We have every reason to be concerned about the infiltration of Trumpist politics in Canada. Pierre Poilievre and the Conservative Party of Canada do not hesitate to employ exactly the same strategies. Éric Duhaime and the Conservative Party of Quebec do the same. With the exception of the conservatives themselves, I believe few people would dispute this assertion.

The Trumpization I observe—but that is less discussed—is that of the Parti Québécois under Paul St-Pierre Plamondon. The more time passes, the more I see him adopting strategies similar to those of the fascist in the White House.

Needless warning: Comparing two people does not mean considering them identical. I can believe that Paul St-Pierre Plamondon is inspired by Donald Trump’s playbook without assuming that he dreams of sending the army into cities governed by his opponents. I wrote “needless warning” because the PSPlamonists have probably already started typing that my comparison is absurd even before reading this paragraph.

Complacency toward the far right

When invited to summarize the Parti Québécois’ position on the political spectrum on Derek Fildebrandt’s podcast, Plamondon began by saying he is “anti-radical left.” The PQ leader thus places opposition to the “radical left” at the center of his ideology. In contrast, he shows no concern for the radical right, even though it is present within his own party. In November 2024, a report by Étienne Fortin-Gauthier revealed links between the Parti Québécois, the Bloc Québécois, and the far-right group “Nouvelle alliance.” I am still waiting for a single statement from Plamondon condemning the radical right with as much passion as he condemns the radical left. Nor do we hear him criticize masculinism, whose “infiltration” in our schools is far better documented than that of Islamism.

I am not saying that Plamondon is far-right. I am saying he seems afraid of alienating the far-right vote. He clearly has no such fear of alienating the radical left, which does not vote for him anyway.

The fabrication of an imaginary enemy

On March 28, 2023, Paul St-Pierre Plamondon called a press conference to complain about “a fringe of radical leftists who take up a lot of space, even in the media,” “people who present themselves as experts,” who had allegedly labeled PQ members as far-right because of their repeated demands to close Roxham Road. When journalists asked him to name names, Plamondon refused to cite a single example: “You’re the journalists.” An absurd situation—but one that foreshadowed what was to come, since Plamondon constantly complains about this “radical left.”

In November 2024, Plamondon made several statements against “wokism.” When asked by Guy A. Lepage to define “wokism,” he bluntly replied: “It’s not really the definition of wokism that matters.” A clever strategy: the less one defines the scarecrow one fights, the more one can associate it with anyone, and the more appealing it becomes to those who understand that the scarecrow is the enemy to be defeated. Maurice Duplessis spent his life fighting communism but never bothered to define it.

We know that Québec solidaire is part of this indefinable woke radical left. It also includes “certain academics,” “certain columnists,” “certain activists”… In general, it seems to include anyone criticizing Plamondon except the CAQ, the PLQ, and the PCQ. Plamondon thus presents himself as the bulwark against an enemy that is both all-powerful and elusive.

Intolerance of criticism, especially from the media

Paul St-Pierre Plamondon has built a reputation for being short-tempered or “having a short fuse,” to quote Yasmine Abdelfadel. He accuses columnists who criticize him of using “fallacious intellectual processes,” “dubious reasoning,” “distortion of statements,” “gross accusations,” or “bad faith.” These reproaches have been directed at Rima Elkouri, Yasmine Abdelfadel, Antoine Robitaille, Thomas Mulcair, Marie-Ève Doyon, and Paul Journet, among others—as if it were absolutely impossible to disagree with his positions without being dishonest.

Recently, Pascal Bérubé filed a complaint with the Radio-Canada ombudsman over “unacceptable” remarks made by Rachel Chagnon on the program Tout peut arriver on September 27, 2025. For context, Ms. Chagnon accused the Parti Québécois of seeking homogeneity in classrooms with its new proposals on “secularism.” She ended her sentence with, “and why not all blond and blue-eyed?” In the following days, Plamondon complained of being accused of racism.

Pascal Bérubé has been in politics long enough to know that his complaint will have no consequence. He knows, as I do, what the ombudsman’s answer will be: “These opinions are not those of Radio-Canada; they belong to the people who expressed them.” How many times were Justin Trudeau and François Legault accused of fascism during the pandemic? I don’t believe their offices complained every time. And if they did, it clearly changed nothing. The goal of such complaints is simply to intimidate—to make those who speak in the media afraid of attacking the Parti Québécois.

