The CAQ's electoral war chest
Public funding of political parties in Quebec must be reformed.
(Texte français disponible ici.)
Elections are coming up. And the Coalition Avenir Québec has a huge financial advantage over the other parties.
Of course, since it is in power, the CAQ can choose to hand out pre-election perks, and Premier Christine Fréchette has not held back since taking office in April.
For example, by granting a QST rebate on prepared foods—including granola bars, pre-cut vegetables, four-packs of croissants, and small-sized ice cream, not to mention toilet paper—at a cost of $100 million. Ka-ching!
Or by granting a rebate on the welcome tax for first-time homebuyers, at a cost of $140 million. Ka-ching again!
By granting a $50 discount on registration fees for passenger vehicles, at a cost of $245 million. Ching-ka-ching!
That’s half a billion dollars in public funds in just three months, for measures that will have little real impact on the personal finances of Quebecers.
On the other hand, with every announcement, the CAQ enjoys generous media coverage at Quebecers’ expense. And a second time when the measure takes effect, as was the case with the grocery discount last week. It is hot outside? Don’t worry, “Votre gouvernment” has you covered, and your little tub of Häagen-Dazs will cost 50 cents less!
I’m being cynical, you say? The people who came up with all this are even more so.
The discount on car registration fees will take effect in September. Maybe it’s because the SAAQclic systems need a few more months to adjust. Or perhaps—more likely—because the next election campaign is set to begin in September, and the discount will affect nearly 5 million vehicle owners, which represents more than 80% of voters. The media will be singing the praises of this $50 electoral candy just as the campaign gets underway.
But the CAQ will also benefit from another advantage for the election campaign, for which it can thank the current Minister of Economy, Innovation and Energy Bernard Drainville.
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About thirteen years ago, Quebec accelerated its shift toward public funding of political parties, after systems of straw donors were revealed in the wake of the Charbonneau Commission.
Three things happened.
The first change was the capping of individual donations to political parties to $100, and to $200 during an election year.
The second change was the addition of a top-up to each donation, namely matching sums. Every time you donate, the government adds a certain amount. The supplement is $2.50 for every dollar donated to a party, for the first $20,000 received. After that, the government matches the donation at a rate of $1 for every dollar, up to a maximum of $250,000 per party in a given year.
Here too, the limit is raised in an election year, meaning that a party can then receive $500,000 in matching sums.
The third change is the increase in the allocation paid to political parties. This is also the change that has had the greatest impact.
Every year since 1977, the government has paid political parties a sum equal to the number of registered voters in the previous election, multiplied by a base amount. The idea was to compensate for the loss of funding from businesses and unions, which had been banned under René Lévesque’s government. At first, this amount per voter was $0.25. In 2012, it was $0.82, before eventually rising to $1.50, after which it was indexed to reach $1.94 in 2025.
Today, the allocation paid by the government to the parties represents the largest portion of political financing in Quebec.
There were 6.3 million registered voters in the last election, in 2022. This means that last year, the various political parties shared a total of just over $12 million ($1.94 × 6,302,789 voters = $12.2 million).
All these measures have cleaned up political party financing, made voters a little more equal, and allowed—at least in theory—political parties to carry out their activities free from any undue external influence.
But there’s a large democratic worm in the apple of political financing: the allocation is distributed in proportion to the votes cast in the previous election. This means that, four years later, the CAQ still receives the lion’s share of those $12.2 million.
In 2022, the CAQ received 41% of the vote. Québec Solidaire, the Parti Québécois, the Liberal Party, and the Conservative Party were virtually tied, having received 15%, 15%, 14%, and 13% of the vote, respectively. (I’m ignoring the decimals.)
Last year, the $12 million allocation paid out by the Chief Electoral Officer was distributed as follows:
The problem quickly becomes obvious. In 2025, the CAQ received an allocation nearly three times higher than that paid to any other party. The picture was the same in 2023 and 2024, after adjusting for inflation: approximately $1.7 million each for QS, the PQ, the PLQ, and the PCQ, and $5 million for the CAQ.
Why should a political party that all polls show is on its way out receive an advantage over the others?
This advantage will be even more pronounced this year. When the election is called, the parties will receive a supplementary allocation equal to $1 per registered voter in 2022, again in proportion to the number of votes they received that year.
