It's a very interesting topic, one which is often presented as a bit of a 'mystery' (you can find a lot of newspaper op-eds or blog posts in French about "le mystère de Québec", mostly from PQ-sympathizing leftists wondering why the capital of their future pays is so terribly right-wing). I haven't found much in the way of more academic treatment of the issue, and Pierre Drouilly's
idea of the Québec tranquille (to explain the conservatism/non-nationalism of parts of Francophone Quebec, including Quebec City's surroundings - i.e. Chaudière-Appalaches, Beauce, Bas-Saint-Laurent etc.) doesn't really hold up for the city itself.
Quebec City's conservatism is a suburban phenomenon - the inner city doesn't vote for conservatives, and in fact they tend to do pretty poorly there (almost as poorly as they do in demographically similar parts of Montreal); the older working-class, low-income and nowadays gentrified/up-and-coming neighbourhoods (Saint-Jean-Baptiste, Saint-Roch, parts of Limoilou and, to a lesser extent, Saint-Sauveur) do not vote for conservatives either - in fact, they're generally solidly left-wing and nationalist, with a very strong QS and
Option nationale vote in the last two provincial elections (particularly 2014). In addition, the wealthiest, highly educated suburban neighbourhoods - Sillery, parts of Sainte-Foy and Cap-Rouge, while typically federalist (i.e. provincial Liberal) haven't voted for conservatives very often either - you can see this in the last federal and provincial elections (but also in 2012, 2008 etc.).
So, it's the large swathes of nondescript and forgettable middle-class (neither very wealthy or poor) suburbia (though also exurbia/small satellite towns) where the ADQ/CAQ and federal Conservatives have consistently done best, where they've won their seats and where the bulk of their support comes from. Rather importantly, the separatists (PQ/Bloc) have basically become also-rans since 2003/2006 here, and it's become a matter of pretty serious concern for the PQ in the last two provincial elections. Already in 1995, the Oui to independence had 'under performed' in suburban Francophone Quebec City (and is one of the best explanations for the narrow loss). Given these demographics, it's not all that surprising that they'd favour the right or that they'd have a penchant for anti-government right-populism. The mystery is that, in other regions of Quebec, particularly Francophone suburban Montreal, demographically similar middle-class suburbs aren't right-wing and/or anti-nationalist -- or, more accurately, if they are, they don't vote for the right-wing parties (ADQ/CAQ or federal Tories) although they are susceptible to (2007 provincial elections).
Without being able to say whether these explanations hold up to close scrutiny, here are a few possible explanations as to
why suburban/exurban Quebec City is so right-wing:
Quebec City is a government city, but that doesn't mean that everybody there works for the government: per the 2011 NHS, 15% worked in 'public administration' (which is not a lot less than Ottawa), in addition to people classified under other industries whose jobs depend on provincial government contracts or what have you. There's also no guarantee that public servants vote uniformly against the right-wing party: a lot has been made of provincial public servants not voting Oui in 1995 because they were fretful that they'd lose their jobs with the PQ's (boneheaded) promise to re-employ federal public servants. In any case, the separatist party has consistently underperformed in basically every provincial and federal election in the city since then.
Quebec City is often overshadowed by the bigger city, Montreal - and that's particularly true in culture, entertainment/arts and sports. Quebec City is the historic city, the political city; Montreal is everything else, it's the big provincial metropolis. The left-wing, nationalist 'urban intelligentsia' of Montreal has tended to look down on Quebec City - often with some kind of disdain, and election results have reinforced that condescension. I mean, you can ask many educated/politicized Francophones in Montreal about Quebec City and I think you're guaranteed to get some kind of comment about how it's a weird city with somewhat crazy, almost inbred hick-ish people who listen to trash talk radio and elect crazy right-wingers. In response, Quebec City has clearly been seeking to affirm itself, seeking recognition and civic pride -- their current mayor, the populist-ish loudmouth Régis Labeaume, elected with Soviet-style majorities in the aforementioned suburbia, is a good example of that; as are all his projects, or the massive local support for the defunct Nordiques. An argument can be made that, being secondary to Montreal, Quebec City distrusts Montreal 'elites' (like much of the nationalistic intelligentsia) and this breeds protest votes and/or sympathy for anti-elitist, populist right discourses.
