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  • 13 hours ago
Trump's threats to make Canada the 51st state and the whiplash from his tariff policy have spurred an outpouring of Canadian patriotism in Quebec, a province that regularly threatens to break away and has had two previous referendums on the issue. Canadian senior political correspondent Maria Cheng explains why support for an independent Quebec is at its lowest level in decades ahead of an October 5 provincial election. - REUTERS

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00:00Trump is having a huge impact on the Quebec election.
00:02Since he leveled the tariffs against Canada last year, Quebec suffered a lot of economic damage.
00:09They have big industries like aluminum, steel there that are significantly affected by this.
00:17We visited a steel plant close to Montreal, where before the tariffs, they'd been exporting 90% of their products
00:24to the U.S.
00:25And it's not only the tariffs, it's the uncertainty that comes with it.
00:28So I think orders went down around 25 to 30% in less than a week.
00:34Quebec has had a very long established separatist movement.
00:38They are a very different province from the rest of Canada, largely to the fact that it's the only French
00:45majority language province.
00:46And it's got a very specific culture.
00:49And what we've seen since Trump entered the White House for the second time is that support for separatism has
00:54gone down to its lowest levels in decades.
00:57And we saw the Parti Québécois, which is a separatist party that has promised to hold another referendum if it
01:02wins a majority.
01:03They've explicitly said, if we win this upcoming election in October, we promise not to have a referendum until Trump
01:11has left the White House.
01:12Because his impact on Quebec and Canada, they think, is so disruptive that it would not be responsible to do
01:17that.
01:19So we spoke with Jonathan Kalis, who is the former Quebec advisor to ex-Prime Minister Justin Trudeau.
01:26Trump represents everything that Quebec has fought against for the last 60 years in terms of creating a modern progressive
01:35society where women's rights, minority rights, LGBTQ plus rights, women's right to choose.
01:45Those things are paramount in Quebec.
01:47If you oppose those, it's a non-starter.
01:50At the moment, the polls show that the Parti Québécois has a very slim lead.
01:55And we've seen that the ruling party, the Coalition Avenir Québec, has been in power for about eight years.
02:04The analysts we spoke to suggested that if the Parti Québécois does win, it is likely more a vote of
02:11dissatisfaction with the ruling party than an endorsement of their independence platform.
02:17And it's not that they're going to do its longtime party to the Venezuelận party.
02:17So now we have a Republican party and we have a Republican party.
02:17And I'm just directement from the Decام to the Consumer Party Party.
02:17I'm just going toarf on the Republican party.
02:17I want to call the Republican party.
02:17The last one of the Democratic party have a Republican party's left that place to the right to do this.
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