"Sleep well, all is good"

Six months ago we had Rudy Husny on to ask whether Christine Fréchette could pull off a Mark Carney-style win in Quebec. The answer arrived Monday night: zero seats, down from ninety, and the premier lost her own riding. Rudy's first words on the result: "Kim Campbell can sleep better tonight."

So we got him back on three hours of sleep and a lot of Coca-Cola. Rudy was a senior adviser in the Harper government, ran twice for the federal Conservatives in Outremont, and now calls Quebec politics for CJAD, FM 107,7, and Radio-Canada. He's also the man who said all campaign that Duhaime would have a target on his back.

What we got into:

• Why the PQ should be relieved it lost the majority. Twenty-eight percent of the vote, the lowest share for any government in Quebec's history, and a referendum question that now needs another party's votes. Rudy calls it the best outcome the PQ could have asked for.
• Nineteen is the perfect number. Duhaime asked for twelve seats and got nineteen. Rudy's advice: take the whole caucus into a forest for a week before the Assembly sits.
• The House of Cards that ended like Veep. The CAQ's foreign-interference alarm, who pushed it, and why Rudy thinks comms classes will teach it for years.
• Forty Liberal seats, and a wall at eighty. Why Milliard's result is both a comeback and a ceiling.
• Wheels, no engine. The CAQ still has about a million dollars in public funding on the way, a voter file, and no MNAs. Who picks up the vehicle?
• The Trump card has expired. Fréchette tried to play it; Andrew thinks David Eby is finding the same thing in B.C.

Also discussed: why Stephen Harper's 2006 Quebec map and Duhaime's 2026 map are the same map, Pierre Poilievre rushing to congratulate a man who once needed his help, PR as the one thing all four parties now want (funny how that works), Quebec solidaire's Politburo keeping the lights on, PSPP's first hundred days, and a short lecture from Andrew on which side of the border one buys beer.

Rudy's verdict for anglophone Canada: forget about the referendum for a while. Seventy percent of Quebecers would still vote No, and nothing about Monday changed that.

Find Rudy on Dans les couloirs and at @rudyhusny.

00:00 Welcome — Zero seats for the CAQ
00:56 Introducing Rudy Husny — Quebec political analyst and former Harper staffer
02:49 The resilience story — How the PQ and Conservatives came back from nothing
05:41 Best case scenario — Why a minority government works for everyone
08:30 The referendum question — Is Quebec Solidaire the roadblock?
12:02 The Liberal ceiling — Can they break out of the Anglophone base?
15:06 Éric Duhaime's strategic brilliance — The 47 billion dollar announcement
21:36 Proportional representation — Will this be the end of majority governments?
21:44 The CAQ collapse — From 90 seats to zero with half a million votes
35:27 The Trump card fails — Why provincial voters wanted local issues
35:49 The first 100 days — What PSPP will prioritize and where he'll pick fights
42:15 Sleep well, all is good — Why this wasn't a referendum election