True Patriot Love - [Best of TPL] Quebec Election, Potential for Separation and more with Maxime Bernier

00:00:00.000 So times are changing in Quebec and I'm lucky enough today to have Max Bernier with me and

00:00:11.260 from the People's Party of Canada. And Max, thanks for joining us. You know, a lot going on. I know

00:00:18.060 October 5th was a busy day at your home. So give me a feel. So the CAQ basically got wiped out in

00:00:28.220 election on the province side um pq came in didn't get majority but got uh 59 seats so um and now has

00:00:37.980 to work with the other parties to to move forward in the province your thoughts because you know

00:00:43.500 this has a lot of um ramifications on a number of fronts but you know you had francis legault's

00:00:49.660 nationalist point of view and now you have more of a con may i say and it disagreed with me if

00:00:56.140 you don't believe a more conservative movement in quebec yes you're right i must say that the last

00:01:05.180 provincial election in quebec for me uh what happened was the big a big success and i i'm

00:01:13.420 very pleased with the result why first because the coalition of near quebec the quack were not able

00:01:21.980 to have one seat so that was historical that never happened in quebec when a party the election

00:01:30.540 before was able to win with 90 seats and after that election four years later they were not able

00:01:38.060 to have any any seat and yeah that was the failure of lacac mostly economically because they were

00:01:45.580 supposed to be a right-wing party, you know, less government, more freedom, lower taxes,

00:01:52.140 but they did the opposite. They gave a lot of subsidies to big businesses that didn't go well,

00:01:59.820 and these businesses, a lot of them went bankrupt. They didn't do any big reform

00:02:09.100 in health care and education. So I believe that people wanted a real change. So that's the good

00:02:16.220 news. Second, the fact that the PQ was not able to have a majority, for me that was a good news

00:02:24.240 also. I understand that the leader of the PQ, the young leader, charismatic Paul St-Pierre Plamondon

00:02:31.580 did a very good campaign, and also he was honest with Quebecers. He was speaking about the

00:02:39.260 independence. When he started to be the leader of the PQ, that was his first commitment. With me,

00:02:48.960 you will have a referendum on independence. I believe in an independent Quebec, and he did

00:02:55.500 the same during the campaign and also after the campaign. He just at his press conference the day

00:03:03.080 after the election, he said that, yes, the goal is to have a referendum on secession in the first

00:03:10.000 term, maybe at the end of his term. So we'll have that. But he was courageous to speak about that

00:03:19.120 because the option, the independence in Quebec, is not so popular, only about 30% in the polls.

00:03:31.120 But he was able to win by being honest with Quebecers. What I like from that election,

00:03:37.200 like you said in your question, the Parti Conservateur du Quebec, conservative party at

00:03:43.680 the financial level was able for the first time in many years to go from zero C to 18, if my memory

00:03:51.760 is good. And so that's good because they have the balance of power and I believe that they will push

00:04:00.640 the PQ more to the right. And so that's good news. During the campaign, the leader of the

00:04:07.040 Conservative Party said that he wants a smarter government, a big reform in healthcare, more

00:04:16.080 freedom of choice, more private sector, and no more big subsidies to businesses. So I believe

00:04:25.600 that the PQ will try to please the Conservative Party to be able to win votes in the Quebec

00:04:36.240 Assembly. But also, what is a little bit disappointing is the radical leftist party,

00:04:43.840 Quebec Solidaire, they were able to have nine seats. They're socialists, if not communists.

00:04:52.000 They were able to have seats in Montreal and also they are independentists. So, for Paul St-Pierre

00:05:01.600 Plamondon, you know, if he wants to go ahead with a referendum in a couple of years, he may be able

00:05:10.080 to have the support of the radical left because they were also very honest with Quebecers during

00:05:19.840 the campaign that they were independentists. So that would be interesting, but I believe that

00:05:26.240 there are so many reforms that we must do in Quebec at the provincial level before having

00:05:36.240 a referendum on secession. A very quick favor before we continue. A large percentage of you

00:05:42.880 who watch or listen to TPL Media every week aren't subscribed yet. Our simple commitment to you is

00:05:49.040 that if you find value there, if these discussions make you think, if you want our uncensored debates

00:05:56.080 deeper dives and extended sit downs head over to tplmedia.ca and subscribe there directly it takes

00:06:03.280 just five seconds costs nothing keeps you informed so thank you now back to the show yeah i yeah i

00:06:10.800 agree with you max you know i did like i did like the leaders the pq leaders um statements at the

