It may be a federal election that plays out across the country but winning votes in Quebec — home to 78 of the the 338 seats in the House of Commons — will be crucial to the six party leaders.

Polls indicate the Liberals lead in Quebec, with the Conservatives and the Bloc Québécois battling for second place. Meanwhile, the Greens are experiencing unprecedented growth and are neck and neck with the struggling New Democrats. And the nascent People’s Party of Canada is falling flat.

But a lot could change during the campaign leading to the Oct. 21 vote.

The Montreal Gazette asked political scientist Daniel Béland, director of the McGill University Institute for the Study of Canada, about the unique challenges each leader faces in Quebec.

Justin Trudeau, Liberal

Justin Trudeau “has lost some of his aura as someone who wanted to change politics,” Béland said. “He’s a well-known quantity now as opposed to 2015 when he was still a fresh figure.”

Political baggage accumulated over four years, his reputation damaged by his disastrous trip to India; his ethics violations related to the Aga Khan, a billionaire philanthropist; and especially the SNC-Lavalin affair, Béland said. That scandal — Canada’s ethics watchdog ruled that Trudeau breached the federal conflict of interest law by improperly seeking to protect the engineering giant from prosecution — cost the prime minister dearly in some parts of Canada. But it did not sting him as much in Quebec, where voters generally saw his actions as improper but well-intentioned, Béland said.

In the 2015 election, Trudeau surpassed expectations in Quebec, winning 40  seats in the province. “This time around they might be able to actually increase that number if they can pick up the NDP seats that are very likely to fall,” Béland said. To make gains, Trudeau must “show that he cares about the environment because there is in Quebec, on the left at least, a negative reaction to the decision to buy (the) Trans Mountain (oil pipeline).” His green and progressive credentials are critical “because the Greens and the NDP could steal votes away from the Liberals, which in some ridings could help the Bloc.”

Trudeau will also have to tread carefully when it comes to Quebec Premier François Legault’s Coalition Avenir Québec government. “There are pressures from the left of the (Liberal) party and from some people outside of Quebec to criticize Bill 21,” the new provincial law that bans some government employees, including new teachers, from wearing religious symbols. The issue flared in the first week of the campaign. Trudeau reiterated his opposition to Bill 21 and did not close the door to a federal challenge to Bill 21. That irked Legault, who had urged federal politicians to butt out. On Friday, Legault said it will be up to Quebecers to decide who to trust on secularism — him or Trudeau. The CAQ’s decision to slash immigration has also sparked controversy. But, Béland noted, “if you want to go after francophone votes (in Quebec), you have to be very careful how you play your cards, especially when dealing with Legault’s government, which remains quite popular.”

Andrew Scheer, Conservative

Though the Conservatives are slightly ahead of the Liberals nationally, Andrew Scheer’s support is highly concentrated in western Canada, particularly Alberta and Saskatchewan where the party already enjoys overwhelming support and has little room to grow. That’s why, despite the overall lead, seat projections show that, at the moment, the Liberals are more likely to win more seats across Canada. Scheer is struggling in seat-rich Ontario, weighed down by unpopular Premier Doug Ford, a Progressive Conservative with close ties to the federal Conservatives.

In Quebec, Scheer has not made much progress, with Conservatives only strong in a few areas, including Quebec City. On hot-button issues such as abortion, LGBTQ rights and climate change, “there is a gap between Scheer’s image and preferences, and the way people in Quebec think,” Béland said. The fact that “he’s an anglophone from Saskatchewan is also a challenge. French is not his mother tongue and he’s not nearly as fluent as other leaders from outside of Quebec we have seen in the past.”

Quebecers took a conservative turn when they elected Legault’s CAQ provincially last fall. But that was based on nationalism and the desire to protect the French language by changing immigration policies, Béland said. The province’s shift to the right won’t necessarily benefit Scheer because the CAQ’s victory wasn’t about “protecting the energy sector and criticism of environmental policies.” Other prime ministers have managed to win over Quebec nationalists, Brian Mulroney most successfully. But “it’s hard for Scheer, a politician from Saskatchewan, to reach out to them. (He could attract votes) on immigration, the economy, deficits, but it’s a tough battle.” In one area where he could score points, immigration, “he has to be careful what he’s saying because it could hurt him elsewhere in the country.”

