Minister of Transport Pablo Rodriguez speaks to reporters ahead of a cabinet meeting on Parliament Hill in Ottawa, on June 11.Spencer Colby/The Canadian Press

How bad are federal Liberals feeling about their party’s prospects in the next election?

Bad enough that Transport Minister Pablo Rodriguez is considering making the leap to provincial politics, to run for the leadership of the moribund Quebec Liberal Party.

The QLP finished in fourth place in the 2022 election with 14.4 per cent of the popular vote, and its support in the polls has been mired around that level ever since. The party of former premiers Jean Charest, Robert Bourassa and Jean Lesage – all political giants in their heyday – has the support of just 6 per cent of francophone Quebeckers, according to a Léger poll released in June.

In other words, the QLP barely has a pulse outside of anglophone and ethnic Quebec.

The party has been without a full-time leader since Dominique Anglade stepped down after the 2022 vote. It still formed the official opposition then, winning 21 of the National Assembly’s 125 seats, thanks to the concentration of its support in anglophone and allophone ridings in and around Montreal.

The Coalition Avenir Québec won 90........

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