This will add $6 million more to the regular allocation—which is itself adjusted for inflation, with the base amount rising to $1.99 in 2026.
For the first ten months of 2026, the breakdown will look like this. (For November and December, the amounts will be adjusted based on the results of the next election.)
By October, the CAQ will receive an additional $2.6 million as a result of this supplementary allocation. The other major parties will receive just under $1 million. Once again, the CAQ’s electoral advantage from four years ago is being perpetuated, out of all proportion to its current support.
For comparison’s sake, here is the percentage of the allocation paid to the parties in 2026, with current voting intentions.
This spring, the CAQ had even dropped to 10% in the polls. Political extinction was on the horizon. But every month, it continued to receive more funding than any other party.
I’ll ask the question again: on what grounds should the ruling party be showered with millions four years after the last election? And all the more so when voters want to see it go?
Not only does our winner-takes-all electoral system give a disproportionate number of seats to the winning party (in 2022, the CAQ won 90 out of 125 seats with 41% of the vote), but it also gives it more money for several years. This advantage is also completely disconnected from the financial backing of the CAQ’s supporters.
In 2023, the CAQ was the party that raised the most donations. This popular support collapsed in 2024 in the wake of the “3rd Link” farce, the circus leading up to the by-election in the riding of Jean-Talon, and the millions spent on two preseason games of the Los Angeles Kings in Québec City, among other things.
In the first six months of 2026, the CAQ raised barely more in donations than the Conservative Party—which still has to elect its first MNA—, and far less than the Parti Québécois, the Liberal Party, or even Québec Solidaire, a party whose support is faltering.
(Some will note that the Parti Québécois has raised, by far, the highest total in individual donations over the past three years. This is undoubtedly linked to the fact that it presents a genuine political vision—whether one agrees with it or not—and that this vision is not limited to winning the next election. The other parties should take note.)
The CAQ’s setbacks and the collapse of its support have not prevented it from spending more over the past three years or from generating a larger surplus than all the other major parties. Combined.
This is because, despite the decline in support, the CAQ continues to report revenues twice as high as those of its opponents, thanks to public funding.
The figures below are taken from the financial statements of the various parties, available on the Élections Québec website. Depreciation is not treated the same way from one party to another, which has a slight impact on the surplus, but the orders of magnitude remain the same.
The CAQ, despite its unpopularity, can thus afford to spend more than anyone else while increasing its assets.
After eight years in power, the CAQ has more money than it can spend.
This is certainly not what those who laid the groundwork for public funding of political parties in 1977 had in mind.
The problem would be the same if the PQ or the PLQ were in power. This isn’t a partisan issue, but a democratic one. We’ve replaced illegal financing and straw-man schemes with some kind of legalized and institutionalized fraud against the will of the voters.
Where does Bernard Drainville fit in all this?
He spearheaded the electoral financing reform while serving as a minister in Pauline Marois’s government in 2012. At the time, the Parti Québécois could, for a while, hope to form a majority government in the next election, before it stumbled on its own mistakes. I don’t know what those who devised the reform thought at the time, but I can’t completely rule out the possibility that they hoped it would perpetuate their advantage, at least for a while.
In any case, thanks to public funding of political parties, millions are now pouring towards the CAQ. And Bernard Drainville, now a minister and CAQ candidate, will be able to benefit from this in the next election.
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It wouldn’t be difficult to fix the current system. The first step would be to eliminate the allocation paid in proportion to the vote, which has become both illogical and undemocratic over the years.
To compensate, matching sums would be increased. For example, instead of adding just one dollar in public funds for every dollar in donations—as is currently the case above the $25,000 threshold—the matching rate could be raised to $2 or $3. Political parties’ resources would be preserved, but they would be grounded in political reality.
Such a change would reward, amplify, and encourage individual support. If a party is popular and succeeds in mobilizing its members, it will benefit from additional support.
And if the ruling party repeatedly takes us for fools, no one will be forced to finance it against their will.
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This text is 1,743 words long, which is equivalent to about ten pages of a book, including the tables. Writing this and poring over the financial statements of the various parties and their funding data took me about three days and made me want to donate to the Rhinoceros Party.
My name is Patrick Déry. I’m a French-speaking Québécois writing for a living, and trying something different here. If you enjoyed reading this text, you can support me by buying me a coffee. You can also subscribe to this media (free or paid, your choice).
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