He criticized the proposed Canada-United States Free Trade Agreement on the grounds that it would hurt manufacturing jobs in his riding.
Shortly before election day, Nadeau and six other NDP candidates with Quebec nationalist views held a press conference to denounce Canada's policies on bilingualism.
[6] Nadeau favoured the creation of an autonomous provincial party, while Morin initially opposed the idea before declaring his neutrality.
Nadeau later described the original platform as having resulted from the "fertile imagination" of a single party worker who misunderstood the instructions of its policy committee.
Nadeau opposed this approach on strategic grounds (notwithstanding his prior expression of nationalist views), arguing that it would not help the party's efforts to grow its base of support.
[12] Some political observers noted that the focus on nationalism prevented the NDP from winning support among anglophone Liberals who were disgruntled with the increasingly nationalist policies of premier Robert Bourassa.
He resigned as party leader on September 26, 1989, one day after the election, saying that the Quebec NDP would never be able to succeed because of a "hard core of Marxists" hindering its development.