We asked our readers to tell us who they planned to vote for in the 2014 Quebec Election. When our poll closed at midnight, the results were clear.
With 115 votes cast in total, 50% of people chose Québec Solidaire. The Liberals finished in second place with 33% of the vote and the newly re-vamped Green Party came in third with 11%. The Parti-Québécois and Coalition de l’Avenir du Québec tied for fourth place, garnering three votes apiece and beating out “none of the above” and “not sure yet” who tied for fifth. Option Nationale and “there’s an election?” round off the list, each getting one vote.
Our readers’ reasons for voting the way they did are most likely quite varied and some may even be strategic. Blocking the PQ is very in this year and the best party to do that with depends on where you live (people living in Rosemont and the Plateau, for example, have a better chance of stopping Marois with a QS vote than one for the PLQ).
So I’m not going to try and guess their reasons. What I will do is mention what the top three parties on our survey are offering.
Quebec Solidaire: A new approach
A vote for Quebec Solidaire is a vote for a new social justice-focused way of doing things. It’s a vote against the old two-party system, a way to vote against Marois without re-hiring the PLQ which Quebec voters fired just 18 months ago.
They are are offering a renewed investment in social programs, healthcare (some CLSCs will stay open 24 hours in their plan), a tuition freeze leading to free education and free public transit in the next ten years. These all serve as job creation programs, too. QS definitely supports workers’ rights but won’t sacrifice the environment for the economy as they are opposed to fracking for shale gas on Anticosti Island.
Instead of pie in the sky (not to be confused with the pie on their poster about a more equal society), they have a plan to pay for all their projects. In keeping with their approach, it relies largely on taxing the banks more.
While QS is a sovereigntist party, they’re not offering the xenophobic vision of it that the PQ is. Instead, they want to reform Quebec democracy by bringing in proportional representation then create inclusive constituent assemblies with the goal of concentrating less power in federal hands and put the result of those assemblies to a vote in a referendum.
Quebec Liberals: What You’d Expect
As for the Liberals, who were on top of our poll for a while and by all indications will form the next government, well, we pretty much know what we can expect. After all, we just got over nine years of PLQ rule.
Now Phillippe Couillard is not Jean Charest, He seems more rational, calmer and less autocratic than our former premier was at the end. He has also promised to slow down shale gas exploration, though not abandon it completely (his party was the one who first brought up the idea) and decided against re-instating the previous PLQ government’s tuition hike, opting to keep Marois’ indexation plan instead.
That doesn’t mean that the Libs are no longer the party of austerity, quite the opposite. It’s just that their austerity doesn’t include strong restrictions on personal and religious freedoms to please the socially conservative the way the PQ version does through their charter. They’re also committed federalists and overall have the best chance of replacing the PQ.
Green Party of Quebec: Strong platform, small slate of candidates
The Green Party of Quebec under new leader Alex Tyrrell are focused on eco-socialism, which for them includes no shale gas fracking and free public transit in five years (instead of the decade in the QS platform). They are also the only party completely opposed to the Charter in any form (the PLQ, QS and CAQ all have versions of it, albeit less overreaching than the PQ version).
To be honest I love their platform and voted for them myself in this poll. To also be honest, they’re not running a full slate of candidates, so even if there was a green wave (in the volatile world of Quebec politics, anything is possible) they still couldn’t form government.
So there you have it. FTB readers have spoken and now you have until 8pm to vote, if you haven’t already. For info: monvote.qc.ca
