This is revealed by an analysis of Elections Quebec data, as published on August 25, 2022, three days before the start of the election campaign.
The analysis begins in 2021, since this is the year in which all the leaders of the parties represented at the recent dissolution of the National Assembly have finished emerging. Indeed, Paul Saint-Pierre-Plamondon took office in November 2020, Éric Duhaime in April 2021, followed by Dominique Anglade in May 2021, then Gabriel Nadeau-Dubois who became parliamentary leader in May 2021.
An elector may pay up to $100 in contributions per year to each political party, each independent candidate and each authorized independent Member. An elector in an electoral district where a general or by-election is taking place may pay up to $100 more to each party, each independent Member and each independent candidate.
During the same period (2021-2022), Éric Duhaime’s Conservative Party stood out for its number of donors. Indeed, the PCQ was able to count on 28% of the contributors of the five dominant parties, compared to 26% for the CAQ, 20% for the PQ, 14% for QS and 10% for the PLQ.
In the riding of Chauveau that Duhaime is running, nearly 61% of donors have encouraged the PCQ among all parties. Chutes-de-la-Chaudière, Arthabaska, Louis-Hébert, Montmorency, La Peltrie and Vanier-Les Rivières are also among the sectors where the PCQ has the largest number of donors, compared to other organizations.
However, the 13,015 donors to the CAQ were almost twice as generous as the 13,889 to the PCQ.
The riding of Matane-Matapédia stands out as the one where the highest proportion of donations are granted to a party, since the PQ MP Pascal Bérubé collects there more than 80% of the amount granted to all the parties in this stronghold. During this period, Taschereau (held by Catherine Dorion of QS) is ahead of Matane-Matapédia in terms of the total value of the PQ’s crops, which sees Joliette and Jean-Talon come third and fourth.
On the other hand, Beauharnois recorded the lowest proportion of donations granted to one of the five parties: the Liberal Party of Quebec obtained only 0.5% of the loot there.
The PLQ nevertheless garnered its most substantial contributions in Westmount-Saint-Louis, Mont-Royal-Outremont, Jeanne-Mance-Viger and Verdun. In these ridings, with the exception of Verdun, the Liberal candidates were elected in 2018 with more than 50% of the vote. Moreover, the period studied does not include the Liberal Party leadership race, which was often conducive to the generosity of supporters.
All the leaders except Dominique Anglade manage, in their respective constituencies, to see their party reap the highest proportion of the sums granted. Thus, Québec solidaire finds 66% of the value of donations made in Gouin, where Gabriel Nadeau-Dubois is active, while the CAQ of François Legault collects 58% in L’Assomption, the PCQ of Éric Duhaime 42% in Chauveau, and the PQ of Paul Saint-Pierre-Plamondon 35% in Camille-Laurin, formerly Bourget. As for him, the PLQ obtains only 25% of the donations in the Saint-Henri-Sainte-Anne of Dominique Anglade, preceded in this county by Guillaume Cliche-Rivard of QS (33%).
As for the ten most populous ridings, including Saint-Jérôme at their head, the CAQ wins them all in terms of the value of the contributions pocketed.
In the general ranking regardless of party, the ridings that received the highest donations in this 2021-2022 sample remain Taschereau, at the top with its $127,200 donated by 1,023 donors, followed by Jean-Talon, Mont-Royal- Outremont, Mercier, then Verdun. Only one of these four ridings did not elect a Liberal candidate in 2018, namely Mercier, won by QS’s Ruba Ghazal.
The less bailed out coffers were those of Duplessis, René-Lévesque, Gaspé, Ungava and the Îles-de-la-Madeleine, a riding disadvantaged by a lower number of registered electors. The 89 donors in this island riding donated less than $10,000 to one or other of the five parties during this period, but especially to the Parti Québécois.
The political parties that had no representative in the National Assembly at the time of its dissolution raised $103,034, or less than 2% of the popular financing obtained in those 20 months.
Finally, if the seats were distributed according to the money collected from contributors in 2021-2022, the CAQ would dominate with 64 seats, followed by the PLQ (22), the PQ (16), QS (15) and the PCQ ( 8).
(With the collaboration of Daniel Tremblay)
