Paul St-Pierre Plamondon told supporters in Montreal on the night of October 5 that he still dreams of seeing Quebec become a country, according to Radio-Canada. It was a victory speech with an asterisk. His Parti Québécois had just taken 59 of the National Assembly's 127 seats, five short of a majority, on roughly 28 percent of the vote. For the first time in Quebec history, CBC reported, a party will form a government with less than 30 percent of the popular vote.

A landslide built on a split vote

The election was less a surge for independence than a collapse of the incumbent. The Coalition Avenir Québec entered the campaign with 79 seats, The Associated Press reported, and left it with none. Premier Christine Fréchette, who had taken over from François Legault, lost her own seat in Trois-Rivières. Four years earlier, the CAQ had won 41 percent of the vote and 71 percent of the seats, CBC noted. This time it took about 13 percent and nothing.

Five parties finished above 10 percent. The PQ had about 28, the Liberals about 24, the Conservatives about 21, the CAQ about 13 and Québec solidaire about 12, according to BNN Bloomberg's count. A four-point lead over the Liberals translated into 19 more seats, 59 against 40. First-past-the-post rewards the party that is narrowly first in many ridings, and when the old front-runner vanishes, the winner can look much larger than it is.

McGill University political scientist Daniel Béland told The Associated Press that the vote was about getting rid of the CAQ rather than about independence, which he called unpopular right now. Polls cited by CBC in 2024 had support for independence at only about a third of respondents. A party can win without its central cause winning.

Who holds the balance

The new Assembly is crowded. The Liberals, led by Charles Milliard, more than doubled their seats from 19 to 40 and remain the official opposition, Radio-Canada reported. Éric Duhaime's Conservatives went from zero to 19 and gained official party status. Québec solidaire won nine seats, down from 11.

Milliard warned St-Pierre Plamondon that the PQ would need support beyond its own ranks and said he was open to cooperating on measures that improve Quebecers' lives, per the National Observer. That is an offer to govern ordinary business, not to help with a referendum.

For the referendum itself, the numbers narrow. Radio-Canada reported that the PQ would need Québec solidaire, the only other sovereigntist party in the Assembly. The PQ's 59 plus QS's nine make 68, above the 64 needed. A nine-seat party on the left therefore holds the key to the PQ's defining project. The same pattern, a small party's handful of seats deciding a bigger question, is playing out elsewhere: in Saxony-Anhalt, five BSW seats helped put the AfD's Tobias Rausch in the Landtag president's chair, and in Israel, polls show neither bloc reaching 61 seats without the Arab parties.

The clock is the real opponent

St-Pierre Plamondon has promised a third referendum, saying in 2024 that it would come before 2030, CBC reported at the time. Reports on the campaign, including CBC's post-election takeaways, link the timing to the situation in the United States and to President Donald Trump leaving office, which would be January 2029. The exact condition remains loosely defined in the coverage.

Minority governments in Quebec typically last less than two years, CBC noted. If that pattern holds, the PQ could face another election before the date it has circled. The government has a mandate to govern but not a long runway to prepare a referendum, and its opponents have every incentive to make the runway shorter.

Béland said the minority result is probably welcome in Ottawa for exactly that reason, because it makes preparing and eventually calling a vote harder. Prime Minister Mark Carney congratulated St-Pierre Plamondon and discussed infrastructure funding and support for workers hit by US tariffs, according to a summary of their call. He told reporters Quebec should focus on its immediate economic challenges rather than a referendum years away.

The reform that could outlast the referendum

Here is the quirk that may matter more over time. The PQ, the Conservatives and Québec solidaire all promised during the campaign to overhaul Quebec's voting system, Radio-Canada reported. Together they hold 87 of the 127 seats, well above the 64 needed. A result produced by a system that gave one party 59 seats on 28 percent, and the CAQ zero on 13, has handed the case for change to the parties that benefit from it least or not at all.

They may not agree on a model, and a party that just won under the current rules has less reason to hurry. But the three have gone on record, and the election result is their best argument.

What to watch

Three tests come early. The first is the throne speech and the first confidence votes, which will show whether the Liberals and Conservatives treat the PQ as a government to be managed or a government to be toppled. The second is whether the PQ pursues a referendum timetable with Québec solidaire, or leaves it in the platform and governs on health and the economy. The third is whether the electoral reform pledge becomes a bill.

The PQ won an election on discontent and an old dream. Governing as a minority will test whether it can keep both without losing the first.

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