Another CAQ Minister Heads for the Exit as Party Falls to 21% in New Poll

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A governing party can survive a bad week. It becomes harder when the setbacks begin arriving one after another. Quebec Labour and Canadian Relations Minister Jean Boulet has announced that he will leave politics at the end of his term, only a day after another CAQ minister confirmed he would not run again.

The timing is especially difficult for Premier Christine Fréchette. Support for the Coalition Avenir Québec now stands at 21%, behind the Parti Québécois at 30% and the Quebec Liberals at 27%. Boulet insists his decision is personal and unrelated to the party’s standing. Even so, the departure of a veteran minister who had recently planned to seek re-election adds to a growing question hanging over the CAQ: can a new leader rebuild a governing team while simultaneously persuading Quebecers to give it a third mandate?

Boulet’s Exit Lands at the Worst Possible Moment

Jean Boulet delivered the news in Trois-Rivières with visible emotion. Elected in 2018 and immediately brought into cabinet, he said that eight years as a minister had led him to conclude that the coming election would be his last chapter in public life. He thanked former premier François Legault and expressed confidence in Christine Fréchette, stressing that he would remain loyal and fully engaged until the end of the mandate. On its own, that could be read as the orderly retirement of a politician who had spent two demanding terms around the cabinet table.

The political difficulty lies in how abruptly the decision changed. Only a week earlier, Boulet was still saying he intended to seek another mandate, and he had supported Fréchette during the CAQ leadership race. He also denied that weak public support had anything to do with his departure. Voters may accept that family, fatigue and timing can change a politician’s plans. Opposition parties, however, will inevitably frame the reversal as another sign that senior CAQ members do not expect the party’s fortunes to improve before October.

Why Losing Boulet Is More Than an Ordinary Retirement

Boulet was not a backbench member quietly approaching the end of a career. He had been part of the CAQ government from its first day in power, serving as minister of labour, employment and social solidarity after the 2018 election. His responsibilities later included immigration, the Mauricie region and, briefly in early 2026, the economy, innovation and energy portfolio. Under Fréchette, he remained labour minister and became minister responsible for Canadian relations, while also chairing a major cabinet committee focused on the economy and environment.

That range matters during an election transition. Long-serving ministers carry institutional memory: they know why earlier decisions were made, which promises remain unfinished and where relationships with unions, employers, regional leaders and other governments have become strained. A new premier can replace a name on an organizational chart, but experience is harder to reproduce quickly. Boulet’s departure therefore creates two problems at once. The CAQ loses a recognizable campaigner in Trois-Rivières, and Fréchette loses a senior figure capable of defending the government’s record on complicated files that often affect people’s paycheques, workplaces and daily routines.

What the 21% Result Really Says

The headline number is damaging, but the full picture is more complicated than a simple collapse. Léger placed the Parti Québécois first at 30%, the Liberals second at 27% and the CAQ third at 21% among decided voters. The Conservative Party of Quebec followed at 13%, while Québec solidaire stood at 8%. Among francophone voters, a group central to the CAQ’s previous majorities, the PQ led with 35% and the CAQ registered 23%. Those numbers leave the governing party competitive in parts of its traditional base, but well below the commanding position it held in the last election.

There is also substantial movement still possible. Only 47% of decided voters said their choice was final, meaning a majority remained open to changing sides. The online research was conducted from June 12 to 15 among 1,014 eligible Quebec voters and carried a probability-equivalent margin of error of plus or minus 3.08 percentage points, 19 times out of 20. That does not make 21% harmless. It does mean the result should be treated as a snapshot of a fluid race rather than a final verdict four months before voting day.

Fréchette’s Early Momentum Is Starting to Fade

Christine Fréchette inherited a task unlike that faced by any previous CAQ leader. She won the leadership on April 12 with 57.9% of the vote cast by 15,833 party members, becoming Quebec’s second woman premier and the first person other than François Legault to lead the party he founded in 2011. Her arrival offered the CAQ a chance to reset its tone, reorganize cabinet and separate its campaign from the controversies that had accumulated during the government’s second term.

The latest numbers suggest that the reset has not yet hardened into durable support. Satisfaction with the Fréchette government fell from 47% in May to 38% in June, while dissatisfaction rose to 43%. Parti Québécois leader Paul St-Pierre Plamondon was the most frequently selected choice for best premier, at 22%. Those findings do not prove Fréchette’s opportunity has disappeared; she has been in the job for only a short period. They do show that novelty alone will not carry the CAQ through the summer. Every unexpected retirement now competes with her effort to present renewal, making the party look less like a rebuilt team and more like one still deciding who wants to remain on the field.

