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Quebec general election, 2015
The 2015 Quebec general election has been seen as a political realignment in the politics of the province, with the Parti Québécois (PQ) under François Legault winning a majority of seats despite a very narrow plurality of the popular vote over the Liberal Party and incumbent premier Line Beauchamp. Beauchamp, the first female premier in Quebec, had inherited a government increasingly at odds with itself as tensions within the broad-tent party erupted into multiple cabinet resignations under Beauchamp's predecessor, Stéphane Dion.
The election of Legault as PQ leader in 2013 was seen as a turning point in the history of the PQ. Traditionally a social democratic, sovereigntist party that previously pushed a 1981 referendum on Quebec independence while in government, Legault's vision of the party has been characterized as economically nationalist with a strong fiscal conservative streak, and that pushes for more autonomy within Canada than leaving it. The shake-up of the guiding ideology of the PQ resulted in an increase in support for the Rassemblement démocrate pour Québéc ("Democratic Rally for Quebec" or RDQ), the province's left-wing alternative to two major parties led by former union leader Nycole Turmel and played a key role in the shift away from several minor parties like the Parti Vert (the province's Green Party affiliate) and Alliance nationale (an attempt by conservatives to revive the old Union Nationale for modern Quebec) towards the two main parties.
Legault would lead the PQ to a solid majority in large part due to the inefficiency of Liberal vote distribution, with that party being heavily concentrated in Montreal at the expense of the rest of the province. His government has already proven controversial for many of the PQ old guard, including voting to accede to new federal pipelines despite their unpopularity in the province, a reduction of taxes for province-based businesses and relaxations of provincial environmental standards to attract companies from the rest of Canada. Persistent rumors of a breakaway party of old-line social democratic sovereigntists have continually dogged the Legault-era PQ and it is unknown if Quebec will have a fourth party in its assembly after the next elections.