CAQ’s François Legault sets an example by voting in advance poll

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L’ASSOMPTION — François Legault said Sunday he has not ruled out seeking a third mandate as premier, should he win the Oct. 3 general election.

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“Two conditions,” Legault told reporters at a news conference in his home riding of L’Assomption. “The support of the population and second, my health.”

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Now 65 and in his fourth election campaign as leader of the Coalition Avenir Québec, Legault made the comment shortly after casting his ballot in an advance poll in his riding.

Waiting in line with his wife, Isabelle Brais, Legault told reporters he wanted to show a good example by voting in the advance polls. Voting early is a trend in Quebec elections, he noted.

In the 2018 election, 18 per cent of Quebecers voted in the two days of advance polls. This election’s advance polling process started Sunday and continues Monday; there were lines outside many voting stations Sunday.

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Aides said the CAQ’s internal polls show about 49 per cent of CAQ supporters want to vote in an advance poll. Among the overall voting population, the figure is 47 per cent.

“How do we explain this?” Legault said. “Well, for a long time people had to have an explanation for going to vote in the advance polls. Now there is no requirement to justify it. People are getting used to this and say to themselves, ‘In case I am busy or something unforeseen happens Oct. 3, I will go today.’

“I am told it is like this all over Quebec.”

Legault refuted the idea that the campaign, which is now in its 29th day, has yet to have a real focus. He said even if there are five big parties in the running, the various platforms show clear differences in vision.

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In its campaign, the CAQ is offering to continue the work it started in its first four years in office, and to help Quebecers deal with the ravages of inflation. The CAQ won the 2018 election in a landslide, forming a majority government that for the first time in years was neither Liberal nor Parti Québécois.

With a week until the vote, the political parties are moving into the sprint phase of the election, targeting specific ridings they know could be lost and others where they think they can make gains.

That partially explains why on Monday the CAQ campaign will fly to storm-ravaged Îles-de-la-Madeleine, where an intense battle is underway between incumbent Parti Québécois MNA Joël Arseneau and the current mayor of the island, Jonathan Lapierre, for the CAQ.

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PQ Leader Paul St-Pierre Plamondon has also announced plans to campaign in the riding Monday.

The CAQ has also launched a campaign to get its vote out. Making a stop earlier Sunday in the neighbouring riding of Repentigny, where former journalist Pascale Déry is running for the CAQ, Legault told supporters that the two days of advance polls are just as important as voting day, so he wants them to keep up their door-to-door work.

“We have to convince people to go vote today and tomorrow,” Legault said, standing in a local caterer’s store. “It’s a challenge for us because some people think (the election is) a done deal. It’s not a done deal until people have voted.

“So I need you. I am counting on you.”

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