By Daniel Béland

March 1, 2026

Back in 2011, the popularity in Quebec of then New Democratic Party Leader Jack Layton helped trigger an unprecedented Orange Wave that saw the NDP win 59 seats (out of 75) in a province that had never been fertile electoral ground for the NDP.

Tragically, Layton passed away from cancer four months later.

In the 2015 federal election, under the leadership of Quebecer Tom Mulcair, the NDP only won 16 seats and, four years later, under Jagmeet Singh, the party lost all but one seat in the province.

The holder of that last seat, Alexandre Boulerice, was re-elected in the 2021 and 2025 elections and is now the last remaining survivor of the Orange Wave in a one-riding NDP island.

Now, Boulerice is making waves of a different kind by suggesting he may jump into provincial politics and run in this year’s Quebec election, scheduled for October 5th.

A former journalist, union official, and community organizer, Boulerice has kept his Montreal riding of Rosemont-La-Petite-Patrie because of his personal popularity, and in spite of the declining popularity of his party in Quebec.

In last April’s election, he received 41% of the votes, more than nine percentage points ahead of Jean-Sébastien Vallée, the Liberal candidate, who fished in second place. This result was particularly impressive for Boulerice because at that general election, the NDP received slightly less than 5% of the votes in Quebec.

Because of his popularity, experience, and skills, Boulerice has long played a central role within the NDP caucus. He successively served as shadow minister of the Treasury Board (2011-2012), Shadow Minister of Labour (2012-2015) and, more recently, Deputy Leader (2019-2025).

Despite his prominence, however, Boulerice is not running in the current NDP leadership race to replace Singh. In fact, no francophone at all is running, and none of the five contenders, Rob Ashton, Tanille Johnston, Avi Lewis, Heather McPherson, and Tony McQuailare, is fully fluent in French (among them, only Lewis and MacPherson speak French).

Considering all of this, it’s not surprising that Boulerice is weighing leaving federal politics and running as a Québec solidaire candidate.

This unfortunate situation was in full display at the late-November Montreal French language debate, which was a source of embarrassment for the NDP. As Radio-Canada journalist Rania Massoud summed up, “Given that none of the five candidates have French as their mother tongue and most of them do not speak it at all, it was difficult at times to follow their exchanges.”

This fact is not sending the right message to francophone voters, in Quebec and beyond. Considering that more than 80% of Canadians believe that “The Prime Minister of Canada should be bilingual,” the lack of truly bilingual leadership hopefuls might also suggest that the NDP is no longer serious about having a shot at forming government in the near future.

This perception is reinforced by the overall weakness of the candidate pool, as McPherson, the Edmonton Strathcona MP since 2019, is the only NDP leadership candidate who has ever won a federal seat (all the other leadership candidates have tried and failed to get elected federally at least once).

The fact that Lewis, the perceived front-runner, is seen as a “hard-left” candidate also suggests the NDP might be moving away from seeking support from more moderate voters.

Considering all of this, it’s not surprising that Boulerice is weighing leaving federal politics and running as a Québec solidaire (QS) candidate.

Because of QS’s rules about gender parity, a special vote took place on February 22nd at a closed-door party meeting to allow a man (i.e., Boulerice) to become the QS candidate in the provincial Montreal riding of Gouin, the riding of former QS co-spokesperson Gabriel Nadeau-Dubois.

Boulerice has said that his desire to run in a provincial seat under the banner of QS, a party facing major electoral challenges amidst a lacklustre performance in opinion polls, has nothing to do with the NDP’s own sagging fortunes.

Regardless of his motives, Boulerice’s departure would leave the NDP with only six seats in the House of Commons.

Because both the Bloc and the Liberals are likely to recruit strong candidates in a byelection in Rosemont-La Petite Patrie, and the success of the NDP in that riding has been largely due to Boulerice’s personal popularity, unless the party can recruit an star candidate, it will be without an MP in Quebec for the foreseeable future.

Because the Liberals remain popular in Quebec, they would have a clear shot at winning the seat despite the fact that, before the Orange Wave, the Bloc held it for two decades.

So, if Boulerice makes the jump, it could create a second window opportunity in Quebec for the Liberals to reach majority territory, alongside the anticipated Terrebonne by-election, where they may have a harder fight.

At the same time, Boulerice’s departure would leave the already struggling federal NDP significantly weakened, in Quebec and beyond.

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