Quebec Premier François Legault steps down

François Legault announced Wednesday he will step down as premier of Quebec, a move intended to reinfuse life in the struggling party just nine months away from an election.

Legault will remain premier and leader of the Coalition Avenir Québec (CAQ) until a new party leader is selected.

The 68-year-old, who repeatedly affirmed in recent months he would lead the CAQ in the next election, conceded Wednesday he recognized Quebecers were hungry for change, and that he decided to step down “for the good” of his party and the province.

“I see well that right now Quebecers want change first, and among other things, a change of premier,” he said in his resignation speech in Quebec City, flanked by his wife Isabelle Brais and his chief of staff Martin Koskinen.

The winner of an upcoming leadership race — the first in the party’s history since Legault founded the CAQ in 2011 — will become the next premier of Quebec.

The CAQ has long been third in the polls behind the Parti Québécois and the scandal-ridden Quebec Liberals. Legault said he hoped the Oct. 5 election would be focused on the big challenges facing Quebec, such as the economy and protecting the French language, rather than simply voting in a new party.

The decision to step down comes after a difficult year for Legault’s two-term majority CAQ. It was marked by a wave of high-profile departures, notably cabinet ministers Christian Dubé and Lionel Carmant; a ballooning deficit; botched projects like Northvolt; an uprising by doctors; and a cost overrun fiasco at Quebec’s auto insurance board.

Quebecers’ discontent with the CAQ manifested itself in two byelection losses last year – a total of four consecutive byelection defeats since the last general election – that showed the political momentum in the province was switching.

It’s a long fall from grace for Legault and the CAQ, which cruised to a majority government in 2018. That election victory marked the start of a new era in Quebec politics, ending nearly 50 years of Liberal and PQ rule.

Legault won an even bigger majority four years later. Buoyed by his popularity among francophones and his response during the COVID-19 pandemic, the 2022 election was called less than 10 minutes after the polls closed.

The Air Transat co-founder spent much of Wednesday’s lengthy press conference touting his party’s successes over his two mandates, as well as looking back on the accomplishment of forming his first majority government just seven years after founding the Coalition Avenir Québec.

But it’s the turmoil of 2025 that ultimately led to his resignation.

Record deficit

The CAQ announced a record $13.6-billion deficit in March. Days later, credit agency Standard and Poor’s lowered the province’s credit rating for the first time in 30 years. A $46-million engineering contract relating to a controversial project to build a third span across the St. Lawrence River connecting Quebec City and its south shore was heavily criticized, as well as the millions of dollars in losses due to the failure of the Northvolt electric battery plant project.

SAAQclic fiasco

The Legault government suffered another blow in February when the province’s auditor general revealed cost overruns of at least half a billion dollars in the creation of the online platform SAAQclic. The botched 2023 rollout of the platform led to major delays and long lineups at insurance board branches. The scandal led to months of public hearings, during which Legault testified that he was kept in the dark about the cost overruns and laid most of the blame for the scandal on the leaders of the state-run corporation.

Doctors uprising

The adoption in October of a controversial law on physician remuneration led to widespread protests by doctors, some of whom publicly threatened to leave the province. The legislation, which tied part of physicians’ remuneration to performance targets and threatened steep fines for those who use pressure tactics to boycott the changes, also had opponents within Legault’s own party. The premier, who had promised not to back down on the legislation, got personally involved in the negotiations with family doctors. The result was a watered-down law that removed performance-related penalties in favour of a system of incentives. The dispute cost Legault’s party three legislature members, including two cabinet ministers. Junior health minister Carmant and MNA Isabelle Poulet quit the party in protest of the initial law, while Dubé resigned as health minister in the wake of the deal that weakened the legislation.

Wave of departures

Carmant, Poulet and Dubé weren’t the only legislature members to leave Legault’s party to sit as independents. In September, the premier expelled Pierre Dufour, the MNA for Abitibi-Est, from the CAQ caucus. In an interview with La Presse that month, Dufour had suggested he would resign and run for mayor of Val-d’Or if the premier did not appoint an elected official from the Abitibi-Témiscamingue region as a minister. That same month, Maïté Blanchette Vézina, who had recently been shuffled from cabinet, quit the party to sit as an independent, suggesting she’d lost faith in Legault and that his policies have neglected Quebec’s regions. In total, Legault’s party has lost 10 of its legislature members since the 2022 election.

Potential successors

Even before Legault announced he would step down, there was a rumour mill for potential successors. Those include Geneviève Guilbault, Simon Jolin-Barrette, Dubé, Sonia LeBel and Bernard Drainville.

–With files from The Canadian Press