Drainville, Fréchette spar over language, immigration in heated CAQ leadership debate

LAVAL — The two candidates vying to replace François Legault as Coalition Avenir Québec leader and Quebec premier faced off over language and immigration in a heated final debate north of Montreal on Saturday.

Bernard Drainville and Christine Fréchette exchanged friendly greetings ahead of the start of the debate in Laval.

However, the debate grew fiery as Drainville accused Fréchette of hesitation when it comes to protecting the province’s language and taking a firm stance on immigration.

As an example, Drainville said Fréchette had not immediately called for the resignation Air Canada CEO Michael Rousseau after he delivered an English-only message of condolence following a crash that killed two pilots at New York’s LaGuardia Airport.

“When it comes to the defence of French, we can’t allow ourselves to have a premier that hesitates, that prevaricates,” Drainville told the room, drawing cheers from his supporters.

Drainville also accused Fréchette of having initially failed to call for the closure of Roxham Road, which was used by thousands of asylum seekers to enter Canada from the United States before being closed to irregular migration in 2023.

Fréchette, who was immigration minister at the time, accused Drainville of misrepresenting her stance on both issues.

She defended her record on immigration, saying she had been involved in the negotiations around a deal that was reached with the United States to turn away asylum seekers at unofficial border crossings.

“I am the only one here who got results in the area of immigration,” she said. Fréchette also said she had called on Air Canada’s board to remove Rousseau from his role, and promised to extend Quebec’s language laws to new areas including adult vocational training.

She also fired back at Drainville after the debate, suggesting that he, and not herself, was the “weather vane” whose opinions shift with the wind. She noted her rival once ran for the leadership of the sovereigntist Parti Québécois, and accused him of changing his mind on a range of issues including private involvement in health care.

“When you compare his type of mindset and mine, we are completely different,” she told reporters. “He went (from) one extreme to another, changing his mind throughout the years,” she said.

The debate topics included health and social services, education, security, housing and homelessness, and immigration and identity.

Fréchette, a former economy minister, and Drainville, a former environment minister, are the only candidates running to replace Legault, who announced in January he was stepping down.

Early Saturday, unions and community groups held a raucous protest outside the event venue in Laval where the debate took place. The atmosphere was also animated inside the debate room, as supporters for Drainville and Fréchette cheered their candidate and occasionally booed the other.

Drainville repeatedly turned the topic of the conversation to immigration, blaming high numbers of new arrivals for putting a strain on housing and education.

“The choice is as follows: yet more immigration, or do we protect public services?” he said in his opening statement.

Throughout the debate, he challenged Fréchette to clarify her own stance on immigration, including whether she supports his proposal to cut back social services offered to asylum seekers after six months.

The two also tangled over their contrasting plans to partially revive a program called the Quebec Experience Program, which the provincial government shelved last year in favour of a more limited program.

The program offered a fast track to permanent residence for international students and workers who had resided in Quebec for at least two years and met the language requirements. Drainville has proposed allowing some people working in priority sectors to be processed through the program via a grandfather clause, while Fréchette has proposed reinstating the program for two years.

Drainville repeatedly challenged Fréchette to say how many new permanent residents her plan would allow, which she declined to answer other than to say she would respect an overall immigration target of 45,000 per year.

Fréchette, for her part, criticized her rival’s plan to help new homebuyers by lending them up to 20 per cent for a down payment in return for an equivalent ownership stake.

While Drainville portrayed the proposal as a win-win, Fréchette accused him of “wanting to make money off the back of young people” for the government’s benefit.

The candidates, however, did not disagree on everything. They both declined to say how they would vote in a referendum on sovereignty, promising instead to continue the party’s aim of strengthening Quebec within Canada.

The winner of the leadership contest will be announced April 12. That person will become premier until the fall general election scheduled for October.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published March 28, 2026.

Morgan Lowrie, The Canadian Press