{"id":173417,"date":"2026-08-19T01:04:06","date_gmt":"2026-08-19T01:04:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/173417\/"},"modified":"2026-08-19T01:04:06","modified_gmt":"2026-08-19T01:04:06","slug":"quebec-separatist-says-no-independence-referendum-while-trump-in-office-politics-news","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/173417\/","title":{"rendered":"Quebec separatist says no independence referendum while Trump in office | Politics News"},"content":{"rendered":"

The leader of Quebec\u2019s secessionist party says the debate over his province\u2019s independence has been stymied by turbulence in US politics.<\/p>\n

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Published On 19 Aug 202619 Aug 2026<\/p>\n

The head of a major secessionist party in the Canadian province of Quebec has promised not to hold a referendum on independence until United States President Donald Trump has left office.<\/p>\n

Parti Quebecois (PQ) leader Paul St-Pierre Plamondon said on Tuesday that debate over the issue could only proceed calmly once Trump is no longer president.<\/p>\n

Recommended Stories list of 3 itemsend of list<\/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. \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

Quebec must hold its next provincial election by October 5, and the Parti Quebecois is hoping to make gains at the ballot box.<\/p>\n

Polls currently suggest it is leading the province\u2019s Liberal Party and the Coalition Avenir Quebec, which has the greatest number of seats in Quebec\u2019s National Assembly.<\/p>\n

St-Pierre Plamondon affirmed that he intended to seek an independence referendum should his party win this year.<\/p>\n

But such a vote, he said, would wait until later in the four-year term, after Trump\u2019s second term concludes in January 2029.<\/p>\n

Since returning to the presidency in 2025, Trump\u2019s hostility towards Canada has redefined cross-border relations.<\/p>\n

Trump has repeatedly voiced controversial opinions about turning the country into a 51st US state, and has used tariffs on Canadian goods<\/a> as leverage to advance policy demands.<\/p>\n

Negotiations on Tuesday are ongoing as Canadian officials seek to head off Trump\u2019s latest tariff threat, which would place 50 percent import taxes on a range of goods starting at midnight on Wednesday.<\/p>\n

The growing friction between the US and Canada has placed secessionist movements in places like Alberta and Quebec in a difficult position.<\/p>\n

Trump\u2019s actions have sparked a surge in Canadian nationalism, as citizens express anger at US policy.<\/p>\n

There has also been\u00a0speculation that the US may encourage secessionist efforts<\/a> in provinces like Alberta, where right-wing leaders like Premier Danielle Smith hold significant sway.<\/p>\n

While residents of Quebec have long pushed for greater sovereignty, experts say that the economic benefits of maintaining a union with Canada may become more appealing given the turbulence unleashed by the US.<\/p>\n

\u201cTriggering [a referendum on independence] while Trump remains in the White House would have been particularly risky,\u201d Daniel Beland, a political science professor at McGill University in Montreal, told The Associated Press news service.<\/p>\n

\u201cSupport for independence in Quebec remains at around 30 percent, and the fact that the PQ is ahead in the polls is not a sign that support for independence is increasing,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The leader of Quebec\u2019s secessionist party says the debate over his province\u2019s independence has been stymied by turbulence…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":173418,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[98],"tags":[17,162,133,229,111,116,113,438],"class_list":["post-173417","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-mark-carney","tag-canada","tag-donald-trump","tag-elections","tag-government","tag-mark-carney","tag-news","tag-politics","tag-us-canada"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/173417","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=173417"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/173417\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/173418"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=173417"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=173417"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=173417"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}