Canadian Party of Quebec

Canadian Party of Quebec launches 2026 campaign in Pointe Claire

Local Journalism Initiative / The Suburban / September 4, 2025 / Canadian Party of Quebec, Chelsey St-Pierre, Joseph Cianflone

By Chelsey St-Pierre
The Suburban

The Canadian Party of Quebec (CPQ) opened its 2026 campaign on Saturday with a policy forum and candidate recruitment event at the DoubleTree Hilton in Pointe-Claire. About 50 attendees gathered as party officials outlined their positions on education, health care, economic management, and minority rights, framing the CPQ as a federalist, centrist alternative in Quebec’s political landscape.

“We’re really excited to get the core of the party together for the first time at this convention,” CPQ party leader Joseph Cianflone said to The Suburban. “We launched the CPQ heading into the last election on a tight timeline, and now we’re building core teams and refining our platform priorities for the year ahead.”

Cianflone positioned the party’s core values as “economic market centrism and a centrist tone on social matters.” He added, “We want to make it clear where we stand, and that’s about practical solutions for Quebecers, not ideology.”

Education and health care dominated the day’s discussions. Cianflone pointed to what he described as the “collapse of the education system” as his personal motivation for entering politics. “I have four francophone stepchildren, so I’ve seen firsthand the challenges at the elementary and secondary levels,” he said. “We want to give families the freedom to choose French or English education without bureaucratic hurdles. That means eliminating the need for a certificate of eligibility and removing extra French course requirements for anglophone CEGEP students.”

He also spoke about the party’s aim to revisit university tuition fees for out-of-province and international students, and to align fees for students from France and Belgium with those paid by other international students. “It’s about fairness and making Quebec accessible,” Cianflone explained.

On health care, Cianflone was blunt about what he sees as the failures of the current system. “As part of the sandwich generation, I’ve watched the health care system fail both my elders and my kids,” he explained to The Suburban. “We under-resource training programs for doctors and nurses, and we’re trying to fix system-wide problems with human processes, when technology and workforce expansion are what’s really needed.”

He outlined the CPQ’s proposal to redirect the Santé Québec budget toward hospital infrastructure and to focus on recruiting new hires—including family doctors, specialists, nurses, and lab technicians. “We need to fast-track the recognition of health care credentials from other countries. Quebec is missing out on qualified professionals because of bureaucratic delays,” he said.

Cianflone also addressed the need for federal-provincial collaboration on health care. “Right now, in Canada, we have 13 isolated data pools and purchasing programs. It’s inefficient and drives up costs. If we could integrate systems, get hospitals off fax machines, and use data-driven technology, the federal government would be more willing to come to the table,” he explained. “We need to get serious about modernization.”

Myrtis Fossey, the CPQ’s deputy leader and health critic, also spoke to The Suburban about the party’s health care strategy. “One of my personal goals is the ability for a student trained in Manitoba to be able to work anywhere in Canada,” Fossey said to The Suburban. “We should loosen cross-border provincial restrictions so that health professionals can move where they’re needed and have their credentials recognized more easily. It’s not just about filling jobs. It’s about giving professionals the chance to grow and train in different environments.”

Fossey, a clinician with experience in both public and private sectors, addressed the ongoing debate over public versus private health care delivery. “Rather than pit private and public against each other, we want unified approaches and real collaboration. I’ve seen problems in the public system that private resources could help solve, and vice versa. We shouldn’t vilify either side,” she said.

She called for a more patient-centred system. “We need to move away from one-size-fits-all models. Instead, let’s look at the whole lifespan of a patient—what do they need at different stages, whether it’s physiotherapy, psychology, dentistry, or occupational therapy? Insurance coverage should reflect individual needs, not arbitrary caps,” Fossey argues.

“We also need to see more leadership from professionals who actually provide care, not just administrators or bureaucrats. Right now, decisions are being made by people far removed from the realities on the ground,” she explained The Suburban. “Patient care should be directed by those who understand the specific needs of local communities.”

The CPQ’s platform also proposes eliminating government spending on major sporting events and redirecting any surplus to the Provincial Generational Fund to reduce public debt. The party is calling for the abolition of Revenue Quebec in favour of having the Canada Revenue Agency handle tax collection, as is done in other provinces.

On language laws, the CPQ has taken a clear stance against Bill 96, which expanded French language requirements in public services, education, and business. The party is critical of the Quebec government’s use of the notwithstanding clause to shield Bill 96 from constitutional challenges and judicial review, describing it as a move that limits the rights of English-speaking Quebecers and other minorities.

On minority and language rights more broadly, the party states it would make all government services available in both French and English. The platform also opposes restrictions on wearing religious symbols in public-sector positions, a direct contrast to Quebec’s Bill 21. The CPQ has also called for broader representation of anglophone, allophone, and Indigenous communities within the provincial civil service.

Several prospective candidates were introduced at the event, including Audrey Baillairge, Will Twolan, Jonathan Gray, and Fossey. The CPQ has opened its nomination process for the 2026 election, with requirements including party membership, community engagement, bilingual communication skills, and collection of 175 signatures from voters in each riding.

