Parti Québécois presents a candidate — without a riding

“At the start of 2026, the Parti Québécois is kicking things into high gear,” said Paul St-Pierre Plamondon as he began a press conference on Tuesday to make a rather unusual announcement.

The PQ leader held the media event to introduce the party’s first candidate, Sandra Hernandez, before even determining which riding she will run in for the general election scheduled for the fall.

“This is something new, but expect more of the same. Expect a pace over the coming weeks and months where we introduce people who are already committed, who have been thoroughly vetted, and whose qualities leave no doubt that they will be accepted by a riding,” he explained.

According to St-Pierre Plamondon, riding executives will first need to decide whether or not they’ll accept candidates who don’t come from the usual nomination process, which remains the rule to follow.

Extensive international experience

Hernandez, originally from Longueuil, is a United Nations employee currently living in Colombia, where she is participating in the United Nations Verification Mission on the implementation of the peace agreement between the Colombian government and the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC). She has an impressive track record in international missions, which have taken her to India, Pakistan, Afghanistan, and Haiti over the past 15 years.

“I have a wonderful job that has allowed me to work and live in places that many people will never have the chance to visit and to see how other countries function, how other people live and under what conditions,” she said. “The more we see this world, the more we learn how it works, and the more we travel, the more we understand that Quebec can and must be independent.

“I don’t know anyone who regrets managing their own affairs, deciding on their economy, immigration, taxes, social services—in short, having the power to make decisions about everything that affects them,” she said.

According to her, “independence is not a partisan project. It is a unifying national project that respects the diversity of opinions and sensibilities around a common goal: to make Quebec a state that is fully in control of its future. It is also, let’s face it, a matter of survival. We will not survive as a people if we do not become independent. We will see our language become a minority language, then a foreign language in Montreal, then in Greater Montreal,” she said.

Rush of PQ candidates

Sandra Hernandez is the daughter of immigrants, and Paul St-Pierre Plamondon has stated that in the coming weeks, we will see “several candidates from first-, second-, or third-generation immigrant backgrounds.”

According to him, these candidates all have in common “the rejection of community identities and the desire to work for a Quebec in which they are 100 per cent integrated and 100 per cent committed to our future. In my opinion, that is the message of inclusion, cooperation, and social peace for our future.”

The PQ leader’s comments also show that there is a rush to become a PQ candidate, with polls placing the party in power if elections were held today.

“In some ridings, five very high-quality candidates have already been announced. Can we do this in an orderly fashion, with the understanding that not everyone can win? (...) Rarely in history has a party gone from three members to potentially forming a government. So, you can imagine the number of nominations and the number of exercises.”

St-Pierre Plamondon acknowledged that the party’s organizational capacity was being pushed to its limits, especially since the political party saw its budgets melt away following the poor results of the 2022 elections, where it won only three seats.

- By Pierre Saint-Arnaud in Montreal

- This report by The Canadian Press was first published in French on Jan. 20, 2026.