It’s unlikely Scheer can win over Montreal, a Liberal stronghold, but the Conservatives hope to make gains in some rural and suburban Quebec ridings, Béland said. History has shown that dramatic campaign swings are possible. In 2011, NDP leader Jack Layton managed to engineer an Orange Wave in part by shining as a guest on Tout le monde en parle, a popular Quebec talk show. “I’m not saying that there will be a Blue Wave in Quebec this time around,” Béland said, “but if Andrew Scheer for example appears on that show or does something else, he could maybe sway some Quebecers. For Scheer, the campaign could make a difference.”

Yves-François Blanchet, Bloc Québécois

Once so mighty it was the official opposition in the House of Commons, the Bloc Québécois has not had official party status since 2011. In October, it might get the 12 seats required to regain that status and the bigger budget and more speaking time in the House of Commons that comes with it.

The Bloc has wobbled in recent years. Martine Ouellet’s rocky tenure as leader led to an internal revolt; the sovereignist party almost collapsed. In January, a new leader took the helm: former Parti Québécois minister Yves-François Blanchet. Since Gilles Duceppe left in 2015, the Bloc has not had “a steady, strong leader. Blanchet is certainly a stronger leader and more effective than Ouellet. He’s an experienced politician. He doesn’t rock the boat (internally).”

Blanchet “has done a pretty decent job so far and the party is back on track. I’m not saying they will gain a lot of seats, but they might be able to save what they have and have a few extra, maybe more. The Bloc is not dead.” The polls show the party running neck and neck for second with the Conservatives. “That’s bad news for (Scheer), who hoped to steal Bloc votes in rural areas.”

The Bloc has its challenges. In places like Montreal, many progressive voters who once opted for the Bloc have drifted to other parties. Then there’s the sovereignty issue. “Quite a few nationalists are not too happy about the Bloc and the fact that they have been in Ottawa for a long time and it hasn’t really promoted sovereignty in any significant way,” Béland said. “Support for sovereignty is really low now. And I think that’s the biggest challenge: How do you run your sovereignist party when people don’t really want to talk about sovereignty?”

Jagmeet Singh, New Democratic Party

The NDP enjoyed unprecedented success in Quebec in the 2011 election thanks to charismatic leader Jack Layton.

And under his replacement, Thomas Mulcair, the party left the 2015 campaign starting blocks with a commanding lead in Quebec. But that lead evaporated. After electing 59 Quebec MPs in 2011, the party was reduced to just 16 four years later. In that vote, the NDP was outflanked on the left by the Liberals. Some cite Mulcair’s stand in favour of women wearing the niqab at citizenship ceremonies as a reason for the party’s decline in Quebec.

Now, as it heads into the 2019 campaign under new leader Jagmeet Singh, the party is floundering across Canada, particularly in Quebec, where polls suggest support is around 10 per cent, statistically tied with the Green Party. “There is a real threat that the NDP could be wiped off the map in Quebec or at least lose the vast majority of its seats,” Béland said.

Some have attributed Singh’s difficulties in Quebec to the fact that his religion is visible — a Sikh, he wears a turban — at a time when many in the province support a new provincial ban on some public servants wearing religious symbols. Singh has not helped the NDP cause by strongly criticizing Bill 21, Quebec’s secularism law. And his party is seen as even more pro-immigration than the Liberals, which could hurt in Quebec, Béland said.

But you can’t pin all the blame on Singh. The NDP’s decline in Quebec started in 2015. Now, with so few seats left in the province, the NDP is not seen as a major force, Béland said. And “here in Quebec and in other parts of the country, it’s really Scheer against Trudeau and the NDP is not perceived as a contender. The Liberals and the NDP are fighting for the same voters on the left and the centre left. That’s a big challenge for Singh in a race that looks more like a traditional race between the two dominant parties. 2015 was an exception where you had three parties in contention.”

