In an emotional victory speech during the late hours of election night, Quebec’s first separatist leader since 2012 said voters “chose hope and change.”
“I think we have restored people’s sense of hope for the future,” Parti Québécois Leader Paul St-Pierre Plamondon told supporters in French on Oct. 5.
And St-Pierre Plamondon has already brought change.
In 2022, he led the party to a disastrous three seats and just 15 per cent of the popular vote — the worst showing in the party’s then 54-year history.
This election, his party is set to lead a minority government after winning 59 seats and 28 per cent of the popular vote.
The incumbent Coalition Avenir Québec, which previously won two commanding majorities, has been wiped off the map. The opposition will be split among three parties: the Quebec Liberal Party, with 40 seats; the Parti Conservateur du Québec, with 19; and Québec Solidaire, with nine.
Political scientists say St-Pierre Plamondon’s determination has been key to restoring the party’s fortunes.
“He’s one of the rare politicians that seems to be willing to do the things he promised to do and to be … very open on things he wants to do,” said Daniel Turp, a professor of international law at Université de Montréal and a former PQ member of Quebec’s National Assembly.
“I don’t think he is scared of climbing mountains.”
Well-traveled
With years of study and work abroad, St-Pierre Plamondon can lay claim to being one of the country’s most cosmopolitan leaders, perhaps second only to the prime minister.
He completed a bachelor of civil law at McGill University, a master of business administration at Oxford University and a certificate in international law from Lund University in Sweden. (St-Pierre Plamondon and Prime Minister Mark Carney share the distinction of having both been goalies for the Oxford University hockey team.)
Very odd that both PSPP and Carney were Oxford goalies.
— Stephen Maher (@stphnmaher) October 6, 2026
St-Pierre Plamondon worked as a volunteer prosecutor at the Permanent Assembly of Human Rights in Bolivia and completed an internship at NATO in Belgium.
He says he speaks five languages: French, English, Spanish, Swedish and Danish — the latter from his time as an exchange student in Denmark.
“He’s well-read, he speaks well,” said Turp.
When he settled down in his home province in the early 2000s, St-Pierre Plamondon spent four years practicing at the elite law firm Stikeman Elliott in Montreal. In 2009, he left to launch Génération d’idées, a now-defunct non-profit that aimed to increase political engagement among young Quebecers.
In 2014, St-Pierre Plamondon published a book entitled Les Orphelins Politiques (“The Political Orphans”), which described his and other young Quebecers’ frustration with corruption, the province’s political discourse and, most saliently, the impasse on sovereignty.
Turp notes St-Pierre Plamondon was not always a committed sovereigntist, having “flirted” with federalism before joining the PQ. But he believes St-Pierre Plamondon has since come to hold deep convictions about the province’s independence.
In 2016, St-Pierre Plamondon made an unsuccessful bid for the PQ leadership, placing fourth. But he subsequently became a special advisor to the party’s then-leader, Jean-François Lisée.
In that role, he released a report entitled Osez repenser le PQ (“Dare to rethink the PQ”) that made 156 recommendations for the party. The youthful St-Pierre Plamondon, who is himself the father of three young kids, recommended the party focus on reaching young Quebecers, minorities and entrepreneurs.
“We must foster and encourage the formation of business circles and networks amongst sovereigntists,” the report said.
In the 2018 election, the PQ was reduced to just 10 seats. Lisée resigned, and St-Pierre Plamondon was chosen as the party’s new leader in 2020.
“It was quite a gamble on his part to move forward and take the leadership of the party at that period,” said Éric Bélanger, a professor of political science at McGill University.
“[The 2020 race] shows a force of character, somebody who’s very positive in his outlooks. I think we can say it’s part of the reasons why he was able to bring the PQ [this] far.
“Some might say he’s a stubborn person. He’s somebody who looks forward, never looks back.”
Rough start
Looking back, St-Pierre Plamondon’s early years as party leader were tough.
In the 2022 election, St-Pierre Plamondon led the party to an even worse showing than under his predecessor. But unlike Lisée, he did not step down; in a 2023 confidence vote, St-Pierre Plamondon received the near unanimous backing of party members.
In another break from Lisée, St-Pierre Plamondon also pushed hard on the sovereignty message. As party leader, he has consistently said a PQ government would hold a sovereignty referendum in its first term.
This message was not welcomed by most voters in the 2022 election. And even today, polls show little appetite for a referendum. An August Leger poll found only 31 per cent of Quebecers were in favour of sovereignty.
However, young Quebecers who were not around during Quebec’s earlier, failed referendums are among some of its most enthusiastic backers now.
Turp, of Université de Montréal, says St-Pierre Plamondon’ focus on youth has helped fuel his rise.
“You have a very dynamic youth wing since he’s been leader,” Turp said. “He wanted to renew the thinking of the party. And that has proven to be successful.”
