Quebec elects the separatists on 28 percent of the vote

Quebec's separatists have won back power after more than a decade in opposition, promising a third referendum on leaving Canada and handing Prime Minister Mark Carney a national-unity test weeks before an independence-related vote in Alberta. The Parti Québécois won the most seats in the October 5, 2026 election, according to media reports, putting leader Paul St-Pierre Plamondon on course to become premier. ^[1][3]

CTV News projects a minority government. With the count incomplete, the National Post reported that the PQ was a few seats short of the 64 needed for a majority in the 127-seat National Assembly, on about 28 percent of the popular vote. That gives the party a path to government, but leaves its referendum project dependent on cooperation from other parties. ^[2][3]

St-Pierre Plamondon promised during the campaign to hold an independence referendum in his first term. On August 18, he added a condition: the vote would take place only after US President Donald Trump leaves office in January 2029. Quebec rejected secession in 1980 and 1995, and has not held another independence vote in the three decades since. ^[1][2]

The election changes who governs Quebec. It does not establish that most Quebecers want to leave Canada. Daniel Beland, a political science professor at McGill University, told the Associated Press that support for independence remains at about 30 percent, low by historical standards. He said the PQ victory reflects a divided multiparty system rather than a surge in separatist sentiment. ^[1]

That is the central fact of the new government's position: the PQ has recovered power faster than the independence cause has recovered support. Its leader now has to bridge that gap while running a province. ^[1][2]

From three seats to government

The comeback is substantial. The PQ last governed from 2012 to 2014 under Pauline Marois. By the 2022 election, it had fallen to just three seats. Monday's result ends more than a decade in opposition and puts the party's defining constitutional ambition back at the centre of provincial government. ^[1][2]

It also ends eight years of rule by the centre-right Coalition Avenir Québec, which does not support independence. CTV carried CAQ leader Christine Frechette's concession and reported that she lost her own seat in Trois-Rivières. The governing party lost power, and its leader lost her place in the legislature. ^[1][3]

The PQ's reported vote share shows why this result demands two separate readings. About 28 percent was enough to put it ahead in seats, according to the National Post. It was not a majority of voters, much less a direct endorsement of secession. The paper reported that support for Eric Duhaime's Quebec Conservatives kept the PQ from reaching the 64-seat majority threshold. ^[2]

For ordinary provincial government, the immediate question is whether St-Pierre Plamondon can assemble enough legislative support to pass major measures and survive confidence votes. For independence, he faces a further task: persuading voters who have not yet backed the cause. A successful answer to the first question would not automatically answer the second. ^[1]

St-Pierre Plamondon said he would work with other parties in a minority legislature to hold a referendum, including Québec Solidaire, which also supports independence. That shared objective offers a potential basis for cooperation. It is not yet an agreement to sustain a PQ government or to approve a particular referendum plan. ^[2]

Nor is cooperation on sovereignty necessarily cooperation on every decision a government must take. The practical test of a minority is not whether parties can agree on one destination, but whether they can keep agreeing often enough to govern. The referendum promise will have to compete for parliamentary time and political support with the work of running Quebec.

Beland's assessment makes the scale of the persuasion task clear. Independence support at about 30 percent is not a prediction of a future referendum result. But it does mean the incoming government starts with its central project well short of majority support. Taking office gives the PQ a platform from which to make its case, not a substitute for making it. ^[1]

The campaign put a date on the promise

The referendum timetable emerged from a campaign dominated in part by Canada's confrontation with the United States. According to the National Post, the trade war pushed voters toward the incumbent CAQ and gave it a strong attack on the PQ: a separatist government would destabilise Quebec during an already dangerous dispute. ^[2]

PQ aides told the newspaper that the August 18 announcement was designed to weaken that attack. By ruling out a referendum before Trump's departure in January 2029, St-Pierre Plamondon offered voters a separation between the immediate choice of government and the later choice of country. The promise remained, but the immediate risk the CAQ warned about was pushed further into the future. ^[2]

That timing now constrains the incoming premier. He has promised both a first-term referendum and a wait until after January 2029. His government must therefore maintain legislative support while preparing a constitutional campaign that, by its own commitment, cannot move straight to a ballot. ^[1][2]

The United States remained a force in the contest until its closing days. Trade talks collapsed shortly before the election, according to the National Post. The PQ also objected to appearances by Carney with Frechette. Its communications director, Lucas Medernach, said "Mark Carney had chosen his winner." Carney's team denied the assertion. ^[2]

The dispute points to a difficult relationship ahead: Ottawa and Quebec will still need to deal with the US trade confrontation while the incoming provincial government prepares to campaign for departure from Canada. Cooperation on an immediate economic threat and disagreement over the country's future will have to coexist.

After winning, St-Pierre Plamondon addressed Canadians outside Quebec directly. "The independence project we are championing is not directed against you," he said. "Quebec will always be a partner acting in good faith and open to collaboration." ^[2]

That is a statement of the relationship he wants, not an agreement about how separation would work. Currency, the division of federal debt, borders and trade with the United States remain unresolved in the reported plans. Those are questions a future independence campaign will have to answer in concrete terms, because voters would be choosing an economic future as well as a constitutional one.

Two defeats behind it, another test ahead

Quebec has already put independence to a direct vote twice. Voters rejected it in 1980 and again in 1995, the second time narrowly. No government has since asked the province a third time. St-Pierre Plamondon's promise would reopen a question that has remained politically alive without returning to the ballot. ^[1]

The distinction between electing a sovereigntist government and endorsing sovereignty is therefore not a technicality. Quebecers have done the former before without delivering the latter. The PQ's previous spell in government, from 2012 to 2014, did not produce another referendum. This time, its leader has made a first-term vote an explicit commitment. ^[1][2]

The party's electoral recovery gives that commitment weight. Its minority position limits its freedom to act. Those two facts belong together: dismissing the promise would ignore the result, while treating the election as a verdict for independence would ignore the numbers.

For Carney, the pressure extends beyond Quebec. Beland said the return of a sovereigntist government creates a new national-unity challenge barely two weeks before an independence-related referendum in Alberta. He said the combination might suggest to the Trump administration that Canadian unity remains a major issue. That is his assessment of a possible reading in Washington, not a response from the US government. ^[1]

The timing gives Ottawa little room to treat Quebec's result as an isolated provincial change of administration. Canada faces a trade dispute with its neighbour while separatism has regained a governing platform in Quebec and Alberta approaches its own independence-related ballot. The federal government's immediate challenge is to keep those disputes from weakening its ability to act as one country. ^[1][2]

The next concrete step in Quebec is the completed seat count, followed by the political agreements needed to make the projected minority function. St-Pierre Plamondon has named Québec Solidaire as a party he would work with on a referendum. Whether that willingness becomes durable legislative support will shape how much of his promise he can deliver. ^[2][3]

January 2029 sets the earliest boundary for the promised vote, not a date on which independence becomes inevitable. Before St-Pierre Plamondon can ask Quebecers to create a country, he has to make a government work. ^[1][2]