Nothing is going right for Premier François Legault: his party, the Coalition Avenir Quebec (CAQ), is ending the year in third place in the polls, behind the Parti Québécois (PQ) and the Quebec Liberal Party (PLQ), with only nine months to go before the general election.
Legault has also lost no fewer than six MNAs this year, five of whom — including his former Health Minister Christian Dubé — now sit as independents.
The names of his potential successors are beginning to circulate.
Averaging 21 per cent support in January, the CAQ fell to 18 per cent in December, according to aggregator Philippe J. Fournier.
The problem seems to be Legault himself: according to Pallas Data, 75 per cent of Quebecers now say they have an unfavourable opinion of the CAQ leader.
These figures are “disastrous,” according to Fournier, who points out that dissatisfaction with the CAQ is so high that the party could be completely excluded from the National Assembly if elections were held today.
“Our politics are so focused on the image of leaders that we can’t get out of this situation: an unpopular leader cannot lift a party up,” says the analyst.
The ‘Super King of Deficits’
The Liberals gave the premier this unflattering nickname after the announcement in March of a record $13.6 deficit.
Finance Minister Eric Girard says this year’s budget was his most complex yet, with Trump’s tariffs threatening Quebec’s economy.
A few days later, Standard & Poor’s downgraded Quebec’s credit rating, a first in 30 years. Outraged, the opposition parties accused the government of mismanaging public finances, pointing out that S&P’s decision came on the same day that a $46 million contract was awarded to an engineering firm to prepare the controversial third Québec-Lévis road link project.
“Wasteful,” they chanted, denouncing, at the same time,the failure of the Northvolt project , which led to the loss of millions of dollars.
Quebec officially ended its financing of the Northvolt battery factory in Mcmasterville.
Faced with this accumulation of bad news, Legault decided in September to prorogue the parliamentary session, reshuffle his cabinet and deliver a speech in which he promised to stimulate the economy while imposing “shock treatment” on the bureaucracy. His “economic vision”, presented at a media event that cost $55,000, was met with indifference.
The SAAQclic fiasco
Another blow fell on Legault in February with the release of an explosive report by Auditor General Guylaine Leclerc concerning IT problems at the Société de l’assurance automobile du Québec (SAAQ), which she said would cost taxpayers more than $1 billion by 2027.
Her report also raised questions about who knew what within the government.
Amid the turmoil, Minister of Cybersecurity and Digital Technology Éric Caire was dismissed from his post, but Legault nevertheless launched a wide-ranging public inquiry, which has been chaired by Judge Denis Gallant since March.
Quebec Minister Eric Caire has stepped down following reports he approved a contract split to avoid scrutiny before the 2022 election.
His report is expected in February 2026.
However, in July, even before the report was released, SAAQ CEO Éric Ducharme was dismissed. Two months later, it was the turn of former Transport Minister François Bonnardel to be excluded from the cabinet. His successor at Transport, Geneviève Guilbault, was transferred to Municipal Affairs.
After stormy negotiations with doctors, Dubé slams the door
The adoption of Bill 2 by gag order in October angered doctors, who held a massive demonstration at the Bell Centre, with many threatening to leave Quebec.
The bill, which changed their remuneration system, imposed performance targets and threatened them with sanctions, also caused a crisis within the CAQ government itself: unable to support it, Social Services Minister Lionel Carmant Laporte MNA Isabelle Poulet left the party and now sit as independents.
Francois Legault’s CAQ party lost a high-profile minister when Lionel Carmant announced he was leaving the party.
As the climate continued to sour, Legault personally intervened in the discussions.
After comparing himself to Rocky and promising never to back down from the doctors’ unions, Legault reached an agreement with general practitioners just before Christmas in which the government not only abandoned entire sections of Bill 2, but also added half a billion dollars to their remuneration envelope.
Humiliated, the author of Bill 2,Christian Dubé, announced with great fanfare that he was resigning as Minster of Health and leaving the CAQ to sit as an independent.
Quebec Health Minister Christian Dubé has resigned following his push for a controversial Bill that changed the way doctors in the province are paid.
Ten CAQ members have left since 2022
CAQ MNA turned independent Youri Chassin must be feeling a little less alone these days; no fewer than five of his former colleagues have joined him on the independent bench this year.
They are Pierre Dufour, Maïté Blanchette Vézina, Lionel Carmant, Isabelle Poulet and Christian Dubé.
While the departures of Carmant, Poulet and Dubé are related to Bill 2, Dufour and Blanchette Vézina have expressed frustration with the government’s alleged lack of consideration for the regions.
Blanchette Vézina has not ruled out joining Éric Duhaime’s Conservative Party.
In total, since 2022, the CAQ has lost 10 of its members, with Joëlle Boutin, Pierre Fitzgibbon, Éric Lefebvre and Andrée Laforest choosing to leave provincial politics. Three of the vacant seats have so far been won in by-elections by PQ candidates Pascal Paradis, Catherine Gentilcore and Alex Boissonneault.
Analyst Raphaël Melançon says the Arthabaska byelection result is ‘a very important victory’ for the PQ, which he says is the leading political force in Quebec.
A successor?
All these upheavals have forced the premier to publicly reiterate his desire to run again in the 2026 elections several times over the past year. However, this has not stopped the rumour mill from running wild, with pollsters beginning to gauge the popularity of various potential candidates for the CAQ leadership.
Premier François Legault says he intends to lead the CAQ into the 2026 election, despite anonymous calls from within his caucus for him to step aside.
According to the firm SOM, Justice Minister Simon Jolin-Barrette and Education Minister Sonia LeBel would garner the most support, followed by Guilbault and Dubé.
Economy Minister Christine Fréchette and Environment Minister Bernard Drainville are also seen as potential successors to Legault.
However, at this point, no potential candidate has clearly emerged or is leading a revolt to oust the party’s founding father.
Will Legault continue to hold on in 2026?
–This report by La Presse Canadienne was translated by CityNews