The same tactic was used when Jean-François Lisée filed a complaint with the College of Physicians against psychiatrist Marie-Eve Cotton. We’ve had doctors serve as MPs, ministers, and even premiers. Do you really think the college will sanction a doctor for criticizing the leader of the third opposition party? Once again, the goal is intimidation.

Inside the party, no PQ leader has ever been harder to criticize than Plamondon. The last party officer who dared to question his policy was expelled from the political commission. Even long-time PQ members like Louise Harel and Pierre Céré can be labeled “radical left” for daring to contradict the leader.

The firefighter–arsonist

For three years, Paul St-Pierre Plamondon has blamed immigration as the universal explanation for Quebec’s problems. Immigration, according to him, has caused the decline of French, the housing crisis, the teacher shortage, the crisis in public services, the resurgence of homophobia, the rise of youth crime, the drop in the birth rate, and the stagnation of GDP. The PQ leader loves pointing to Europe, painting a catastrophic picture, and warning that it’s what awaits us. Listening to him, one imagines European cities where entire neighborhoods are controlled by organized crime and/or Islamists.

And the funniest part is that Plamondon also blames immigration for… degrading the social climate and fueling the rise of the far right. Of course, if one constantly repeats to the population that immigrants are to blame for every problem, some people might become more hostile toward them and gravitate toward the most aggressively xenophobic groups.

Similarly, the PQ is now convincing its voters that it is urgent to prevent elementary school students from wearing religious symbols. I had no idea this was even a concern. We had literally never heard of this “problem” before the PQ manufactured it out of thin air. But Plamondon presents himself as a democrat. He merely addresses people’s “concerns.” And once he’s premier, he’ll solve the problem he himself helped create. In short, the firefighter who sets his own fires.

(See also: List of Plamondon’s problematic statements on immigration.)

Hostility toward gender diversity

In fall 2023, Paul St-Pierre Plamondon linked non-binary pronouns and unisex bathrooms to “radical left ideology.” In February 2025, the Parti Québécois was the only party not to support a motion condemning the rise of homophobia. The current MNA for Terrebonne, Catherine Gentilcore, criticized the sexual education curriculum for being “based on gender theory.” And like the CAQ, the PQ opposes inclusive writing—pure populism, with no regard for the hatred it can fuel.

A letter by Catherine Gentilcore, published in La Presse (December 2, 2024), had to be corrected because it contained false information about the new sexual education program, implying that teachers would be encouraged to tell preschool children that their gender was assigned by society. That was false. But the letter, read by thousands before being corrected, got its message across: “gender ideology” is attacking our education system.

When commenting on the controversy over “Mx Martine,” a non-binary teacher in Montérégie, Paul St-Pierre Plamondon sank into pure demagoguery, accusing the “radical left” of trying to “impose (new pronouns) in the education system without prior democratic debate.” We were, of course, talking about a single teacher who had asked her students to call her Mx. How did she become an agent of this infamous “radical left”? Such rhetoric only stokes hatred toward trans and non-binary people, echoing the “trans lobby” myth spread by transphobic activists.

Anti-intellectualism

The United States has never had a president as hostile to universities as Donald Trump. Researchers who do not tell him what he wants to hear (and there are many, since Trump dislikes the truth) are branded enemies of the state and targeted for sanctions. We know how Trumpists feel about “wokism” and equality, diversity, and inclusion (EDI) initiatives.

On a smaller scale, Paul St-Pierre Plamondon is not much different. Regardless of the many studies acknowledging systemic racism or supporting EDI, intersectional feminism, or inclusive writing, the PQ leader dismisses them outright because they do not confirm his own biases. He labels the researchers and professors whose work contradicts him as “activists,” “ideologues,” or even “charlatans.”

In January, on the Frenchcast podcast, Plamondon promised that his government would “democratically reclaim control over educational content.” He explained: “I’ll use parliamentary commissions with experts, but also citizens and representatives of citizens, so that debate isn’t monopolized by ‘experts’ who are sometimes ideologues.” Should we understand that a PQ government would decide what is acceptable to teach at universities—not based on the state of research, but on its own positions? There is nothing “democratic” about censoring professors or researchers because their work doesn’t flatter the government or its electorate.

Conclusion

I have no hesitation in stating that Paul St-Pierre Plamondon has copied several pages from the playbook of the fascist in the White House. And that is alarming. Trumpism is a threat to democracy, no matter who puts it into practice. Canada avoided the worst (at least temporarily) by refusing to hand the keys of power to Pierre Poilievre in April. I hope Quebec will do the same next year.