00:06:16.320 beginning on homelessness i i was i think i mentioned to you before the show um we did a

00:06:21.680 cross-country tour uh three times this summer and we went through uh quebec uh three times and

00:06:30.880 the homelessness i didn't notice actually uh the challenges like everywhere else aside from

00:06:37.200 atlantic canada and the west coast and you know central canada you see on homelessness

00:06:42.240 so i did like the fact that right away he jumped on homelessness um the salary freezes on mmas i

00:06:48.800 I thought was a great idea, you know, and, and setting up a USA trade team,

00:06:55.380 I also think is a good idea. So, so yeah, I know I'm,

00:06:59.500 I'm very encouraged by some of the things he's saying, you know,

00:07:02.000 the comment about waiting till Donald Trump is out of office to then talk about,

00:07:06.880 you know, the referendum also I thought was a smart play during the election.

00:07:13.420 So, you know, people knew he was going to do it, but quite frankly,

00:07:16.620 he looked measured in how he was going to roll it out.

00:07:21.600 No, you're right about that.

00:07:22.920 And also, I may add, on the referendum,

00:07:28.680 yes, he said that he will wait until Trump is not in the office anymore.

00:07:33.240 So that means maybe the third year of his mandate.

00:07:37.820 But also, Paul St-Pierre Plamondon is a little bit more to the right

00:07:44.700 because historically the PQ was more a leftist party but with Paul St-Pierre Plamondon he's more

00:07:53.440 in central right so as a political party so for me I'm very happy with that and actually speaking

00:08:01.840 about referendum my understanding is he will try to have a referendum at the end of his mandate

00:08:10.760 if in the polls the support for cessation is more than 40%.

00:08:18.120 So I believe that if it's not there, he won't go ahead with that.

00:08:22.860 So right now it's around 30%.

00:08:24.980 So I believe that the goal of the government would be to show to Quebecers

00:08:29.620 that they can be a good government,

00:08:31.660 that they can solve the real problems that we have at the provincial level

00:08:35.940 and more importantly in health care.

00:08:38.800 and showing that to Quebecers and try also to have a couple of fights with the federal government.

00:08:47.860 And his goal will be to show that the federal government is not working for the best interests of Quebecers.

00:08:55.460 I believe that will be in his action plan also. We'll see.

00:09:00.460 But it's a good change.

00:09:02.520 Personally, I think it would be very difficult for him

00:09:06.080 to have a referendum on cessation at the end of his mandate

00:09:08.880 because maybe he won't have 40% support in the population at that time.

00:09:14.400 But anyway, we'll see.

00:09:16.740 Yeah, and it all depends on the trade talks and everything going on.

00:09:20.760 Hey, Max, you were talking about the fact that you were recently,

00:09:23.540 I think, out west and talking about referendums.

00:09:27.860 Talk to me a little bit about your views on this

00:09:29.980 because you know uh what are you seeing you know you're not only seeing at home in quebec but

00:09:36.460 when you're traveling and and what are people talking about when you're visiting with them

00:09:40.860 out west yeah you may know that the people's party we have a lot of support in alberta

00:09:47.820 in the polls over there we are between eight and ten percent so that's good because all across the

00:09:53.660 the country, we are about two, three percent of support. So we have a lot of support over there.

00:10:00.940 And I was the only and I'm still the only leader of a national party that is telling Albertans

00:10:08.140 to vote for the option two, because in that referendum, they will have 10 questions.

00:10:14.540 But the most important one is the last one, the last question. And the last question is not,

00:10:19.820 you know, do you want Alberta to be a separate country, yes or no? The question is, do you want

00:10:26.300 Alberta to stay, to remain a province of Canada, or to start the process to have a binding referendum

00:10:37.180 on secession later? And our position, contrary to the Conservative Party of Canada, to the Liberals,

00:10:44.160 the NDP, it's to tell them, you know, you have nothing to risk if you vote for the second option.

00:10:52.700 A very quick favor before we continue. A large percentage of you who watch or listen to TPL

00:10:59.080 media every week aren't subscribed yet. Our simple commitment to you is that if you find value there,

00:11:05.900 if these discussions make you think, if you want our uncensored debates, deeper dives,

00:11:11.900 and extended sit-downs head over to tplmedia.ca and subscribe there directly it takes just five

00:11:19.340 seconds costs nothing keeps you informed so thank you now back to the show

True Patriot Love - October 19, 2026

[Best of TPL] Quebec Election, Potential for Separation and more with Maxime Bernier

Episode Stats

Transcript