The Coalition Avenir Quebec (CAQ) swept the National Assembly in Quebec’s provincial election on Oct. 3, winning 90 out of 125 seats in the legislature. Premier François Legault and the CAQ formed an even larger majority government than they won in 2018, increasing from 74 to 90 seats. In the Saint-François riding – where Lennoxville is located – and almost every riding in and around the Eastern Townships, the CAQ rode to victory. The notable exception is the metropolitan Sherbrooke riding where Christine Labrie of Québec Solidaire was re-elected – an orange island in the CAQ’s blanket over the Estrie region.

With polling predicting a resounding victory for the CAQ, the provincial elections were more of a race for second place. The Quebec Liberal Party (QLP) formed the official opposition with 21 seats, followed by Québec Solidaire (QS) with 11 seats, and Parti Quebeçois (PQ) winning 3 seats. 

Immediately following the results, opposition parties pointed out the discrepancies between the percentage of the popular vote won by each party and the seats distributed in the National Assembly. That is, Legault and the CAQ had about 41 per cent of the popular vote but won 72 per cent of the seats in the legislature. Due to the way the first-past-the-post system works, where only the winning candidate of a riding is elected to government – regardless of how close the runner-up or competing candidates were – parties with voters concentrated in certain ridings have an advantage over similarly popular parties that have their voters relatively dispersed.

The parties contending for the official opposition, the QLP, QS, the PQ, and the Conservative Party of Quebec (PCQ) all received approximately 13-15 per cent of the province’s total votes, but had vastly different spreads of representation in government. Notably, Eric Duhaime with the PCQ won no seats, despite there being less than a 2 per cent difference between the PCQ’s popular vote and the QLP’s. Several ridings in and around the Eastern Townships, including Saint-François, Richmond, and Mégantic (where the PCQ was the runner-up) each received more votes for the PCQ than for the PQ and the QLP, but will see no conservative MP from any riding in the National Assembly. 

Another party pointing out problems with the electoral system is Québec Solidaire. “Our political system is broken, our democracy is sick and the electoral map tonight does not reflect the political will of Quebecers,” said spokesperson Gabriel Nadeau-Dubois during his concession speech. Collectively across the province, QS received about 40,000 more votes than the QLP, but has 11 seats in government compared to the QLP’s 21. Voters in the ridings such as Orford, Saint François, Richmond, and Brome-Missisquoi all had a QS candidate as their runner up behind the CAQ, and might echo discontent about the result.

Sherbrooke is one of the more popular cities in Quebec for immigrants – comprising 13.7 per cent of the city’s population according to Statistics Canada in 2016.  In the leadup to election day, some of the CAQ candidates in the Estrie region – including François Bonnardel who won in the Granby riding, and Caroline St-Hilaire of the Sherbrooke riding – took care to voice support for immigrants after the CAQ MNA and Labour Minister Jean Boulet incorrectly claimed that “80 per cent of immigrants go to Montreal, do not work, do not speak French or do not adhere to the values ​​of Quebec society.” Legault campaigned on a promise to limit immigration to 50,000 people per year, and has repeatedly apologised for comments suggesting that immigrants are at odds with Quebec’s values. Thus, what the CAQ chooses to do with their new mandate, given the immigrants and also the English-speaking population in Estrie, will remain a point of contention in the near future.