November 17, 2025 – Pollara Senior Advisor André Turcotte’s latest column in The Hub focusses on Québec and a new Pollara Strategic Insights poll that explores the tumultuous issue and political terrain there.
He finds that all is not well in La Belle Province. The public mood is darkening, the tone is turning more brittle, and the confidence that once sustained the province’s institutions has begun to erode. From paralyzed public transit and drought-stricken waterways to an increasingly fractious public sector and a demoralized health-care system, Quebec stands at a crossroads.
On no policy front has Premier Legault’s leadership been more severely tested than that which Quebecers hold most dear: health care. His government’s Bill 2 may well define his legacy, for better or worse. Presented as a practical measure to improve access to family doctors – by linking part of doctors’ pay to performance targets, with sanctions for those who fail to meet access standards – it has detonated a backlash of extraordinary intensity. Doctors’ federations denounced it as punitive, demoralizing, and counterproductive. Medical students at all four universities voted to strike. Thousands of physicians are mobilizing for a mass demonstration in Montreal. To many, Bill 2 symbolizes a government that has lost its ear; one that no longer persuades but imposes.
The findings from a new Pollara study, published exclusively by The Hub, bear this out. Quebecers are split almost evenly on this issue, with a narrow majority opposed to the legislation and four-in-ten supportive. However, the topline hides a landscape of fractures. Among younger Quebecers aged 18 to 34, opposition stands at nearly two-thirds, reflecting generational alienation and economic vulnerability. These are citizens raised on scarcity—of housing, of affordable food, of access to family doctors—and they read Bill 2 as another case of government discipline masquerading as reform.
Among those aged 35 to 54, skepticism persists: This sandwich generation shoulders both economic and familial burdens, and its members see little evidence that tying pay to quotas will shorten wait times or rebuild trust. Older Quebecers, by contrast, are more divided. Some applaud the push for accountability, recalling eras when government was decisive and the system worked. Others, weary of endless reorganizations, fear that coercion will only drive doctors out of the public system entirely.
The divides also extend along gender and regional lines.
To read the column and see the full Pollara survey results, visit The Hub.
