The academic and media use of the notion of populism appeared in Quebec at the beginning of the 2000s, two decades later than in France. The authors who implement this notion in order to analyze Quebec’s electoral scene navigate between references that are sometimes French, at other times North American, but that describe a “people” with social characteristics different from the social group defined by this term in France. The understanding of the dynamics of circulation, translation, and reception of the notion of “populism” in Quebec necessitates the simultaneous investigation of the trajectory of the intellectuals involved in these processes, as well as the specifics of the content of this statement. The lesser importance of the political sociology of social groups in Quebec notably influences the means of (self) representing the popular with the aid of this category.