Vote of confidence: Duhaime receives 77.48% support

Conservative leader Eric Duhaime needed 77.48% support for his confidence vote, a congressional decision in which many activists expressed displeasure.

• Read more: PCQ Congress: Eric Duheim’s leadership questioned

• Read more: Quebec values: PCQ prefers psychometric testing before recruiting immigrants

Expecting marks “between 75% and 85%” on Saturday, Mr. The decision comes as no surprise to those around Duheim. “This is a noisy minority that has negatively affected the outcome of the vote,” argued one of his team members, who considered the 320 delegates to Congress to be “highly motivated members” and therefore more inclined to “want change.” .

With a score of 77%, Éric Duhaime has far less support than CAQ leader François Legault and PQ leader Paul St-Pierre Plamondon, both of whom scored above 98.5% earlier this year.

And so ends a conference that began for a Conservative leader. It was clear in the first hour that the enthusiasm of PCQ members is now much more subdued than it was during last year’s election campaign.

Eric Duhaime, used to huge applause, was greeted with polite applause every time he spoke over the weekend. In the corridors, prominent activists and former candidates did not hesitate to criticize his leadership style and demanded that the party leadership listen to the grassroots. “The PCQ should not be a one-man party,” we read in the pamphlet of a political party’s presidential candidate.

It was under this pretext that the Conservative leader accepted a proposal to remove the reference to “Équipe Éric Duhaime” from the party’s official name. “The party must send a signal over the weekend that the PCQ is not the party of Eric Duheim, it is the party of the members,” he said in his opening speech on Saturday.

Questioned that day about his future in the event of a poor result in the confidence vote, he recalled that he had promised to remain party leader for 10 years when he entered active politics three years ago.

At the end of the convention, Chantal Dauphinois was elected as the president of the party’s national executive committee.

List of worst results in confidence vote

Martin Oulet, Black Quebecois

32% support | She leaves 2018

Thomas Mulcair, NDP

48% support | He leaves | 2016

Joe Clark, Progressive Conservative Party of Canada

66.9% support | He leaves | 1983

John Turner, Liberal Party of Canada

76% support | It has | 1986

Bernard Landry, Quebec Party

76.2% support | He leaves | 2005

Lucien Bouchard, Quebec Party

76.7% support | It has | 1996

More details to come…