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Standish announces departure from CaPQ leadership at John Rennie meeting

Local Journalism Initiative / The Suburban / August 4, 2025 / Canadian Party of Quebec, Colin Standish, Dan Laxer

By Dan Laxer
The Suburban

Canadian Party of Quebec (CaPQ) founding leader and co-leader Colin Standish is leaving the party – and leaving politics, at least for now. He has accepted a position as a Crown Prosecutor in another province, a position he refers to as a “dream job.” The formal announcement was made at a CaPQ community meeting at John Rennie High last week.

Standish says he took the “proverbial, and literal, ‘walk in the snow’,” referring to former Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau’s own such walk before his resignation in 1984.

Standish has been looking for new employment for a while, and had even posted on his Facebook page last August that he was “actively seeking the next career move that will propel me forward professionally for the next decade.”

The new position will take Standish out of the province. He would have preferred to stay in Quebec. Several local opportunities had presented themselves, but Standish was passed over. He did wonder, he told The Suburban, if that had had anything to do with his involvement in politics. “I started looking in the rest of Canada,” he says, where he had several promising offers. He took the position that made the most sense to him as a lawyer. “It really is a great way to serve the public good. I certainly wouldn’t move away for anything less than a dream job,” he adds, “but I think it’ll make me the lawyer I wanted to be.”

Standish was born and raised in the Eastern Townships. He was fresh out of law school, articling for a law firm, when he became disillusioned with the federal and provincial governments’ evolving stance on language, which in Quebec would lead to Bill 96. That, added to the post-Bill 21 climate, and the use of the Notwithstanding Clause – both of which are currently being challenged in court – created the perfect storm that would lead to Standish’s involvement in the Task Force on Linguistic Policy and the creation of the Canadian Party of Quebec. CaPQ has been compared to the Equality Party founded in 1989 by Robert Libman. In fact, Keith Henderson, who led the Equality Party during the 1995 referendum campaign, is CaPQ advisor.

This does not spell the end of the party. Co-leader Myrtis Fossey will continue in her role. Founding party member Joseph Cianflone will step into the co-leader position. Standish will stay on as a board member and advisor. And he may return to the fold at some point (the new position is a one-year contract). Cianflone says the party is in “a stronger position than ever before.” Standish agrees, saying “we have an accomplished leadership team, money in the bank, paid off our campaign debts ahead of schedule, have thousands of supporters and a dedicated group of volunteers,” Standish says. “The CaPQ will continue the fight for a better Quebec based on principled leadership.”

Standish says the decision to leave was heartbreaking. He would rather be in Quebec. “The Eastern Townships is the only place that’s ever felt like home.” He is scheduled to start his new job later this month. CaPQ will have a full leadership convention later this year. n

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CaPQ calls for federal referendum before a Quebec one

Local Journalism Initiative / The Suburban / July 19, 2024 / Canadian Party of Quebec, Colin Standish, Myrtis Fossey

By Joel Goldenberg
The Suburban

The Canadian Party of Quebec is calling on Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and all federal party leaders, if any of them are PM at the time, to hold a federal referendum prior to a third Quebec independence referendum that the PQ says it will hold if elected in 2026.

A letter to the federal leaders, written by CaPQ party leaders Colin Standish and Myrtis Fossey, says a federal referendum question could be, “as a member of the Canadian people in Quebec, do you consent that the Government of Quebec and the Government of Canada separate Canadians and your local territory from Canada in the event of a Yes vote in any Quebec referendum on independence or provincial secession?”

“Now is the time for Canada’s federal institutions to prepare for any referendum or potential secession contingencies,” Standish and Fossey wrote. “In the lead-up to Referendum 3, in no way hypothetical given the threats and realities of two traumatic precedents, Canada and Canadians must be fully prepared.”

The CaPQ co-leaders cite a 1997 letter from then-Intergovernmental Affairs Minister Stéphane Dion to his Quebec counterpart Jacques Brassard that said, in relation to the Swiss canton of Jara being created from part of the existing canton of Bern, “our governments too, like Switzerland, could be obliged to find arrangements that would not impose secession on populations that do not want it. If you had won the last referendum, we would have been forced to deal with this issue when no one was prepared.”

Standish and Fossey added that, even with the Clarity Act setting the rules of a Quebec referendum, it does not state “how the provincial boundaries of Quebec might be changed in the event of a successful referendum on Quebec independence.

“In other words, Canadians are no closer to ‘arrangements that would not impose secession on populations that do not want it’ than we were in 1997. As loyal Canadians residing in Quebec, subject to traumatic and repeated threats to our citizenship, we find such a situation both intolerable and negligent in the extreme.”

The CaPQ co-leaders also cited an indigenous peoples referendum held before the 1995 Quebec referendum, which indicated an “overwhelming desire to remain in Canada, whatever the results of the provincial exercise.”

“Moreover, it could not have escaped the Canadian government’s attention that after 1995, dozens of municipalities within Quebec adopted ‘staying Canadian’ resolutions, some even having discussed the possibility of following the Swiss canton of Jura model. The question is simple and pertinent. If the Indigenous people of Quebec were able to conduct referenda to express their desire to remain Canadian, before Referendum 2, why can’t the people of Canada, residing in Quebec, be accorded the same right before a possible third referendum?”

Standish and Fossey wrote that “if such a peaceful, democratic mechanism was good enough for Switzerland less than 50 years ago, why would it not be good enough for Canada today?” n

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