By Daniel Béland

December 11, 2025

Earlier this week, Party Québécois (PQ) leader Paul St-Pierre Plamondon told Quebec journalists that they were not doing a good job at covering and exposing what he depicts as the anti-Quebec policies of the federal government, which he dismissively calls “the federal regime,” as if it was some sort of dark foreign entity.

This tirade against a key component of Quebec’s cultural elites recalls the statements St-Pierre Plamondon made in the aftermath of Montreal MP Marc Miller’s return to the Liberal cabinet early this month, which triggered criticisms in Quebec, especially after Miller told journalist he was “fed up” with the politization of the language question in the province.

After representatives of some Quebec cultural organizations said positive things about Miller’s track record and preparedness to serve as Minister of Canadian Identity and Culture, St-Pierre Plamondon admonished them by saying that Quebeckers expected “spokespersons for Quebec’s cultural community to be loyal to Quebec and the French-speaking world.”

Despite the negative reactions against these remarks, St-Pierre Plamondon did not back down. Instead, the following day, he stated on social media that “Marc Miller and the federal regime are actively working to weaken our language and culture, to which I am deeply attached. Faced with this undeniable decline, consistency among elected officials and stakeholders compels us to denounce it.”

In another post, he added that “A significant portion of the cultural community, in this case some of their spokespeople, seems either to deny the decline of the French language and Quebec culture, as Marc Miller does, or to become subservient to the federal regime to the point where they become disloyal to French-language culture in Quebec.”

In other words, for St-Pierre Plamondon, both Marc Miller and the “federal regime” he serves are the enemies of Quebec’s culture and those in the province who are sympathetic towards them are disloyal to the Quebec nation. This Manichean ideological vision is not new in politics, in Quebec and elsewhere: you are with us or against us.

Even if on Sunday on Radio-Canada’s popular show Tout le monde parle St-Pierre Plamondon ended up saying that “If I had to do it again, I would have used less harsh words,” the whole episode and his more recent comments about Quebec media quoted above raise at least three key issues.

His recent remarks about loyalty and ‘the federal regime’ raise legitimate concerns about how St-Pierre Plamondon would treat federalists and, more generally, Quebeckers who do not see the federal government as the enemy.

First, is St-Pierre Plamondon raising loyalty to Quebec as a topic because it might help his party electorally? As La Presse columnist Patrick Lagacé suggests, it is not clear at all that what St-Pierre Plamondon has said about the loyalty of some members of Quebec’s cultural elites resonates with most voters. In fact, his “us against them” rhetoric and his use of the term “federal regime” is red meat for the PQ base but not necessarily appealing to the rest of the electorate.

As Lagacé puts it: “When Paul St-Pierre Plamondon talks about the federal ‘regime’, you really must be a convinced sovereigntist activist to get excited by the word ‘regime’.” In other words, that rhetoric is directed at the base and is unlikely to do any electoral favours for the PQ.

Second, what does this episode tell us about how St-Pierre Plamondon will behave if he becomes premier of Quebec after next provincial elections? Considering that the PQ remains far ahead in the polls as the Legault government and the other main opposition parties — the Liberal Party of Quebec and Québec Solidaire — are facing strong political and electoral challenges, St-Pierre Plamondon has a clear chance to become premier after the October 5 2026 election.

His recent remarks about loyalty and “the federal regime” raise legitimate concerns about how St-Pierre Plamondon would treat federalists and, more generally, Quebeckers who do not see the federal government as the enemy.

Finally, and at a deeper level, what does this discussion suggest regarding the meaning of Quebec nationalism and the relationship between the province and the federal government?

What we have witnessed since at least the Quiet Revolution is a form of competitive state building between the federal government and the Quebec government. After the federal government started to get involved more directly in the everyday life of Quebeckers during and after World War II through the development of new social and cultural policies, Quebec nationalists pushed to both defend and expand provincial autonomy and foster province-wide national solidarity in tension with the idea of shared country-wide citizenship projected by the federal government.

Quebeckers, including members of the cultural elites, do benefit directly from both federal and provincial policies, which exist partly to increase a sense of belonging and shared citizenship. While about 35 percent of Quebecers support sovereignty, they remain a minority within the province and most Quebecers not only do not see the federal government as the enemy but show more trust towards it than residents of other provinces, something St-Pierre Plamondon is unwilling to recognize for ideological and political reasons.

With thanks to Professor André Lecours from the University of Ottawa for his prompt feedback on this piece.

Daniel Béland is professor of political science and director of the McGill Institute for the Study of Canada at McGill University.