Two Ministerial Departures in Two Days Change the Optics

Boulet’s announcement did not arrive in isolation. One day earlier, Éric Girard, the MNA for Lac-Saint-Jean and minister responsible for regional economic development, said he would not be a candidate in the October election. Girard said the decision had been considered with his family and that he would remain at work on active files. Like Boulet, he had previously indicated an intention to run again. The back-to-back reversals transformed two personal decisions into a broader political storyline about the CAQ’s ability to retain experienced candidates.

The cumulative number is striking. TVA reported after Girard’s announcement that 13 CAQ politicians who had served as ministers at some point during the previous four years were set to leave political life. Not every departure reflects the same motive, and it would be unfair to assume that each person is fleeing defeat. Still, campaigns depend on confidence, organization and continuity. Retiring incumbents force parties to recruit replacements, introduce them to voters and defend open seats without the advantages of a familiar local name. For Fréchette, that means time that could be spent promoting a new platform may instead be consumed by questions about who is leaving next.

A Legislative Record Felt Far Beyond Quebec City

Boulet leaves behind a record that reached into construction sites, family decisions and some of Quebec’s most contentious labour disputes. He sponsored legislation regulating work by children, which was passed and assented to in June 2023. The law generally prohibited employment for children under 14, subject to exceptions, and introduced limits intended to protect school attendance. For a family deciding whether a teenager could take extra weekday shifts, the rules were not abstract parliamentary language; they shaped the balance between work, school and rest.

He also sponsored the 2024 law modernizing the construction industry, a major attempt to increase flexibility and productivity in a sector central to Quebec’s housing and infrastructure pressures. His 2025 labour-dispute law went further into politically sensitive territory by creating mechanisms to maintain services considered necessary for the population’s well-being during certain strikes or lockouts and by giving the labour minister a route to arbitration in exceptional circumstances. Unions strongly challenged that approach. Even Québec solidaire labour critic Alexandre Leduc, while criticizing Boulet’s legislative legacy, acknowledged that the minister had left a mark on Quebec labour law. That mix of consequence and controversy explains why his exit matters.

From a 90-Seat Majority to a Three-Way Contest

The scale of the CAQ’s decline becomes clearer when measured against its last campaign. In the October 2022 election, the party won 40.98% of the vote and elected 90 members, expanding the majority it had first secured in 2018 with 74 seats and 37.42% support. The CAQ once appeared to have broken Quebec’s traditional Liberal–Parti Québécois pattern by building a broad nationalist coalition that could dominate many suburban, regional and francophone ridings.

At 21%, that coalition is visibly fractured. Some former CAQ voters appear to be looking toward the PQ, while others are considering the Liberals or Conservatives. Yet popular support does not translate evenly into seats. Quebec’s first-past-the-post system can magnify small regional differences, and researchers have warned that a few percentage points can shift a significant number of ridings in projection models. This makes the CAQ’s position both dangerous and potentially recoverable. A party sitting third province-wide can still remain competitive where its vote is efficiently concentrated, but falling several points in the wrong regions could turn a difficult election into a severe loss. Candidate quality will be especially important in that environment.

The Race Is Open, but the CAQ Has Less Room for Error

The October 5 election is not settled. The PQ’s 30% lead is meaningful but not overwhelming, the Liberals are only three points behind, and more than half of decided voters say they could still reconsider. A summer campaign shaped by the economy, public services, sovereignty, federal-provincial relations or an unexpected crisis could rearrange the standings. Fréchette also has the advantages of incumbency, a cabinet platform and a party organization that won two consecutive majorities.

What the CAQ lacks is room for repeated self-inflicted distractions. Each retirement invites another day of questions about morale instead of policy. Each replacement candidate must build recognition that an incumbent already possessed. Each drop in government satisfaction makes it harder to argue that a leadership change has fully renewed the party. Boulet’s departure does not decide the election, and it would be simplistic to treat one minister’s personal choice as proof of collapse. But politics is shaped by accumulation. At 21%, with experienced figures heading for the exit and a new premier still defining herself, the CAQ must quickly replace the image of retreat with a credible reason for voters to look forward.

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