By Daniel Béland

June 14, 2025 

Pablo Rodriguez, the former federal cabinet minister whose family fled Argentina for Canada in 1974 to escape his father’s persecution by the military junta’s “Dirty War”, has been elected leader of the Liberal Party of Quebec.

Rodriguez, 57, who served as both transport and heritage minister in the Trudeau government, prevailed in the second round of voting Saturday in a process conducted partly in-person at a convention in Quebec City, and partly via internet and phone-in voting.

The former NGO executive first elected to the House of Commons in 2004 won with 52.3% of the votes, ahead of pharmacist and businessman Charles Millard, who did surprisingly well for a political novice, finishing ahead of former PLQ MNA Karl Blackburn, who had hoped to make it to the second round. In his enthusiastic victory speech, Rodriguez praised the other contenders in the race as well as the previous leaders of the PLQ.

He also mentioned his background as an Argentina-born political refugee who arrived in Canada at age 8. Rodriguez’s father was a human rights lawyer whose defense of political dissidents made him the target of one of the most brutal South American regimes of the second half of the last century.

The PLQ took its time to select a new leader, as its previous leader, Dominque Anglade, resigned in November 2022, more than two and a half years ago. She did so in the aftermath of the October 2022 provincial elections, in which the once-mighty PLQ only won 21 seats and received 14 percent of the popular vote, something unprecedented in the party’s long history. Although they were able to remain the official opposition, their lacklustre performance among francophone voters proved particularly concerning.

For instance, while they were able to win 16 seats on the island of Montreal, especially in areas where many anglophones and allophones live, the PLQ finished in fifth place in more than half of the province’s ridings in 2022. In this context, the party took its time to allow for internal consultations and debates about its future while interim leader and LaFontaine MNA Marc Tanguay acted as Leader of the Opposition in the National Assembly.

To a certain extent, the PLQ’s decision to postpone in its leadership race proved beneficial because, according to polls, the Coalition Avenir Quebec (CAQ), which won big in 2022, now appears extremely vulnerable electorally, less than 16 months before the next provincial elections. While this decline in support for the CAQ has mainly helped the Parti Québécois, which according to polls has been significantly in the lead since late 2023, the advent of Rodriguez as a leader could help the Liberals catch up.

First, Rodriguez will need to build a team that can fill the gap in his economic experience at a time when Canada’s vulnerability to Donald Trump’s economic coercion helped propel Mark Carney to victory in April in large part thanks to support from concerned Quebecers.

In a much commented Léger online poll punished last month, the PQ remained in the lead with 34 percent of support, followed by the PLQ at 21 percent and the CAQ at only 20 percent. Yet, with Rodriguez as leader, the poll indicated that support for the PLQ would jump to 31 percent, finishing first, one point ahead of the PQ and 12 points ahead of the CAQ. This poll helped confirm the status of Rodriguez as the frontrunner of the PLQ race ahead of Saturday’s vote.

Moving forward, the PLQ and its new leader still face many challenges. First, Rodriguez will need to build a team that can fill the gap in his economic experience at a time when Canada’s vulnerability to Donald Trump’s economic coercion helped propel Mark Carney to victory in April in large part thanks to support from concerned Quebecers.

Second, they need to do more to increase their support among francophone voters. This is a difficult challenge, as Quebec’s provincial party system is overcrowded with parties that focus their efforts on seducing these very voters: the PQ and the CAQ but also Québec Solidaire and the Parti conservateur du Québec, which failed to elect a single MNA in 2022 but finished in second place in 20% of the ridings.

If the PQ keeps doing well in the polls, one thing that could help Rodriguez and the Liberals is a return of sovereignty to the political agenda, as the PQ remains committed to organize a third independence referendum in the province. Even talk of a third referendum could benefit the PLQ, which is the party most clearly identified with the federalist camp. A return of the federalist-sovereigntist cleavage to the fore of Quebec’s political arena could energize Liberal supporters and bring federalists who might have felt free to vote for the CAQ in the absence of a separation threat to “return home.”

At the same time, the danger for Rodriguez, a former federal cabinet member, is to appear too close to the Liberal government in Ottawa, as many francophone voters opposed to a third referendum would still expect the PLQ leader to defend provincial autonomy and Quebec’s interests and identity vis-à-vis the federal government. Although Rodriguez did not serve under Carney, his federal Liberal ties are not necessarily an asset in Quebec, even if the current popularity of the Carney government in the province could help him in the short run.

Yet, if this popularity significantly declined between now and the next provincial election, distancing himself from the federal Liberals might prove especially important. Here, his challenge might be bigger than that of Jean Charest, another PLQ leader who had begun his career at the federal level. Charest, a former federal Conservative, in contrast to Rodriguez, was not tied to the Liberal Party of Canada (LPC) and its centralizing image and legacy.

A lot of things can happen between now and the fall 2026 election, but while the PLQ needs to do more to attract francophone votes and improve its ground game outside the Montreal area, it is in a significantly better position now than it was when Anglade resigned as leader in late 2022. At the time, the CAQ looked almost invincible, which is no longer the case. As for the PQ, it faces its own challenges in the context of the trade war with the United States and the rise of “Canadian patriotism” in Quebec, something that the PLQ and Rodriguez could use to their advantage if they play their political cards right which, in this case, would mean advocating for a stronger Quebec within a stronger Canada.

Rodriguez is not an MNA so he will soon need to decide whether he wants to run in a forthcoming by-election or wait before he seeks to win a seat in the National Assembly, perhaps as late as the general election. He also needs to prove that, like Charest more than two decades ago, he can manage a successful transition from federal to provincial politics. In order to do this, Roriguez will need to show that he is no longer the provincial lieutenant of the Liberal Party of Canada but a strong Quebec party leader who aspires to become the next premier.

Daniel Béland is professor of political science and director (on leave) of the McGill Institute for the Study of Canada at McGill University. He is currently visiting Heidelberg University as the recipient of a Humboldt Research Award.