BAIE-SAINT-PAUL, QUE — The Bloc Québécois seems to be climbing back in the polls with a week to go before election day.
And leader Yves-François Blanchet, who is a lifelong fan of the now-defunct Quebec Nordiques, bought what would have been unexpected not so long ago: a Montreal Canadiens jersey, predominantly red, white, and blue, in a Quebec City store.
“It’s like collaborating with Ottawa while awaiting independence,” Blanchet said on Monday morning.
A few hours later, he joined two dozen fans in Charlevoix to cheer on the Habs as they opened their playoff series against the Washington Capitals. At the restaurant, Blanchet proudly, it seemed, wore his new jersey and declared it was a “compromise.”
Because for a Bloc leader, red isn’t exactly a favourite colour. But Blanchet now openly admits that “no matter how many Bloc Québécois MPs there are, Mr. Carney will be Prime Minister.”
And that doesn’t seem to bother him.
Blanchet, who asked Mr. Carney to commit to better collaboration with the opposition parties during last week’s English-language debate, told reporters he exchanged cell phone numbers with the Liberal leader after the debate. He said he was pleased with Carney’s gesture, knowing that he never received Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s phone number.
“I am reasonably optimistic that we will be able to collaborate in the direction of the converging interests of Quebec and Canada,” he said.
Blanchet is now seeking to rally traditional French-speaking nationalist voters to his party. Since the beginning of the campaign, many questions have been raised about the need for a strong Bloc representation in Ottawa.
Many separatist voters told National Post that this time, they would vote for a federalist party because of Donald Trump’s threats of tariffs and annexation.
The Liberals know this. The Bloc, which held 34 seats when Parliament was dissolved,
could lose
five, ten, or even a dozen seats next Monday, mainly to the Liberals.
Mark Carney’s plane landed in Quebec City on Monday evening before campaigning in the province on Tuesday. It means both leaders will be in the Quebec’s Old Capital the same day.
For the better part of the campaign, the Bloc was trailing the Liberals by about 20 points in Quebec. Though, according to
Abacus Data
, it seems Blanchet was able to win support and shift the perception in the French debate.
It now appears that the party has managed to gain a few points here and there, according to several polls.
Blanchet is trying to convince Quebecers to grant him the balance of power.
“It can work… Canada is choosing Mark Carney with a level of certainty that allows Quebecers, if they wish so, to return to the Bloc,” he said Sunday night.
He argues that in a democracy, people are elected to sit in a Parliament and get along to operate the territory for which they are responsible.
On Monday morning, at a press conference in front of Quebec’s National Assembly, Blanchet was hammering the immigration issue, asking for Ottawa to give Quebec “all the powers” in this file.
His goal is to replicate the results of the 2019 and 2021 elections, when the Bloc lagged in the polls and then prevented a Liberal majority in the final days after the debates.
At a subsequent press conference in Charlevoix, with the St. Lawrence River in the background, Blanchet said the coming days would be dedicated to meeting with Quebecers from across the province.
“We’re going to go to many, many places. We’re going to be very, very mobile,” he said. “We’re going to bring back topics rather than bring new ones. It’s about involving as many people as possible in the shortest possible time.”
In a pig farm a few kilometres away, some workers told reporters that they were afraid of Trump, but that they would likely end up voting for the Bloc because it’s a known commodity and one that defends Quebec’s identity.
Blanchet argued that his party could play a role of watchdog and benevolent supervision to ensure the protection of Quebec’s interests throughout the mandate. This is the objective of his campaign, particularly during his final week.
National Post
atrepanier@postmedia.com
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