Megan O'Toole - Jean Charest’s party has lost ground to the Parti Québécois as federalist voters abandon the governing Liberals for the Coalition Avenir Québec, reveals a new poll by Forum Research for the National Post.
After a dramatic, 10 percentage point rise last week — credited to the arrival of anti-collusion investigator Jacques Duchesneau as a candidate ­— the CAQ held steady, gaining one percentage point to capture 25% support. The PQ gained a point for 35%, while the Liberals lost a point, falling to 31%.
“[The PQ] are starting to pull away, and when they start to do that, they start to really pick up on the seats,” Forum president Lorne Bozinoff said, noting if the poll results held on voting day, the PQ would win 68 seats, or a five-seat majority, in the National Assembly.
Thanks to its pledge to keep the sovereignty question off the table, the CAQ is bleeding “just enough support” away from the Liberals to give the PQ an edge, Mr. Bozinoff said.
“There are people who vote for the Liberals because they’re federalists and now they have an alternative, that they can actually protest the provincial Liberal government but not necessarily trigger a referendum,” he said.
The telephone poll of 1,660 Quebec residents, conducted Monday, is considered accurate to within plus or minus 2.4 percentage points, 19 times in 20.
Rounding out the vote was the leftist Québec Solidaire at 6% and the Greens at 2%.
Whether the CAQ can continue building support remains an open question, particularly as the Liberals will likely “turn their guns” toward François Legault’s party, Mr. Bozinoff said. Interestingly, Mr. Legault’s approval rating at 40% significantly surpassed the CAQ’s overall support, suggesting the party may have additional room to gain.
Approval ratings for Mr. Charest and PQ leader Pauline Marois remained unchanged from last week, at 30% and 35%, respectively.

The poll also found that more than four in 10 Quebeckers supported the government in its ongoing dispute with students, up five percentage points from last week. And on the question of Quebec independence, the most common response, at 27%, was that Quebec should be “one province among many.” Fewer than a quarter said they wanted Quebec to become its own country.
National Post