We would much prefer to see ownership in the hands of the Maple Group, if only because we would much rather see Canadian ownership of our stock exchange. What we are first of all interested in is making sure that Montreal is able to preserve that niche or expertise.

Municipalitites were allowed to hold demerger referendums if at least 10 per cent of the electorate signed a petition calling for them and only if more than 35 per cent participated in the voting process. In the last week of the campaign Charest promised an additional $700 million in tax cuts—some of it coming for the additional equalization money from the 2007 federal budget; reduction of hospital wait times; improvement and increase of French courses at school; an increase of the number of daycare spaces; and an increase in tuition fees for university students ($50 per semester until 2012). Boisclair did not perform well as Leader of the Opposition and Charest's numbers recovered somewhat.

He lost the provincial election held September 4 2012 and resigned as Premier on September 19. On September 5 2012 Jean Charest announced he will be resigning as Quebec Liberal Leader and leaving politics.