Terrebonne riding will vote in March byelection to replace former 'super minister' Pierre Fitzgibbon

A provincial byelection will take place March 17 in Terrebonne for the seat of former Coalition Avenir Québec "super minister" Pierre Fitzgibbon, who oversaw economy, innovation and energy. 

Fitzgibbon resigned in September in a move that appeared to surprise his party and its leader, Premier François Legault, also a longtime friend. 

First elected in 2018, Fitzgibbon won again in the 2022 provincial elections in his riding of Terrebonne, north of Montreal. He played a key role in the development of an electric vehicle battery plant planned for Montreal's South Shore and had tabled a wide-ranging energy bill set to be debated shortly before his departure. 

Early Tuesday morning, posters for candidates running for Quebec's main political parties began appearing on streets and boulevards in Terrebonne, despite the fact that the byelection had not officially been called yet. It was announced a few hours later by Élections Québec by way of news release.  

Parti Québécois leader Paul St-Pierre Plamondon told reporters that his party began installing its signs after it had discovered the CAQ was already doing so. 

In a video posted to X, the CAQ announced the candidacy of Alex Gagné, president and founder of À deux pas de la réussite, a non-profit working to fight school dropout rates. 

The PQ candidate is Catherine Gentilcore, the president of the party's executive council. Gentilcore is favoured to win, according to Quebec's polling aggregator website, QC125, with 39 per cent of voting intentions compared to the CAQ's current 27 per cent. 

The Quebec Liberal Party candidate is Virginie Bouchard, the party's regional president for the region of Lanaudière. Nadia Poirier of Québec Solidaire, who also ran in 2022, will be running again. 

Terrebonne is located on Montreal's North Shore between the cities of Bois-des-Filion and Repentigny. It has a population of 80,607 people, of whom 60,184 can vote, according to Élections Québec.

Before Fitzgibbon's election in 2018, the PQ had lost in the riding only once since 1976. That was in 2007, the year Mario Dumont's former party, the Action démocratique du Québec (ADQ), was riding high.

Jean-François Therrien was elected at the time, but the PQ soon gained back the constituency in 2008 with Mathieu Traversy.

In 2018, Fitzgibbon won the riding against Traversy. He won again in 2022 with 49 per cent of votes, against 19 per cent for the PQ.