By Daniel Béland

April 12, 2026

As Quebecers prepare for an election in early October, the dramatis personae of what will be a very political summer — from the beaches of Gaspésie to the Festival Western de Ste-Tite — was filled-in with another major party leader on Sunday.

Christine Fréchette, 56, a former minister in the Coalition Avenir Québec (CAQ) government of outgoing premier François Legault, won the contest to succeed Legault as leader and premier with a comfortable 59.7% of the vote at the party’s convention in Drummondville.

Fréchette beat the only other candidate in the race, controversial, identity-focused MNA Bernard Drainville, who received 42.1% of the votes.

Fréchette fills out the key players in this year’s campaign, the other two being Parti Québécois (PQ) Leader Paul St-Pierre Plamondon, and Liberal Party Leader Charles Milliard.

Because Legault was the founding leader of the CAQ in 2011, Fréchette is only the second leader the party has ever had. She will also soon become the second woman premier in the province’s history after Pauline Marois, whose PQ minority government lasted less than two years, from September 2012 to April 2014.

With the CAQ trailing in the polls by roughly 20 points behind the Liberals and the PQ, it would take a Carney-esque miracle for Fréchette to keep her party in power on October 5th.

According to the results of a Léger poll published on Saturday, the CAQ is at 13%, with the Liberals and the PQ neck-and-neck at 33 and 32% respectively. The clear popular opposition to the PQ’s pledge to hold a third independence referendum by 2030 seems to be hurting the party in the polls.

For the time being, it is the Liberals who seem to be benefiting from that referendum chill, which is tied to Trump-related economic and geopolitical anxieties.

But Mark Carney’s example of a year ago, whereby he replaced Justin Trudeau as party leader and prime minister then closed what had been a 20-point polling gap with the Tories to win a minority government, has recalibrated conventional wisdom sufficiently to give Fréchette both hope and credibility as a contender.

Not only did the Liberals remain in power with Carney replacing a long-serving, unpopular leader, they are poised via three federal by-elections to reach majority status in Parliament.

During the CAQ leadership race, analogies between Carney and Fréchette’s technocratic style as well as her emphasis on the economy were drawn. As former Quebec cabinet minister David Heurtel put it, Fréchette is “playing the Mark Carney card”. Given the climate of economic uncertainty and Carney’s popularity in Quebec, this is certainly not a bad card to play.

That sense of Fréchette inheriting a poisoned political chalice based on Legault’s decision to cling to power long after the numbers and many in his own caucus prevailed upon him to make room for a successor with enough time to exploit the advantage of government ahead of the election has dogged this campaign.

Carney’s example of a year ago, whereby he replaced Justin Trudeau as party leader and prime minister then closed what had been a 20-point polling gap with the Tories to win a minority government, has recalibrated conventional wisdom sufficiently to give Fréchette both hope and credibility as a contender.

On the same day Fréchette announced her candidacy, veteran Quebec radio host Myriam Ségal said this on the air: “I think Ms. Fréchette will become leader because the CAQ is finished. When something’s finished, you choose a woman who has enough dedication to take it on, so you don’t waste a male leader on a desperate election. We did it with Dominique Anglade, we did it with Kim Campbell, and we’re going to do it with Ms. Fréchette.”

The reference to Anglade, who served as leader of the Liberal Party of Quebec (LPQ) from May 2020 to November 2022, seems to reinforce Ségal’s claim about women being chosen as party leader to replace an unpopular male predecessor (in the case of Anglade former Premier Philippe Couillard) and ultimately serving as sacrificial lambs who cannot prevent a widely anticipated and crushing general election defeat (in 2022 the LPQ only received 14.4% of the popular vote, its worst score since 1867).

Campbell was chosen to succeed Brian Mulroney after a decade in office, led the Conservative party to a massive defeat that reduced it to two seats, and served as prime minister for 132 days.

Ségal’s claim is in sync with the work of management scholars who have suggested that “women are more likely to be chosen for leadership positions when the position itself is precarious”. Yet, as Professor Melanee Thomas from the University of Calgary has shown by studying 8 women provincial premiers, it is not true that most of them “were selected to lead parties in government that were in crisis or decline”.

In other words, parties in crisis may choose women to lead them, but women are not always chosen just because nobody else would want the job.

And, between the CAQ’s anti-referendum position and the fact that Fréchette is much better liked by the public than Legault, who remains the least popular premier in the country, it is not surprising that data suggest the CAQ would do better in the polls under her leadership than under Legault’s.

By focusing on the economy as she did yesterday in her victory speech and embracing the technocratic Zeitgeist that Prime Minister Carney embodies so successfully, Fréchette will try to differentiate herself from the two men who are her principal rivals.

In her victory speech Sunday, she lumped PQ Leader Plamondon and Liberal Leader Milliard together as wanting to drag Quebec into the past, addressing the two directly in a broadside that conflated PQ separatism and Liberal corruption investigations:

“Quebecers don’t want to go backwards,” Fréchette said in French. “This is not the time to build new fences. This isn’t the time for fling flang [Quebec slang for shenanigans] and UPAC [the province’s anti-corruption office]). I’m telling you right now, I will not let you take Quebec 10 years back in time. You will find me in your way.”

Like Fréchette, Milliard is emphasizing the economy and “bread and butter” issues while strongly opposing the idea of a third referendum, which is very much on brand for a Liberal leader.

In such a competitive electoral environment, Fréchette will have to convince voters that she’s a better alternative than Milliard to maintain both economic and political stability in turbulent times.

A Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada, Daniel Béland is professor of political science and director of the McGill Institute for the Study of Canada at McGill University.