Separatists fall in Quebec elections

MONTREAL , April 8 (UPI) -- Canada’s Parti Quebecois, which has promoted a separatist agenda for Quebec province which includes plans for sovereignty, lost spectacularly in the general election Monday.

The Liberal Party, forced out of office only 19 months ago, swept back into power by winning 70 of Quebec’s 125 parliamentary seats and 41.31 percent of the vote. The PQ won 30 of the seats with 25.39 percent of the vote.

The 33-day campaign was marked by mudslinging and anger, with the Parti Quebecois concentrating on its stands on sovereignty for Quebec and a proposed charter of human values. The Liberals concentrated on jobs and, as Premier-elect Phillippe Couillard often said, a “four-year holiday” from elections.

In his acceptance speech Monday night in St. Felicien, Couillard promised, “I will be premier of all Quebecers. The divisions are over. Reconciliation has started.”

The vote likely spelled the end of PQ leader Pauline Marois, 65, who swept into the premiership in the 2012 elections.

[Montreal Gazette]