Canada's Quebec shifts right as CAQ projected to win majority (UPDATE 2)

The centre-right Coalition Avenir Quebec is on track to win power for the first time in Canada's second most populous province, according to early results from Elections Quebec on Monday, after leader Francois Legault ran a campaign promising voters to change and curbs on immigration.

The CAQ is expected to win a majority of seats in the province of Quebec's legislature, in a blow to the incumbent Liberals which have held power for 13 of the last 15 years, election officials said.

"My team and I are very eager to get to work for you," Legault said Monday night on Twitter.

The projected CAQ win would follow a shift to the right in Ontario, where Premier Doug Ford’s Progressive Conservative government swept to power in June, ending 15 years of Liberal rule in Canada’s most populous province, which includes Toronto.

The CAQ promised voters to change from the Liberals, which are not connected to the federal Liberals. Legault also campaigned on a controversial plan to take in 10,000 fewer immigrants a year and to expel new residents who fail tests on French and Quebec values within three years.

Elections Quebec said on its website that the CAQ was ahead in 75 out of the 125 seats in the province’s legislature, with the Liberals in second place with 33 seats.

The election in Quebec, home to the majority of Canada’s influential dairy farmers, came as Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s Liberal government decided to open up the country’s dairy industry to the United States, as part of concessions made to strike a last-minute deal for a renegotiated NAFTA.

Trudeau's Liberals, which are betting on gains in Quebec to offset expected losses elsewhere in a 2019 federal election, could find themselves clashing with the CAQ on changes to the protectionist dairy system.

Legault had called the deal "disappointing" earlier on Monday and said he would look at "all options" to defend the province's farmers.

Trade and the question of how many outsiders should be let into the majority French-speaking province had eclipsed arguments over separatism that have dominated politics in Quebec in recent decades.

The business-friendly CAQ is not expected to make any major economic changes from the Liberals which paid down debt and reported successive balanced budgets, said Robert Kavcic, senior economist at BMO Capital Markets.

Quebec achieved near-record low unemployment and real growth in the gross domestic product in 2017 that broke 3 per cent for the first time since 2000.

(With inputs from agencies.)