OTTAWA — Bloc Québécois Leader Yves-François Blanchet took the rare step of denying the Conservatives are surging in Quebec, despite recent polling to the contrary, saying Pierre Poilievre’s party “is not in my flowerbed and my flowers are doing very well.”
“If a poll were to decide an election, we would form the government because we have been so dominant over the last six months,” Blanchet said at a press conference in the foyer of the House of Commons, adding that people give “too much importance” to polls.
Yet pollsters say otherwise. Abacus Data recently published a survey showing that the Conservatives and the Bloc are statistically tied. The Tories were at 31 per cent and the Bloc at 30.
Several journalists in Quebec have written about it and Yves-François Blanchet felt it was necessary to address the issue in a post on LinkedIn, where he acknowledged the fact that some political pundits predict a tight race in Quebec.
“I invite you, however, to look at the last 18 polls, all more or less credible, accurate or relevant, and to ask yourself why the last one excites some columnists,” he wrote about the Abacus Data poll.
In an interview with the National Post, Abacus Data CEO David Coletto admitted that his Quebec poll results are debatable. After all, it’s the first time in years the two parties have been tied.
But he adds that the latest polls show a growing appetite for the Conservatives in Quebec, and that with each passing day, they become a bigger threat to the Bloc and the Liberals. Coletto says 38 per cent of Quebecers could see themselves voting for the Conservatives.
“We have to conclude that the Conservatives are making gains in Quebec, and the Bloc knows it,” Coletto said, noting the criticism he has faced for sometimes being too generous to the Bloc.
But, in his LinkedIn post, Blanchet argued that most polls over the last six months have given the Bloc the edge. He then published all the polls used by the aggregator 338Canada to claim that the Conservatives aren’t so strong in Quebec.
“In all the others… the Conservatives are third, often far behind even the Liberals in Quebec. It’s embarrassing…” he wrote. 338Canada puts the Bloc first at 33 per cent and the Conservatives third at 24 with the Liberals second at 26 per cent.
At a press conference, he admitted to posting his message because “three columns” in Quebec highlighted the Conservatives’ success in the Abacus Data poll.
“It bothers me that people are not fed information but suspense, especially when the suspense is not based on facts,” he said.
Philippe J. Fournier, the man behind 338Canada, recently told the National Post that the Bloc’s performance is far from dominant, compared to past elections.
“I don’t want to judge his comments, but maybe they’re afraid of the Conservatives and rightly so. They have a ton of money, and they spend time and resources in the province,” Coletto said.
Quebec Conservatives declined to comment for this article but have recently suggested that the Bloc is not used to being directly challenged on its own turf.
The fact that Blanchet is spending time publicly analyzing polls surprises many pundits in Quebec. Rodolphe Husny is one of them. The former adviser to Stephen Harper’s government says it would be “wiser” for Blanchet to “take these polls with a grain of salt” and spend more time “pushing for Quebec.”
“You know, rule number one is that you don’t comment on polls. That’s what politicians usually say, and their second sentence is always ‘the poll that matters is the one on election day.’ So, I think it would be wiser for him to stick to that message,” Husny said.
National Post
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