Singh “needs to scream really loud to make sure the NDP is still heard and he has to focus on the Liberals,” particularly the party’s climate-change record, Béland said. So far, the NDP has been outmaneuvered by the Greens on that front.

Elizabeth May, Green Party

The Green Party generated barely a blip in Quebec in the 2015 federal election, winning just 2 per cent of the vote. But Quebecers no longer seem indifferent to the Greens.

It’s unclear whether the party can manage to win any seats in Quebec but polls indicate the party is tied for fourth place with the NDP at about 10 per cent.

“In Quebec, there are a lot of parties in contention because you have the Bloc so I think that (Elizabeth May) is probably very happy with the numbers she sees,” Béland said. “Even if she doesn’t win any seats in Quebec, it (would be) significant to be ahead of the NDP, the party that in 2011 won the most seats in the province. That would be quite a pretty strong performance.” Last month, May solidified her Quebec team by convincing Quebec MP Pierre Nantel — an NDP MP since 2011 — to run for the Greens. But Nantel’s arrival sparked controversy after he told an interviewer that he favours Quebec sovereignty. Questioned about that at her campaign launch, May insisted Nantel isn’t a separatist and said  the Greens would not “have a candidate who thinks they can work to break up our country.”

May faces the same hurdles in Quebec as she does in the rest of Canada. The Greens have no chance of taking power and it’s “kind of a one-trick pony that focuses on one issue,” Béland said. “I think they need to broaden their appeal and say the environment is part of a broader issues like the future of our economy, that it’s not just about the environment in the narrow sense. Otherwise, you only attract single-issue voters.”

Because Canada does not have any form of proportional representation, the Greens are unlikely to win many seats. The party elected one MP — May — in the last election and another in a by-election in May. Both seats are in British Columbia. “If she gets four or five seats, that will be a big change. And there is also the possibility of a minority government. Who will have the balance of power if there’s a minority government? So the Greens could become really highly relevant.”

Maxime Bernier, People’s Party of Canada

A former Conservative minister who narrowly lost that party’s leadership race in 2017, Maxime Bernier formed his own party last year.

The People’s Party of Canada says it wants to bolster the oil and gas industry, slash immigration and require every potential immigrant to Canada to “answer a series of specific questions to assess the extent to which they align with Canadian values and societal norms.” Bernier and his candidates have courted controversy. The leader was heavily criticized for suggesting 16-year-old Swedish climate activist Greta Thunberg was “clearly mentally unstable.” PPC candidates have made headlines for spreading conspiracy theories, calling for “more hate speech,” and suggesting the “climate agenda is as harmful to Western youth as the radical Islamic State is to their young people.”

The PPC is barely registering in the polls. “It’s very hard to create a party so close to an election,” Béland noted. “It takes years and years to build the logistics, the membership and all that. Other parties have been around much longer and have stronger co-ordination on the ground” to woo voters and get them to the polls. The People’s Party “is still a very young party and it’s perceived as marginal and often out of the mainstream.” The party may only end up winning one riding, Beauce, which Bernier has represented since 2006. But it’s still a threat to Scheer because the PPC could split the conservative vote in some ridings.

Bernier hopes to capitalize on concerns about Canadian immigration policies but he will have to tone down the rhetoric and convince Canadians he’s not racist, Béland said.

“If the majority of people believe that he’s really overtly racist, he will be repellent. So he needs to find a way to show that he’s not necessarily against immigration in general, but he wants to reduce it,” he added. “He has to find a way to look like someone who’s not totally toxic. He’s not entirely toxic but at the same time, he sends messages to people on the far right and he’s attracting support from people who are racist. Some of his statements have been shocking. He’s maybe trying to have some Trump effect, hoping wedge issues will help him. But so far, it hasn’t worked that well.”

ariga@postmedia.com

What happened in the 2015 election

IN QUEBEC

IN CANADA