The 2022 Quebec general election was held on October 3, 2022, to elect the members of the National Assembly of Quebec. Under the province's fixed election date law, passed in 2013, "the general election following the end of a Legislature shall be held on the first Monday of October of the fourth calendar year following the year that includes the last day of the previous Legislature", setting the date for October 3, 2022.
Premier François Legault's Coalition Avenir Québec (CAQ) won a second term with an increased majority, the first time in 66 years that a party other than the Liberals and Parti Québecois (PQ) had been reelected. The Liberals dropped to their lowest raw seat count since 1956, their lowest percentage of seats won since 1948 and their lowest share of the popular vote in their history. The PQ had its worst general election result in history, losing most of its seats, but nevertheless managed to elect its previously seatless leader Paul St-Pierre Plamondon.
Previous promised plans for electoral reform were scrapped in 2021; as such, the election produced a highly distorted result which is common in Quebec's first past the post voting system. As Liberal votes were concentrated on the Island of Montreal, the party received more seats than the rest of the opposition parties combined, remaining the official opposition despite finishing fourth in the popular vote. In contrast, the Conservatives increased their share of the vote to 13%; however, as their support was more spread throughout Quebec, they did not win any seats. Quebecers elected the highest number of female candidates to the National Assembly in the province's history at 59, roughly 47% of the total number of seats.
The 2018 general election resulted in a landslide victory for the Coalition Avenir Québec (CAQ) led by François Legault, which won 74 of 125 seats, giving the party a majority and unseating Philippe Couillard's Liberal Party after a single term in office. Couillard subsequently resigned as Liberal leader and was replaced on an interim basis by Pierre Arcand until his successor was chosen.
Both the Parti Québécois and Québec solidaire won ten seats each, fewer than the twelve needed for official party status; Parti Québécois leader Jean-François Lisée, defeated in his bid for re-election, resigned as party leader, replaced on an interim basis by Pascal Bérubé until his permanent successor was chosen. Adrien D. Pouliot, leader of the Conservative Party of Quebec, announced that he was stepping down as leader on October 16, 2020.
Following Couillard's resignation, the Quebec Liberal Party held a leadership race. Dominique Anglade, former Deputy Premier of Quebec, was acclaimed leader of the party after her only rival, former mayor of Drummondville, Alexandre Cusson, stepped down. Following a leadership race, Paul St-Pierre Plamondon was elected leader of the sovereignist party by the members and supporters of the Parti Québécois. Following Pouliot's resignation, the Conservative Party of Quebec held a leadership race. ÃÂric Duhaime, a radio host and former political advisor, was elected as leader with just under 96% of the vote.
In its 2022 amendments to the Charter of the French Language, the National Assembly of Quebec also provided for renaming the electoral district of Bourget as Camille-Laurin, in honour of the Cabinet minister who promoted the original law.
The table below lists parties represented and seats held in the National Assembly after the 2018 provincial election and at dissolution.
During the campaign, the issue of online political disinformation misleading voters has been raised by outlets including the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC). In September 2022, the CBC reported that opponents of COVID-19 pandemic restrictions used Facebook to spread a false rumor that Legault was booed out of a restaurant. According to CBC, "The post is one of many on social media that are misleading or outright false, with real-world consequences to both those who read it and to those involved in the event".
According to the Centre for Media, Technology and Democracy (MTD) at McGill University, false allegations that polling outlets are unfairly biased against certain parties have spread on social media. Some online supporters of the Conservative Party of Quebec alleged collusion between the governing Coalition Avenir Québec (CAQ) and polling firm Léger. In response, a citizens' initiative emerged on Facebook urging individuals to file complaints over Léger, despite the fact that ÃÂlections Québec has no power to regulate the polling industry.
The candidates standing for election generally had the following characteristics:
This chart depicts opinion polls conducted since the 2018 election, using a local regression. The table below provides a list of scientific, public opinion polls that were conducted from the 2018 Quebec general election leading up to the 2022 Quebec general election, which was held on October 3, 2022.
François Legault was elected on a promise to reform the electoral system within a year of his victory. On September 25, 2019, Minister of Justice Sonia LeBel presented Bill 39, An Act to establish a new electoral system which aims to replace the first-past-the-post electoral system in favour of a mixed-member proportional representation system. According to the bill, the National Assembly would have kept 125 members. Of the 125 members, 80 would have been elected by receiving a plurality of votes in single-member districts, similar to the existing system, matching the 78 federal ridings with the addition of 2 unique districts: ÃÂles-de-la-Madeleine and Ungava. The remaining 45 members would have been chosen according to their order in a regional party list. All 17 regions of Québec would have been guaranteed at least one MNA.
The proposed system was as such:
Bill 39 was intended to be debated in the legislature before June 2021. The bill's implementation would have been contingent on popular support expressed in a referendum held on the same day as the general election. Had this referendum been successful, then the first legislature to be elected under mixed-member proportional would have been the 44th, in October 2026 at the latest. On April 28, 2021, Justice Minister LeBel informed a legislative committee hearing that the government would not move forward with a referendum on electoral reform in 2022. LeBel blamed the COVID-19 pandemic for altering the government's timeline and could not or would not commit to providing an alternate date for the referendum, effectively ending discussions about electoral reform in Quebec.
All parties experienced uneven results across the province:
In Beauce-Nord, the Conservatives sought a judicial recount as they had come within 202 votes of defeating the CAQ incumbent Luc Provençal. The application was dismissed by the Court of Quebec.
The robustness of the margins of victory for each party can be summarized in electoral pendulums. These are not necessarily a measure of the volatility of the respective riding results. The following tables show the margins over the various 2nd-place contenders, for which one-half of the value represents the swing needed to overturn the result. Actual seat turnovers in the 2022 election are noted for reference.
The following seats changed allegiance from the 2018 election:
PQ to CAQ
Liberal to CAQ
CAQ to PQ
Liberal to QS
QS to CAQ
* - byelection gains held
Those candidates not belonging to a major party, receiving more than 1,000 votes in the election, are listed below: