Chris Selley: Does PSPP realize how unpopular he is?

Paul St-Pierre Plamondon gestures during the new cabinet's swearing-in ceremony at the National Assembly in Quebec City Wednesday October 21, 2026. Photo by Francis Vachon /Postmedia

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You may have read about Quebec Premier Paul St-Pierre Plamondon’s “new strategy” for sovereignty, and you might have thought, “Hang on, this sounds a lot like the old strategy” — namely, pick fights with Ottawa and pitch the slightest federal-government resistance as an intolerable affront to all Quebecers. But this time, as influential nationalist Quebec commentator Joseph Facal argued in an extraordinary encomium to PSPP (as St-Pierre Plamondon is nicknamed) in the Journal de Montréal, the approach is “uncompromising.”

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So PSPP simply outright refused to attend this week’s Canada-EU meeting in Montreal. Because that would “compromise” Quebec’s sovereignty, in Facal’s view at least, and draw attention to the appalling reality: Quebec is part of Canada. To oversimplify: Hardcore sovereigntists tend to think nothing’s worth “sitting at the children’s table” of the federation along with all the other, lesser provinces. More strategic sovereigntists, and softer nationalists, tend to argue along the lines of, “if we’re not at the table, we’re on the menu.”

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As always, there are some, um, peculiarities in the sovereigntist position. One: PSPP sent his lead trade negotiator to the summit in his stead. So it’s not his government boycotting this intolerable event, just him. A bit curious, no? There was plenty of Quebec on hand for Thursday evening’s gala Canada-EU dinner, including former PQ premier Lucien Bouchard.

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Two: this new “uncompromising sovereignty” thing leaves the federal Bloc Québécois in an interesting position. Its job is to compromise. BQ members compromise from the moment they run for the “King of England’s” loyal Parliament (as PSPP often calls the Canadian monarch), then take their seats in Parliament having sworn oaths of allegiance to the King of Canada.

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While Northern Ireland’s Sinn Féin MPs don’t take their seats at Westminster in part precisely because they would have to swear the same basic oath, the Bloc tries to make the best of federal legislation for Quebec’s purposes. It’s a perfectly defensible, sensible policy. Does PSPP support that?

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The premier is certainly on a fascinating journey. He doesn’t lack for confidence, which I suppose is a positive, but it’s to the point that he seems to overestimate his and the sovereignty movement’s popularity. Twenty-eight per cent of the popular vote (the PQ’s haul on Oct. 5) is even lower than than 30-ish per cent support for sovereignty, which is where polls have been stalled for many years. The PQ’s vote efficiency, and the provincial Liberals’ lack thereof — they only finished four points behind the PQ — don’t matter in a referendum.

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Already PSPP shows signs of Mark Carney-style overconfidence, just with much less voter support. He declined this week to attend a summit involving Prime Minister Carney, all the other provincial premiers and First Nations leaders. I can’t see how that decision left him and his movement any better off. He needs those First Nations leaders. Sovereigntists wish they didn’t have to deal with Indigenous Quebecers, their irksome nations and their backward insistence on their treaties with the “King of England” (as PSPP would put it), not to mention their near-total historic opposition to sovereignty.