"225\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/1767930311_275_national.jpg\" alt=\"Get breaking Canada news delivered to your inbox as it happens so you won't miss a trending story.\"\/><\/p>\n<p>\t\t\t\t\tGet breaking National news<\/p>\n<p>Get breaking Canada news delivered to your inbox as it happens so you won&#8217;t miss a trending story.<\/p>\n<p>Fr\u00e9chette focused her campaign on economic issues, while also saying she was open to allowing more permanent residents in Quebec.<\/p>\n<p>Drainville leaned on conservative ideas while positioning himself as the candidate best suited to defend Quebec\u2019s identity and to adopt a stricter immigration policy.<\/p>\n<p>The winner will have their work cut out for them as the latest public opinion polls show the governing party trailing far behind the Parti Qu\u00e9b\u00e9cois and Quebec Liberals.<\/p>\n<p>This report by The Canadian Press was first published April 12, 2026.<\/p>\n<p>\n\t\t&amp;copy 2026 The Canadian Press\t<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"By The Canadian Press The Canadian Press Posted April 12, 2026 8:14 am 1 min read Descrease article&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":599454,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[22],"tags":[49,48,137491,295,714,16622,66],"class_list":{"0":"post-599453","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-coalition-avenir-quebec","11":"tag-environment","12":"tag-politics","13":"tag-quebec-politics","14":"tag-science"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/599453","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=599453"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/599453\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/599454"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=599453"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=599453"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=599453"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}