MONTRÉAL — The Parti Québécois’ fourth consecutive byelection win shows Quebecers are ready for profound change, leader Paul St-Pierre Plamondon said Tuesday, even as he sought to calm worries over his promise to hold a sovereignty referendum by 2030 if he becomes premier.
On Monday night, PQ candidate Marie-Karlynn Laflamme won the byelection in the Chicoutimi riding, north of Quebec City, with more than 45 per cent of the vote, compared to about 26 per cent for second-place Conservative Catherine Morissette. The latest victory gives the PQ seven seats in the national assembly, up from just three after the 2022 general election.
For years St-Pierre Plamondon has promised to hold a referendum on Quebec sovereignty within a first mandate if the PQ wins the October election. But while his party is riding high in the polls, the same opinion surveys also consistently show support for independence around 30 per cent with strong majorities against a referendum.
“It’s all of Quebec that is calling for profound change … (for) respecting that public funds aren’t monopoly money,” St-Pierre Plamondon told reporters on Tuesday. “This message seemed very, very clear last night, and what we’re seeing … is that for a significant proportion of Quebecers, it’s the Parti Québécois that embodies this change.”
Opposition party members accused St-Pierre Plamondon of backing away from his referendum promise after he appeared to suggest on Monday night that a sovereignty vote could wait until after U.S. President Donald Trump leaves office.
Coalition Avenir Québec leadership aspirant Bernard Drainville, a former PQ cabinet minister, wrote online that St-Pierre Plamondon’s message amounted to, “‘Elect me and there will maybe be a referendum, or maybe not. It depends on my mood.'”
St-Pierre Plamondon, however, insisted that he has remained consistent, adding that he is “very confident” there will be a good window for a referendum in the next four years.
The PQ leader, in turn, accused his rivals — and the Conservatives in particular — of trying to scare people, saying a referendum is not in the near term.
“When our adversaries try to spread fear, it’s clearly all they have, in saying it’s not the time for a referendum as if it was (happening) next week — it’s not very honest,” he said. “And the commitment to hold a referendum at a time that is intelligent and is chosen in a four-year window, it’s clearly very different.”
Conservative Leader Éric Duhaime said in an interview that he’s not stoking fear, but rather repeating the concerns of citizens who say it’s not the right time for a referendum. He noted that the Saguenay region, which includes Chicoutimi, is heavily dependent on aluminum and lumber industries that are targets of U.S. tariffs.
“People are concerned, and it’s normal,” he said. “They care about their families, they care about the bills they get every week, every month and they can hardly pay their grocery (bill), and the Parti Québécois is telling them that we need to separate and bring even more instability.”
The Conservatives won about 13 per cent of the vote in 2022 but no seats.
Duhaime noted that on Monday his party more than tripled its vote share in the Chicoutimi riding compared with the 2022 general election, beating both the governing Coalition Avenir Québec and the official Opposition Liberals.
He painted St-Pierre Plamondon’s party garnering less than 50 per cent of the vote in a traditional sovereigntist stronghold as a sign that people don’t want a referendum. Duhaime also finished second to the Parti Québécois in a byelection last year in Arthabaska, southwest of Quebec City, and believes those results are a sign of bigger things to come for his party.
“It’s almost a miracle what we did … a party that has no member in the national assembly beating badly the government and the official Opposition two (byelections) in a row,” he said.
The former right-wing columnist and radio host says he has grown the Conservative party of Quebec from a few hundred members to 65,000 since taking over the leadership in 2021, and has become competitive in elections without any of the funding that his adversaries with seats in the legislature get.
He suggested that the fall election could see his party win seats around the Quebec City area, and battle with the PQ in the regions. He also encouraged English-speaking Quebecers to “stop holding their nose and voting for the Liberals” and to instead buy into his vision that includes abolishing Quebec’s carbon-pricing scheme, allowing increased privatization in the health sector, and reducing government bureaucracy.
The Chicoutimi riding had been a stronghold for the Parti Québécois before Andrée Laforest captured it twice for the CAQ, first in 2018 and again in 2022. The seat became vacant after Laforest resigned in a failed bid to enter municipal politics.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Feb. 24, 2026.
Morgan Lowrie, The Canadian Press
