{"id":637705,"date":"2026-10-06T04:24:07","date_gmt":"2026-10-06T04:24:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/637705\/"},"modified":"2026-10-06T04:24:07","modified_gmt":"2026-10-06T04:24:07","slug":"meet-quebecs-next-premier-paul-st-pierre-plamondon","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/637705\/","title":{"rendered":"Meet Quebec’s next premier Paul St-Pierre Plamondon"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Text<\/p>\n

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Quebec will have a new premier \u2014 and he’s the face of Quebec sovereignty.<\/p>\n

At 49 years old, Parti Qu\u00e9b\u00e9cois (PQ) Leader Paul St-Pierre Plamondon is projected to become the province’s next head of government, inheriting a Quebec that is grappling with a weak economy and pressured by an escalated trade war with the U.S.<\/p>\n

Despite several polls suggesting Quebecers’ low interest for a third sovereignty referendum (the last one took place in 1995 with the “No” camp securing a narrow victory), St-Pierre Plamondon has managed to bring back the PQ from the margins of the National Assembly.<\/p>\n

The PQ last formed a government from September 2012 to April 2014 with Pauline Marois, the first woman to become Quebec premier.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

You might recall that the party saw its seat number at the National Assembly drop from 54 to 30 following the 2014 election.\u00a0<\/p>\n

After the 2018 election, the PQ temporarily lost party status when it plummeted to 10 seats, the same number as fellow sovereignist party Qu\u00e9bec Solidaire. In the 2022 election, the PQ won a meagre three seats. But since then, four consecutive byelection wins gave the PQ a total of seven seats at the time of dissolution.<\/p>\n

Here’s an outline of how St-Pierre Plamondon reached Quebec’s top office while paving the way for another referendum.<\/p>\n

Joining the PQ<\/p>\n

St-Pierre Plamondon, a native of Trois-Rivi\u00e8res, Que., voted “Yes” to separating in 1995, when he was 18 years old \u2014 and was the only person in his family to do so, he says.\u00a0<\/p>\n

He briefly worked as a flight attendant for Air Canada in his early 20s, an experience that he said influenced his political views.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

In an interview with the Journal de Montr\u00e9al<\/a>, St-Pierre Plamondon cited a “lack of French and a certain disdain” for Quebec’s distinctiveness on the airline’s flights as contributing to his support for the sovereignty movement.\u00a0<\/p>\n

For a time, St-Pierre Plamondon turned to federalism after accusing the sovereignty movement of having “split Quebec in two,” he told the Canadian Press.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Between 2004 and 2008, he donated over $2,000 to the federal Liberal Party but later described himself openly as a disappointed federalist.\u00a0<\/p>\n

He became leader of the province’s oldest sovereignist party in 2020 by winning 56.2 per cent of the vote on the third ballot.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

It was his second attempt at the PQ leadership race after an unsuccessful bid in 2016 and working as special adviser to former PQ leader Jean-Fran\u00e7ois Lis\u00e9e the following year.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

He did not have a seat at the National Assembly until he was elected MNA for Camille-Laurin in 2022 after winning the Montreal east end riding by 2,794 votes (a 9.74 per cent vote margin).\u00a0<\/p>\n

The English-educated lawyer<\/p>\n

While presenting himself as a staunch defender of French \u2014 with an intention of legally preventing francophones from attending English-language CEGEPs \u2014 the PQ leader pursued his higher education mostly at English-language universities.<\/p>\n

St-Pierre Plamondon graduated from McGill University in 2001 with a bilingual bachelor’s degree in civil and common law, earned a certificate in international law at Lund University in Sweden and obtained a master’s in business administration from Oxford University.<\/p>\n

In 2009, he co-founded G\u00e9n\u00e9ration d’id\u00e9es, a non-partisan non-profit, which serves as a space for young people to discuss social issues and engage in activism.<\/p>\n

He worked as a litigator with Montreal-founded firm Stikeman Elliott from 2002 to 2009 and was vice-president of law collective Delagatus from 2009 to 2015. He also served as a pro bono attorney in Bolivia in 2003.\u00a0<\/p>\n

In addition to his work as a columnist for Quebec monthly newspaper Les Affaires and public affairs show Bazzo.tv, St-Pierre Plamondon authored three books: Les Orphelins politiques (2014); Osez repenser le PQ (2017) and Reb\u00e2tir le camp du Oui (2020).\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

According to St-Pierre Plamondon, he speaks five languages: French, English, Spanish, Danish and Swedish.\u00a0<\/p>\n

He and his partner Alexandra Tremblay have three young children.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Would he call a referendum?<\/p>\n

The premier-designate has said he would call a sovereignty referendum during his government’s first term \u2014 but only once U.S. President Donald Trump leaves office in January 2029.<\/p>\n

Even without the Trump administration’s tariffs looming over Quebec, it would be challenging for the PQ government to call a referendum quickly.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

The PQ’s costed platform suggests that preparing and holding the referendum would require at least $130 million \u2014 a price St-Pierre Plamondon would have Quebecers pay to end what he describes as billions of dollars of “federal waste.”<\/p>\n

In the event that Quebecers vote in favour of sovereignty, the project would not be feasible from a legal standpoint<\/a> without the approval of First Nations and Inuit.\u00a0<\/p>\n

However, last week, on the National Day for Truth and Reconciliation, St-Pierre Plamondon told reporters that the support of First Nations was unnecessary for a PQ government to adopt a provisional constitution for Quebec.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The constitution would become effective once Quebecers vote in favour of a referendum.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Listen to this article Estimated 5 minutes The audio version of this article is generated by AI-based technology.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":637706,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[22],"tags":[242,85,46,141],"class_list":["post-637705","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-environment","tag-environment","tag-il","tag-israel","tag-science"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/637705","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=637705"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/637705\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/637706"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=637705"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=637705"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=637705"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}