Misconduct allegations involved literal envelopes full of cash

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As Quebec lurches ever closer towards a third separation referendum, an old-fashioned Liberal vote-buying scandal might have just removed the last barrier to its occurrence.

Pablo Rodriguez resigned as Quebec Liberal leader this week amid two major corruption allegations against his party, one of them involving cash-filled envelopes.  

Rodriguez maintains he had nothing to do with either of them, saying, “I regret absolutely nothing.”

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But the immolation of the Quebec Liberals only solidifies the likelihood that the Parti Québécois will sweep the province’s 2026 election. Once in power, PQ leader Paul St-Pierre Plamondon has promised he will be pulling out all the stops to hold a third referendum on secession from Canada.

Quebec’s incumbent government, led by the Coalition Avenir Québec (CAQ) under François Legault, is currently plumbing new depths of unpopularity. As such, the deeply federalist Quebec Liberals were widely seen as the only realistic force to thwart the PQ’s ascension.  

But under the tenure of Rodriguez, the party’s popularity has cratered and given the PQ an overwhelming polling lead.

As per a Dec. 17 poll published by the Angus Reid Institute, the PQ is polling at 40 per cent to the Liberals’ 18 per cent.

It’s a far cry from the vote shares the PQ could command in the 1980s heyday of Quebec nationalism, but it would still be more than enough for the PQ to secure their most commanding majority in a generation.  

In recent weeks, the party has even been rolling out serialized chapters of its “livre bleu,” its definitive blueprint for what an independent Quebec would look like. Its most recent chapter detailed which countries would receive Quebec ambassadors and which international sporting events would be contested by Équipe........

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