{"id":172735,"date":"2026-08-18T17:08:08","date_gmt":"2026-08-18T17:08:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/172735\/"},"modified":"2026-08-18T17:08:08","modified_gmt":"2026-08-18T17:08:08","slug":"quebec-separatist-leader-says-no-independence-referendum-until-trump-leaves-office","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/172735\/","title":{"rendered":"Quebec separatist leader says no independence referendum until Trump leaves office"},"content":{"rendered":"

TORONTO (AP) \u2014 The leader of Quebec\u2019s separatist party said Tuesday he would delay any referendum on independence from Canada until Donald Trump is no longer U.S. president.<\/p>\n

Parti Qu\u00e9b\u00e9cois leader Paul St-Pierre Plamondon, whose party is out of power but could win Quebec\u2019s next election that must be held by Oct. 5, said a PQ government would still hold a referendum during its first term \u2014 but not before Jan. 20, 2029, when Trump\u2019s term ends. <\/p>\n

He said a question as consequential as Quebec\u2019s future requires a clear and calm debate.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt must not be hijacked by the upheavals of American politics, nor by the outbursts of an unpredictable president, nor by fear campaigns,\u201d St-Pierre Plamondon said.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis unpredictability of the American administration will harm our process as well as the quality of the debate on our future as a nation.\u201d<\/p>\n

Trump\u2019s tariffs and repeated talk of making Canada the 51st U.S. state have complicated the separatist case in Quebec, fueling Canadian nationalism and prompting some French-speaking Quebecers to see greater security in remaining part of Canada.<\/p>\n

Separatist sentiment has also surfaced in Alberta, where voters will decide Oct. 19 whether the province should take steps toward holding a binding referendum on leaving Canada. <\/p>\n

Separatist referendums would face an uphill battle in both Quebec and Alberta, with Trump\u2019s tariffs and 51st-state rhetoric strengthening the case for remaining in Canada<\/p>\n

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<\/p>\n

\"Former<\/p>\n

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\u201cTriggering it while Trump remains in the White House would have been particularly risky,\u201d said Daniel B\u00e9land, a political science professor at McGill University in Montreal. <\/p>\n

\u201cSupport for independence in Quebec remains at around 30%, and the fact that the PQ is ahead in the polls is not a sign that support for independence is increasing.\u201d<\/p>\n

Quebec voters have twice rejected sovereignty, most recently by a razor-thin margin in a 1995 referendum.<\/p>\n

Quebec, which is about 80% French-speaking, already has significant autonomy. The province of 9.1 million collects its own income tax, has immigration policies favoring French speakers and has laws giving French priority over English.<\/p>\n

The Parti Qu\u00e9b\u00e9cois was founded in the 1960s under Ren\u00e9 L\u00e9vesque and has long sought to make Quebec an independent country.<\/p>\n

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The Parti Qu\u00e9b\u00e9cois has governed Quebec several times without holding a referendum, including during its most recent stint in power from 2012 to 2014.<\/p>\n

Quebec\u2019s identity has been contentious since the 1760s, when the British completed their takeover of what was then called New France.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"TORONTO (AP) \u2014 The leader of Quebec\u2019s separatist party said Tuesday he would delay any referendum on independence…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":172736,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[17,591,1806,162,592,55121,113,241,6618,14568,55122,14569,218],"class_list":["post-172735","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-canada","tag-canada","tag-canada-government","tag-daniel-bland","tag-donald-trump","tag-general-news","tag-paul-st-pierre-plamondon","tag-politics","tag-quebec","tag-quebec-city","tag-referendums","tag-ren-lvesque","tag-voting","tag-world-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/172735","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=172735"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/172735\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/172736"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=172735"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=172735"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=172735"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}