He has also been persistent in pushing a detailed vision for an independent Quebec.
In June, the PQ released a 524-page Livre bleu outlining the key characteristics of an independent Quebec and how it would get there.
“Never in the history of Quebec has there been such a detailed, researched document on the question of Quebec as a country,” St-Pierre Plamondon said at a June 23 press conference.
Evelyne Brie, an assistant professor of political science at Université de Montréal, told Canadian Affairs in August that the Livre bleu reflects PSPP’s skill for careful, advance planning.
“I feel like the strategy of [St-Pierre Plamondon] has always been to … provide a lot of information and do it a long time in advance to avoid … having this derail his campaign,” she said.
Turp agrees.
“He’s been so consistent since he’s leading the party in saying, ‘[Independence] is the option, we won’t hide it’,” he said.
“That brought a lot of people that were discouraged because [the PQ] didn’t really promote its raison d’être [before St. Pierre Plamondon] and was not consistent.”
St-Pierre Plamondon has ruled out holding a referendum before the end of U.S. President Donald Trump’s term, in early 2029. But he still maintains that an independence vote is a priority.
“This dream of being a nation will one day be realized,” he said during his victory speech.
But Bélanger, of McGill, notes that St-Pierre Plamondon’s referendum goal was dealt a major blow by the PQ’s failure to secure a majority.
The PQ will need to work with the province’s only other separatist party, Québec Solidaire, which could be a tough sell on both sides, he says.
Québec Solidaire was founded in 2006 by former PQ members disaffected with the party and its rightward shift.
“If [St-Pierre Plamondon’s] end goal is to build up a large coalition of support [for a referendum] we can expect him to decide to move a little closer to the left or centre-left in order to appeal to these leftist sovereignists,” Bélanger said.
A rightward shift
The rightward shift is a change for the historically centre-left, social-democratic party.
Daniel Salée, a professor of political science at Concordia University, traces this trend back to Lucien Bouchard, Quebec’s premier from 1996 to 2001, who pushed significant austerity measures.
More recently, including under former premier Pauline Marois, the party has staked out conservative stances on identity, immigration and secularism.
“This is not the party of René Lévesque,” Salée said.
Some of St-Pierre Plamondon’s statements on hot-button social topics have been controversial.
“We currently have a real issue of religious invasion of the public space, and we mustn’t bury our heads in the sand,” St-Pierre Plamondon said in French on X in October 2024, in response to a promotional photo showing a young girl with a hijab at a public library.
St-Pierre Plamondon is also expected to retain or even strengthen the CAQ’s controversial language and secularism laws, which ban the wearing of religious symbols by public sector workers, educators and daycare workers.
Bélanger says there was an element of populism to St-Pierre Plamondon’s campaign, noting his repeated references to “respecting the intelligence” of Quebeckers.
“It’s part of the populist toolkit to not appear too elitist, to appear closer to the ‘regular folks’ and to magnify, in a way, regular folks’ points of view and thinking,” he said.
These “regular folks” — classified by Bélanger as rural and suburban middle-class voters — made up the majority of St-Pierre Plamondon’s gains in this election.
‘Big dreams’
Ultimately, St-Pierre Plamondon and his party may be judged less on sovereignty and identity than on the files that usually top voters’ concerns: the economy, affordability and governance.
Quebec, alongside Ontario, has been hardest hit by Canada’s trade war with the United States. Its aluminum, steel, forestry and manufacturing sectors have all been subject to some of the United States’ most punitive tariffs.
The province’s health and education systems are struggling with staffing and funding constraints, while Quebec has run a deficit for six straight years.
“Before [the PQ] come up with their big dreams of a sovereign nation, they will have to contend with what we call in public policy studies ‘wicked problems’ — problems that nobody seems to be able to solve,” Salée said.
The PQ has pledged some austerity measures, such as cuts to public sector jobs, but also modest commitments to ease Quebecers’ cost of living.
These include a promise to cut gas taxes, eliminate sales taxes on used goods, and introduce a $95-per-month public transportation card.
Finally, St-Pierre Plamondon’s approach to federal relations will be closely watched.
In Salée’s view, the government’s relationship with Ottawa will be strained at best. He expects the Carney government’s efforts to fast-track major projects will be fiercely opposed by Quebec.
St-Pierre Plamondon has also promised to defund Quebec’s lieutenant-governor, the province’s ceremonial head of government and representative of the Crown.
“It won’t be good,” Salée said, noting this could set-off a constitutional battle.
St-Pierre Plamondon has said he will work with the Carney government — though only if it is in the interest of Quebecers.
“We will always be neighbours, so we have an interest in working together,” St-Pierre Plamondon said on election night.
“He will find in me someone who is direct, frank, transparent.
“And certainly someone who will defend first of all and before anything else and at all times the interest of Quebecers.”
