Parti Québécois Leader Pauline Marois is hoping to earn a seat at the national assembly Monday when voters go to the polls for a provincial byelection in Charlevoix.

Marois is running in the riding northeast of Quebec City, where she owns a lakeside cabin. 

Quick byelection facts
• Polls are open from 9:30 a.m. to 8 p.m. ET. • About 33,000 voters are registered in the Charlevoix riding. • About 13 per cent of eligible voters cast ballots in advance polls earlier this month.

She's running against Conrad Harvey, a civil servant and candidate for the Action Démocratique du Québec, the province's official opposition.

The PQ leader said she's eager to get back to the national assembly where she can better attack the governing Liberals on their handling of the forestry crisis, which has cost Quebec thousands of jobs.

"It is very hard for many people, in different regions," she told CBC News. "Even in major, and smaller cities."

The stakes are high for Marois in Monday's byelection. Should she lose, she'd be the first Quebec party leader ever to do so.

Harvey, her ADQ rival, said Marois' candidacy in the riding has drawn higher-than-average attention to the byelection. 

Candidates in the Charlevoix byelection
• Paul Biron  — Parti démocratie chrétienne du Québec (Christian Democratic Party of Quebec) • Claude Gagnon — Independent • Conrad Harvey — Action Démocratique du Québec • Daniel Laforest — Independent • François Robert Lemire — Parti république du Québec • Pauline Marois — Parti Québécois • David Turcotte — Green Party of Quebec

The Liberals aren't fielding a candidate, preferring to ease Marois' way into the national assembly, where they can test her ideas, said Health Minister Philippe Couillard.

"What is her project for Quebec, apart from separation from Canada?" he asked last week.

Couillard says if Marois wins, the Liberals will have more opportunities to press her on past decisions she made while in office as a PQ cabinet minister.

The Charlevoix riding was represented  by the Liberal Party from 1962 to 1989, with the PQ's Rosaire Bertrand holding the seat from 1994 until earlier this year, when he stepped down.

Tempest in a land plot

Marois is threatening to sue the Montreal Gazette after the newspaper published a report alleging her West Island home on Ile Bizard was built on public land.

The Gazette article raised questions about the land on which Marois and her partner Claude Blanchet built their home.

The paper said the land was expropriated by the Parti Québécois government in 1978 to extend Highway 440, but was subject to a questionable dezoning process to make way for the home.

PQ Leader Pauline Marois, seen at her nomination meeting in August, is vying to represent the riding of Charlevoix in the national assembly.
(Jacques Boissinot/Canadian Press)

In a printed release, the PQ said Marois obtained a right of passage over the land to access her house, that no illegal action was taken, and the couple understands it may be a temporary situation.

The party accused the paper of waging a smear campaign against Marois as she goes to the polls.