With Quebec Liberals on the ropes, liberalism in the province is at a crossroads

In the last provincial election, Quebec's Liberal Party suffered its worst defeat in its 151-year history. Even the most optimistic projections suggest the party will fare even worse when the votes are tallied on Monday.

Recent polls place Liberal support between 15 and 20 per cent, battling three other parties for second place. Before 2018, the Liberals had never received less than 30 per cent of the vote.

The party still stands a decent chance of holding onto Official Opposition status, thanks to remaining strongholds on the island of Montreal. 

But with little prospect of making inroads in majority francophone ridings, this would be cold comfort for a party that has dominated modern Quebec political history. 

While it is possible to rattle off a long list of factors that contributed to its decline — lingering memories of corruption, unpopularity of austerity governments, a political spectrum crowded by newcomers — it is perhaps simpler to say the Quebec Liberals haven't been able to keep pace with the conservative nationalism of the Coalition Avenir Québec (CAQ).

Since Confederation, the Liberals had been the main champion of liberal values in Quebec, channeling beliefs about the importance of private property and individual rights into government policies.

Liberal governments were behind the push for a more secular education system at the dawn of the 20th century, gave women the right to vote during the Second World War and brought in a provincial charter of human rights in 1975.

A diminished party means liberal values face an uncertain future in the province. 

Not only does the CAQ look set to consolidate its hold on government, Liberals (and liberals) must contend with an ideologically diverse opposition that is trying to sweep them into the dustbin of history.

After Confederation, there were effectively two parties in the province, the Liberals and the Conservatives. 

The Liberals represented a more moderate version of the radical anticlerical rouge party of the pre-Confederation years. It was the Conservatives, though, inheritors of the pro-Catholic Church bleu tradition, who held the upper hand for most of the late 19th century.

Buoyed by the popularity of Wilfrid Laurier, the French-Canadian Liberal prime minister, the Quebec Liberals won the 1897 election and began a nearly four decade-long hold on power.

Historians often attribute this success to the party's embrace of economic development and material progress. 

Whereas the Conservatives advocated for agricultural traditions, the Liberals encouraged industrialization by providing incentives to foreign companies to set up factories in the province.