Quebec's 43rd general election took place on October 3, 2022, after Premier François Legault visited Lieutenant-Governor Michel Doyon on August 28 to dissolve the National Assembly and launch a 36-day campaign. Legault's Coalition Avenir Québec was seeking a second consecutive majority, something no party outside the Liberals or Parti Québécois had achieved since the Union Nationale in 1956.

Voter turnout was 66.06%, a slight dip from the 66.45% recorded in 2018. A new force complicated the landscape: Éric Duhaime's Conservative Party of Quebec, which had surged from near-obscurity in the polls to become a significant factor in francophone ridings outside Montreal.

Results

The CAQ won a commanding 90 of 125 seats with 40.98% of the popular vote, gaining 16 seats from their 2018 result of 74. The Parti Libéral du Québec fell to 21 seats and just 14.37% of the vote, its worst showing in party history. Québec Solidaire gained one seat to reach 11, capturing 15.43% of the popular vote. The Parti Québécois was reduced to three seats despite winning 14.61% of the vote — slightly more than the Liberals — and lost official party status.

The result exposed dramatic distortions in the first-past-the-post system. The CAQ won 72% of seats with 41% of the vote. The PLQ formed the Official Opposition with 21 seats despite finishing fourth in popular vote, behind QS and the PQ, because its support was concentrated in anglophone and allophone ridings on the Island of Montreal. Duhaime's Conservatives won 12.91% of the popular vote but zero seats, their support spread too thinly to win any single riding.

Party Leaders

François Legault (CAQ) cruised to a second majority that cemented his party as Quebec's dominant political force. Born May 26, 1957, in Sainte-Anne-de-Bellevue, Legault earned a business administration degree and MBA from HEC Montréal before co-founding Air Transat in 1986 and building it into one of Canada's largest charter airlines. He entered politics through the Parti Québécois in 1998, serving as Minister of Education and later Minister of Health under premiers Bouchard and Landry. After leaving the PQ, he co-founded the Coalition Avenir Québec with businessman Charles Sirois in 2011, positioning it as a nationalist but non-sovereigntist alternative. His 2022 campaign centred on immigration reduction, defence of Bill 96 strengthening the French language, and a proposed highway tunnel between Quebec City and Lévis. Legault was easily re-elected in L'Assomption.

Dominique Anglade (PLQ) led the Liberals through their worst election in modern history. Born January 31, 1974, in Montreal to Haitian-born parents — her father a geography professor and co-founder of UQAM, her mother a NATO economist — Anglade studied industrial engineering at École Polytechnique and completed an MBA at HEC Montréal. She became the first woman to serve as CEO of Montréal International before entering politics in 2015. Under Philippe Couillard she served as Minister of Economy, Science and Innovation and Deputy Premier. On May 11, 2020, she became the first woman and first Black woman to lead a major Quebec provincial party. Despite winning her own riding of Saint-Henri—Sainte-Anne, Anglade resigned as Liberal leader on November 7, 2022.

Gabriel Nadeau-Dubois (QS) continued to build Québec Solidaire's profile as co-spokesperson alongside Manon Massé. Born May 31, 1990, in Montreal, Nadeau-Dubois rose to national prominence during the 2012 Quebec student strikes as co-spokesperson of CLASSE, the largest student coalition leading protests against a $1,625 tuition hike under Jean Charest. He later completed a master's degree in sociology at UQAM. After winning the Gouin by-election in May 2017, he became QS co-spokesperson and pushed the party toward a broader environmental and social justice platform. He was re-elected comfortably in Gouin.

Manon Massé (QS) served as QS's other co-spokesperson and participated in the leaders' debates. Born May 22, 1963, in Windsor in Quebec's Eastern Townships, Massé grew up in a working-class family and spent decades as a community organizer and social worker in Montreal's low-income neighbourhoods before co-founding Quebec's left-feminist movement. She won Sainte-Marie—Saint-Jacques in 2014 and was re-elected in 2022 with roughly 48% of the vote.

Paul St-Pierre Plamondon (PQ) fought to keep the Parti Québécois alive after becoming leader on October 9, 2020. Born February 17, 1977, in Trois-Rivières, he earned law degrees from McGill University and an MBA from Oxford, then practised at Stikeman Elliott before co-founding the civic engagement organization Génération d'idées. He won Camille-Laurin with roughly 42% of the vote, defeating the CAQ incumbent and restoring PQ presence on the Island of Montreal after being shut out entirely in 2018. The party's only other seats were Pascal Bérubé in Matane-Matapédia and Joël Arseneau in Îles-de-la-Madeleine, the latter winning by just 539 votes.

Campaign Issues

Immigration and language dominated the campaign. Legault demanded greater provincial control over immigration selection, proposing to cap permanent immigration at 50,000 per year while prioritizing French-speaking newcomers. Bill 96, the CAQ's signature language legislation strengthening French in workplaces, education, and government services, drew broad francophone support but near-universal anglophone opposition. Bill 21, banning religious symbols for public employees in positions of authority, remained a polarizing backdrop; the Liberals were the only major party opposed to both bills.

Health care was the public's top concern. Roughly 60,000 health-care workers were absent or missing from Quebec's system by June 2022, and six emergency departments were partially closed. The pandemic had exposed devastating failures in the province's long-term care homes. The CAQ pledged $400 million to train 5,000 new health workers.

The proposed third link — a highway tunnel between Quebec City and Lévis — was a major issue in the Capitale-Nationale region. The CAQ championed it during the campaign but reversed course in April 2023, announcing the link would be public-transit-only.

Notable Outcomes

The CAQ's 90-seat supermajority was the largest in decades, yet it masked a fragmented opposition that split the non-CAQ vote four ways. The most striking distortion was the PQ winning more total votes than the Liberals — roughly 601,000 to 591,000 — yet holding 18 fewer seats, a consequence of geographically dispersed PQ support versus the PLQ's concentrated Montreal base.

Québec Solidaire gained a net of one seat, adding Verdun and Maurice-Richard but losing Rouyn-Noranda—Témiscamingue. All 11 QS seats remained in Montreal, Quebec City, and Sherbrooke, with no suburban or rural breakthrough.

Éric Duhaime's Conservative Party of Quebec captured nearly 13% of the popular vote but won zero seats. Duhaime himself lost in Chauveau to the CAQ incumbent by over 6,000 votes. The result demonstrated the severe penalty first-past-the-post imposes on parties with broad but shallow support.