Quebec Premier Shares Post Criticizing Bloc for Not Voting Against Liberals

Quebec Premier Francois Legault at a news conference in Montreal, on Aug. 20, 2024. The Canadian Press/Ryan Remiorz

Quebec Premier François Legault ramped up his call for the Bloc Québécois to vote against the Liberal government, sharing a social media post over the weekend criticizing the Bloc as an “accomplice” of Prime Minister Justin Trudeau.

Legault has been calling for the Bloc to vote against the Liberals in the upcoming non-confidence motion since they won’t give him more immigration powers. Bloc Leader Yves-François Blanchet has made it clear he won’t support the upcoming vote to bring down the government, saying he wants to see what gains his party can make from the minority Liberal government.

The Sept. 21 post on X shared by Legault was penned by Vincent Desmarais, a Quebec adviser to Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre, who was previously employed by Legault.

“In 2008, the Bloc preferred to be an accomplice of a centralizing and Trudeauist party rather than defend the interests of Quebec,” Desmarais said in the post. “Today, history repeats itself.”

Legault shared the post hours later without adding any additional comment.

The post was accompanied by two photos: one from 2008 showing former Bloc Leader Gilles Duceppe, then-Liberal Leader Stéphane Dion, and the NDP’s Jack Layton. The photo was taken to commemorate a deal between the three parties to oust Stephen Harper’s minority Conservative government.

The second image shows Blanchet shaking hands with Trudeau.

Non-Confidence Motion

Last week Legault urged Bloc Leader Yves-François Blanchet to vote with the Conservatives on the non-confidence motion the party put forward to topple the Liberal government.

Legault has been outspoken in his criticism of Trudeau over the past few months, saying the prime minister is meddling in matters of provincial jurisdiction while simultaneously refusing to respond to the increase in asylum seekers and other temporary immigrants in the province.

In an attempt to persuade Blanchet, Legault called on Parti Quebecois Leader Paul St-Pierre Plamondon, whose provincial party shares the same goal as the Bloc—Quebec independence.

“I’m asking Mr. St-Pierre Plamondon to have courage and ask his Bloc Quebecois comrade to back down, not to support the Trudeau government next week, to defend the interests of Quebecers and the Quebec nation,” Legault said last week.

“Mr. St-Pierre Plamondon has a duty to stand up, to be courageous and to call out Mr. Blanchet.”

Blanchet announced Sept. 18 he would not support the Tories’ non-confidence motion, saying he plans to get as much as he can for Quebec from the Liberals, in exchange for the Bloc’s support in the House of Commons.

The Bloc leader confirmed his position shortly after, saying “it’s still no” on the motion, adding that Poilievre’s move to defeat the government isn’t about the Liberals’ performance on immigration.

He also said that calling an early election could prevent his party from benefitting from the Liberals’ support on Bloc priorities such as increasing the old age security pension.

St-Pierre Plamondon has said he supports Blanchet’s strategy and would not call on him to vote with the Conservatives.

“Whether it’s Poilievre or Trudeau, we would get nothing and regress on a linguistic, financial, environment, or social level,” the PQ leader said.

Legault endorsed the Conservatives during the 2021 federal election campaign. He said a minority Conservative government in Ottawa would be advantageous for Quebec and cautioned the province’s nationalists to be wary of the Liberals and the NDP who he said would try to centralize more power in Ottawa.

Earlier this year, Poilievre’s Conservatives recruited former Coalition Avenir Québec MNA Éric Lefebvre as a candidate.

The NDP recently ended its supply-and-confidence agreement with the Liberal government that would have kept them in power until 2025 with NDP’s support in exchange for support on key initiatives sought by the NDP.

Like Blanchet, Singh has announced he will not support the Tory’s non-confidence motion.

Singh said his party would decide how to vote on each issue on a case-by-case basis. He was also critical of both Liberal and Conservative policies, saying that only the NDP is capable of fixing health care, and building affordable homes.

Now that the Liberals have lost formal NDP support, Government House Leader Karina Gould has said Ottawa would work with opposition parties on a “case-by-case, legislation-by-legislation” basis. 

Gould did not specify the Liberal agenda for the fall session, but said the government is “very clearly focused on ensuring that Canadians are at the centre of everything that we do moving forward.”

If the Tories’ non-confidence motion were to be successful, it would likely result in the dissolution of Parliament, bringing Canada into a fall election. A failed vote, however, would result in Parliament carrying on as usual.

The Liberals, who currently hold 153 of the 338 seats in Parliament, need either the NDP’s 25 MPs or the Bloc Quebecois’ 33 representatives to vote with them for the non-confidence motion to fail.

The Conservatives, who have 119 seats, have been eager for an early election. Current polling suggests that a Conservative majority government would be likely if an election were called this fall.

The Canadian Press contributed to this report.