CAQ looks to flip script on Quebec Liberals, boot them out of Laval

As François Legault made his way around the room at a pizza restaurant in Laval, smiling and shaking hands, he stopped and delivered a message to four men eating lunch at a table.

"It's about time for a change in Laval," said the leader of the Coalition Avenir Québec during the campaign event in the city's Mille-Îles riding on Monday. "We have to change the colours."

On its way to what it hopes will be a resounding majority victory for a second mandate, the CAQ is looking to flip the province's third largest city from Liberal red to CAQ blue.

In 2018, the Quebec Liberal Party (PLQ)  won five out of six seats in Laval, with only one seat going to the CAQ.

This year, however, nearly all of the candidates who won under the Liberal banner four years ago are gone. That includes Francine Charbonneau, who has represented the Mille-Îles riding since 2008. 

The CAQ hopes Julie Séide, a longtime party member, can break through in that riding.

"This year, I am convinced that it's the right one. It's the right year for Julie, and she's coming to Quebec City," Legault told the small crowd at the restaurant while standing next to Séide, who finished a distant second to a Liberal in the Bourassa-Sauvé riding in the northern part of Montreal in 2018.

In addition to Charbonneau, outgoing Liberal MNAs Jean Rousselle and Monique Sauvé have also quit politics. The same goes for Guy Ouellette, who represented the Chomedey riding and was booted out of caucus shortly after the 2018 election.

In most of the five Laval ridings the Liberals won in the last election, the CAQ finished second — and not by much.

"Those ridings in 2018 were won by very close margins," said Philippe J. Fournier, a pundit and poll analyst behind the 338Canada poll aggregator.

"If you apply the current polling, especially among francophones, unless there's a micro-local target thing that we missed in the polling, the Liberals will be swept out of Laval except Chomedey."

Saul Polo, who was twice elected in the Laval-des-Rapides riding, isn't fazed by what the pundits say. 

"In the past two general elections, all the odds were always against myself and this time it's no different," Polo said during a campaign event in Laval last Sunday.

 "We feel comfortable in this situation."