Photo: Jacques Boissinot The Canadian Press “The revival of our party continues,” assured Rafael P. Ferraro, president of the PLQ, in a press release.
The Liberal Party of Quebec (PLQ) will elect its new leader on June 14, 2025, at the end of a congress which will take place in Quebec.
The PLQ unveiled the terms of its leadership race on Friday. The starting gun will be given on January 13, 2025 and aspiring chefs will have three months — until April 11 — to submit their applications. Between April and early June, the party will organize four debates. This will be followed by the vote of the members, which will begin on June 9 and end at the convention being held on June 14 in Quebec.
The cost of entry to the race: $40,000. Candidates will also have to “collect the signatures of 750 members in good standing from at least 70 constituencies and 12 regions, of which at least 350 must be new members,” the party recalled on Friday. The election spending limit was set at $400,000 for candidates.
The PLQ uses a system of “constituency-weighted votes” to ensure regional representativeness and to give importance to the vote of younger members. The districts together are worth 250,000 points. Each constituency is therefore granted 2000 points, and these are distributed among the candidates according to the percentage of votes recorded by members aged 26 and over in that constituency. In addition, 125,000 points are reserved for voting for those aged 25 and under. These points are allocated to candidates according to the percentage of votes they received in this age group, regardless of the constituency of the members who voted.
Through a press release, the president of the PLQ, Rafael P. Ferraro, said he was “confident that the rules of the leadership race […] will ensure this important democratic exercise regional and generational representativeness, which has always been a distinctive strength of the Liberal Party of Quebec”. “The revival of our party continues and, under the leadership of our next leader, we will form by the 2026 general election the best alternative to replace the current government,” he said. underlined.
The rules of the leadership race were determined by the Executive Council of the PLQ in October 2023. They were then presented to the activists, during a general council which exposed dissensions within the troops. Several Liberals wanted the race to take place as early as 2024. In public and behind the scenes, activists wanted it to be called sooner rather than later to help restore the financial situation of the PLQ and attract membership to the party, which is in difficulty in the polls.
So far, MP Frédéric Beauchemin has expressed his interest in the race, as has former Montreal mayor Denis Coderre.