Christine Fréchette

She led the Coalition Avenir Québec and was Premier of Quebec from April 2026, having been an MNA since 2022. She was the CAQ's candidate for Premier in the 5 October 2026 general election, in which the party won no seats and she lost in Trois-Rivières.

Career

Fréchette was born on 15 August 1970, studied economics and international trade at HEC Montréal (1992) and international relations at Université Laval (1994). Once affiliated with the Parti Québécois, she has belonged to the CAQ since 2014. Elected for Sanguinet in 2022 with 48.8%, she was Minister of Immigration, Francisation and Integration from 2022 to 2024 and Minister of Economy, Innovation and Energy from 2024 to January 2026. She won the CAQ leadership on 12 April 2026 with 57.9% against Bernard Drainville and became the 33rd Premier on 15 April.

Positions

The CAQ, which Wikipedia places at centre-right to right-wing, is Quebec-nationalist but not secessionist, secularist and favours restrictive immigration. As immigration minister she set family-reunification quotas that, according to Wikipedia, drew legal challenges and left long processing backlogs. She called the 5 October 2026 election; the CAQ lost all its seats, which Wikipedia calls the worst defeat of a sitting provincial government in Canadian history.

Summarised automatically from the linked sources. Wikipedia · Wikipedia · Wikipedia

Photo: TVA Nouvelles, CC BY 3.0, Wikimedia Commons (cropped)