Quebec Leader Won’t Rule Out Cutting Hydro Sales to U.S. as Rivals Split Over Carney’s Trump Strategy

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Quebec’s vast hydroelectric system has long been treated as an economic asset, an industrial advantage and a source of clean power for neighbouring U.S. states. Now, amid an escalating Canada-U.S. trade confrontation, it is being discussed in more confrontational terms.

Premier Christine Fréchette, campaigning to keep the Coalition Avenir Québec in power, says she is not ruling out ending hydroelectricity sales to the United States if the dispute becomes severe enough, although she stresses that such a step would not be her first choice. Her position has pushed energy into the centre of Quebec’s election campaign just as the province’s political leaders are dividing sharply over Prime Minister Mark Carney’s response to Donald Trump. Behind the political theatre lies a serious question: how far should Quebec and Canada go when economic pressure begins hitting jobs, exports and household costs?

Hydro Is Now Part of the Trade-War Conversation

Fréchette’s comments came during September 9 prime-time interviews with the leaders of Quebec’s five major parties. Asked whether Hydro-Québec could become a weapon in the dispute, the CAQ leader refused to take the most dramatic option off the table. She made clear, however, that stopping hydroelectricity sales would sit well down her list of possible responses. That distinction matters. Quebec is signalling that electricity represents leverage without committing itself to using the most economically disruptive version of that leverage.

The discussion nevertheless represents a significant escalation in political rhetoric. Hydro-Québec does not merely sell surplus electricity across a nearby border. It has built long-term commercial relationships and major transmission links connecting Quebec with markets including New York and New England. For decades those connections have illustrated the extraordinary integration of the two economies. During an ordinary winter evening, electricity moving across the border is a mundane feature of a continental grid. In a trade war, the same power lines can suddenly look like bargaining chips.

Quebec’s Electricity Has Become More Valuable to the United States

The scale of Hydro-Québec’s business explains why politicians keep returning to electricity as a possible source of leverage. Hydro-Québec reported 11.8 terawatt-hours of electricity sales outside Quebec in 2025, at an average price of roughly 15 cents per kilowatt-hour. External sales were unusually restrained because low water inflows since 2023 forced the utility to manage its reservoirs cautiously, but export markets still remain an important source of revenue.

The relationship deepened considerably in 2026. Hydro-Québec began supplying electricity through the 1,250-megawatt Champlain Hudson Power Express linking Quebec directly with New York City. New York authorities say the project is expected to deliver about 10.4 terawatt-hours annually and can meet as much as 20 per cent of New York City’s electricity requirements. The line is designed to power the equivalent of more than one million homes. Hydro-Québec has said projected electricity-sale revenue associated with its New York agreement totals roughly US$34 billion over the contract. Those figures turn an abstract political threat into something Washington and U.S. states cannot simply ignore.

Fréchette Is Backing Carney — But Not Without Conditions

Fréchette has positioned herself closer to Carney than several of her provincial rivals. During the televised interviews, she said she trusted the prime minister to defend Quebec’s interests and argued that Ottawa had respected key provincial priorities during negotiations with Washington. Those included protecting Quebec’s dairy sector and refusing U.S. demands affecting the French language and Canadian culture. Carney himself has publicly said those issues were not negotiable.

That alignment gives Fréchette a delicate political balancing act. She wants to demonstrate that Quebec has influence inside a united Canadian response without appearing subordinate to Ottawa. Her willingness to contemplate using hydro exports therefore complements rather than replaces her support for Carney. The message is essentially that cooperation with Ottawa remains useful, but Quebec possesses its own economic tools if Washington keeps escalating. Carney has similarly emphasized diversification and a “Team Canada” approach involving provincial premiers. The challenge for Fréchette is convincing voters that cooperation produces measurable protection for Quebec businesses rather than simply giving Ottawa political cover.

The Parti Québécois Says Ottawa Is Making Quebec Pay Twice

Parti Québécois Leader Paul St-Pierre Plamondon is attacking Carney’s strategy from a very different direction. His central objection is not that Canada should remain passive. Instead, he argues Ottawa’s dollar-for-dollar retaliatory tariffs are too broad and risk increasing the cost of American inputs used by Quebec manufacturers. In his telling, businesses already struggling with U.S. tariffs could effectively be struck a second time when components imported from the United States become more expensive.

Ottawa’s newest package imposes counter-tariffs of 15, 25 or 50 per cent on products covering approximately C$27.6 billion of U.S. imports. The federal government describes the measures as targeted protection for Canadian industries, but St-Pierre Plamondon wants retaliation concentrated more narrowly on finished American products and strategically sensitive sectors. He has cited Quebec business representatives concerned about higher production costs and called for targeted assistance to exposed companies. That creates a fundamental disagreement with Fréchette: both want Quebec defended, but the PQ argues Carney’s chosen weapon can damage the very firms the retaliation is supposed to protect.

Quebec Liberals See Trump as an Argument for a Stronger Canada

Quebec Liberal Leader Charles Milliard approaches the same crisis from an explicitly federalist position. During the September 9 interviews, he described membership in Canada as a strategic advantage and argued that Trump’s trade pressure demonstrates why Quebec benefits from negotiating as part of a country of more than 40 million people rather than confronting Washington alone. He also warned that renewed constitutional division would serve an American administration trying to exert economic pressure on Canada.

Yet Milliard is not advocating passivity. He, too, has suggested that Quebec’s energy resources can create bargaining power. His party has separately proposed reducing the province’s reliance on the American market through greater trade with the rest of Canada, Europe and the Francophonie. The Liberals note that roughly 70 per cent of Quebec’s international merchandise exports have recently gone to the United States and have proposed lowering that share. The distinction is political as much as economic: Milliard presents diversification and energy leverage as tools best deployed from within a stronger Canadian federation.

Québec Solidaire Wants Energy Leverage Without an Oil-and-Gas Pivot

Québec solidaire is also prepared to use electricity in the confrontation, but from almost the opposite ideological starting point. Ruba Ghazal has argued that Quebec should threaten higher prices for hydroelectricity exported to the United States. Her party has proposed a C$2-billion, two-year financial reserve to help businesses and workers affected by tariffs while companies search for new customers and adapt their production.

Where Québec solidaire breaks more decisively with Carney is over the broader energy strategy. Ghazal and fellow spokesperson Sol Zanetti argue that responding to geopolitical insecurity by expanding fossil-fuel infrastructure would leave Quebec tied to another form of economic dependence. They instead favour renewable electricity, domestic investment and a faster transition away from hydrocarbons. That produces an unusual overlap in the campaign: both the governing CAQ and Québec solidaire are willing to discuss hydroelectricity as leverage against Washington, even though their economic philosophies differ considerably. The argument is no longer simply whether Quebec should respond to Trump, but which assets should be used and what kind of economy should emerge afterward.

Duhaime Offers a Different Answer: Produce More Energy at Home

Quebec Conservative Leader Éric Duhaime is using the trade confrontation to make the case for developing resources that successive Quebec governments have been reluctant to exploit. His party has proposed allowing responsible development of natural gas in the Utica shale, arguing that Quebec could reduce its dependence on outside energy while generating investment and jobs. During the leaders’ television interviews, Duhaime again promoted greater use of Quebec’s natural resources as an economic defence against U.S. pressure.

His approach highlights how Trump has scrambled familiar political divisions. Fréchette speaks about hydro leverage while cooperating with Ottawa. Québec solidaire wants renewable-energy sovereignty. The Parti Québécois emphasizes independence and targeted retaliation. The Liberals emphasize Canadian unity and diversification. Duhaime, meanwhile, frames resource development itself as strategic insurance. His argument is that resilience comes from producing more of what Quebec consumes rather than concentrating primarily on retaliation. Whether voters accept that premise is another matter, particularly given Quebec’s long-running political resistance to shale-gas development, but the trade war has given the debate new urgency.

Actually Cutting Power Would Carry Costs on Both Sides of the Border

Threatening to use electricity as leverage is much easier than doing it. New York has spent years building infrastructure around the expectation that large quantities of Quebec hydropower will flow south. The Champlain Hudson Power Express entered commercial operation in May 2026, runs 339 miles to Queens and is expected to supply up to one-fifth of New York City’s electricity needs. New York also sees the imported power as a way to reduce reliance on fossil-fuel generation after the closure of the Indian Point nuclear plant.

Quebec has substantial interests tied to the relationship as well. Hydro-Québec describes its New York agreement as a multibillion-dollar revenue opportunity extending over decades. The provincial utility also operates within an interconnected regional power system in which electricity can move in different directions depending on prices, weather, demand and reservoir conditions. A drastic restriction would therefore be more than a symbolic boycott. It could affect customers, grid planning and Hydro-Québec’s commercial position simultaneously. That helps explain why Fréchette specifically described such a move as something other than a first resort.

Quebec’s Export Dependence Makes Escalation Especially Dangerous

The province enters this confrontation with unusually large exposure to the American economy. Institut de la statistique du Québec figures show international merchandise exports totalled about C$121.6 billion in 2025, with C$84.8 billion—or 69.8 per cent—destined for the United States. That dependence has already been declining: the U.S. share stood at 73.3 per cent in 2024, while Quebec exports to the United States fell 6.9 per cent in 2025.

The industries involved are not marginal. Aircraft were Quebec’s biggest merchandise export in 2025, worth C$11.9 billion globally. Unwrought aluminum and aluminum alloys represented another C$9.1 billion, while aircraft engines reached C$6.3 billion. The United States bought 81.5 per cent of Quebec’s unwrought aluminum exports and 70.1 per cent of its aircraft-engine exports. Those numbers help explain the increasingly anxious tone in provincial politics. A prolonged tariff confrontation can reach factory floors in Montreal’s aerospace cluster, aluminum operations in regions such as Saguenay–Lac-Saint-Jean and manufacturers that depend on American components before their finished products ever cross the border.

The October Vote Is Becoming a Test of Who Can Stand Up to Trump

Quebec’s election is scheduled for October 5, with approximately 6.4 million electors registered and 127 electoral districts being contested. Tariffs were already an important issue when the campaign began, but Washington’s recent escalation has transformed the dispute into an immediate leadership test. During the September 9 television interviews, the five main party leaders were repeatedly pressed on who could most effectively protect Quebec against Trump. Their first full debate is scheduled for September 15.

That creates an unusual election dynamic. Voters are choosing a provincial government, yet some of the largest economic decisions affecting the campaign are being made in Ottawa and Washington. Fréchette is asking Quebecers to trust her working relationship with Carney. St-Pierre Plamondon says Ottawa’s response demonstrates the limits of federalism. Milliard says the same crisis proves the value of Canada. Ghazal wants Quebec to use public investment and renewable energy more aggressively, while Duhaime wants greater resource development. Hydro-Québec has become a symbol of all those competing instincts: cooperation, retaliation, autonomy and economic self-preservation.

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