The city's lack of a large visible minority or Anglo population, alluded to above, is only a partial and limited explanation: many lily-white Francophone Québécois parts of the province don't have Quebec City's "odd" politics (i.e. they generally vote pretty solidly PQ), a good example being the North Shore suburbs of Montreal, although that doesn't necessarily mean they're not ideologically right-leaning. However, the lack of ethnic/linguistic diversity likely plays a role, even if I don't think it's the main one. Montreal is the cosmopolitan, multicultural and diverse metropolis and Quebec City has none of that - so many younger people in the latter are tempted to move to the former to have that multicultural experience (or, more practically, to get a job or go to university out of town). It's also important to place the city in its immediate regional context: it is at the centre of the province's most conservative region (Chaudière-Appalaches, Bas-Saint-Laurent, Beauce, Portneuf, La Jacques-Cartier) -- although it's not only only conservative, but also traditionally non-nationalist in spite of being heavily Francophone (Beauce is probably the most homogeneously Francophone Québécois region in the province), something which is quite obvious from recent federal elections, although these are also the rural regions which voted for the
créditistes in the 1960s. The late Pierre Drouilly is, to my knowledge, the only academic who looked into this phenomenon in depth, and his conclusion about what he called
le Québec tranquille was that it was an older, blue-collar, lower-income, less-educated (but not poor) region. These demographics, even if Francophone, have always had below-average support for the nationalist cause. This was quite obvious in 1995. We can assume that, in the absence of international immigration, Quebec City's population growth (and that of its exurbs now) which isn't from natural growth, largely comes from the surrounding rural areas, many of which are continuing to decline.
This
2011 blog post (despite being a blog post, the writer appears to be well-informed, not an idiot and educated) and this
2007 comment piece from a disaffected former Lévesque PQ minister (both in French) make an interesting point: wealth in Quebec City, unlike in Montreal, is neither obvious nor ostentatious (I'd also add that it also isn't associated with the old White-English ogre), so popular resentment is not directed at an easily identifiable wealthy elite (or, to add, an old economic elite historically defined by the minority language), but rather against the 'overpaid' public servant, municipal employee (Quebec's loathed
cols-bleus municipal 'labour aristocracy') or another target of right-populist rage. The 2007 piece I linked to said that provincial civil servants earn less than the municipal employees, and the private sector knows it earns less than any public servant. Mix that in with anti-tax and anti-government sentiments, and voilà. To use him as an example again, Régis Labeaume is usually in the news whenever he's going on about a feud with municipal employees over their pension fund or something.
In 2003, the PQ was tossed out in every seat in the city besides Agnès Maltais' downtown seat (Taschereau), which incidentally remains the lone PQ seat in the city today. Like in Montreal and its suburbs, there was widespread anger with the PQ that year over its imposed municipal amalgamations (unlike in Montreal, only two former - small - municipalities later voted to de-amalgamate in Quebec City). In suburban Quebec City, while amalgamation rage has died off, the PQ likely remains seen as a high-tax, 'big-government' party, as well as being poor 'defenders' of the city's interests (likely self-reinforcing since, by not electing PQ members, they don't get much representation in a PQ government, although Quebec is probably bound to be ruled by the PLQ Mafia forever now so that's moot).
The talk-radio point is important as well, as has been mentioned by several posts here. Quebec City is notorious for its very popular crass hard-right talk radio shows, and two of their most famous hosts have sought elected office: Jeff Fillion, who ran for mayor in 2009 (but did poorly), and André Arthur, the independent-conservative (cryptofascist) MP for Portneauf-Jacques-Cartier for two terms (2006-2011); both are (pretty crass) right-wing anti-separatists, in both cases because they say an independent Quebec would be a socialist hellscape. Whether this affection for right-wing talk radio is a cause or effect of Quebec City's "odd" politics is unclear.
