With the Parti Québécois in third place in recent polls, the party will go into this fall's election without three — and possibly more — of its biggest names.
On Tuesday afternoon, veteran Quebec City MNA Agnes Maltais announced she wouldn't seek another term in the National Assembly, saying she felt "burned out" by politics.
Since 1998, she has represented the riding of Taschereau, a longtime PQ stronghold she held on to by just a few hundred votes in the 2014 election.
PQ leader Jean-François Lisée was on hand for her announcement.
Earlier in the day, Lac St. Jean MNA Alexandre Cloutier made a similar announcement in Alma, and gave a similar reason — saying he no longer feels motivated by politics.
However, he left the door open for a possible comeback somewhere down the road.
Cloutier was first elected to the National Assembly in 2007, and at 40 years old, had been considered one of the PQ's fresh young faces.
He was named to cabinet as Pauline Marois' minister of intergovernmental affairs during her short-lived minority government in 2012.
He ran for and lost the party's leadership on two occasions in recent years — losing to Pierre-Karl Péladeau in 2015, and to current leader Jean-François Lisée a year later.
Aussant to make comeback?
Meanwhile, longtime Pointe-aux-Trembles MNA Nicole Léger made a similar announcement in Montreal a half an hour after Cloutier made his announcement.
Léger, 62, joined the PQ in its early days, serving in various executive positions before winning a by-election in 1996. She has served as the PQ's MNA for Pointe-aux-Trembles ever since, except for a brief interruption between 2006 and 2008.
She's the party's most senior female MNA, and has served in the cabinets of Lucien Bouchard, Bernard Landry and Pauline Marois.
Le Devoir is reporting Jean-Martin Aussant, who broke with the party in 2011 to form his own separatist party, the now-defunct Option Nationale, may be in line for the PQ's nomination in the riding.
During her announcement, Léger vehemently denied rumors that the party was pushing her aside to make way for Aussant — insisting her decision to quit was hers alone.
Shuyee Lee/CJAD 800 NEWS
Departures are 'normal': Lisée
Lisée, who was also by Léger's side at her news conference, said it's normal to see such departures at this time during an election year, adding it's responsible of those leaving to make their intentions known before the campaign begins in earnest.
Lisée said his party, like the Quebec Liberals, are facing departures and they are linked to personal reasons, not to polls or leadership issues.
"The people who spoke to you today, Nicole Léger and Alexandre Cloutier, have told you otherwise. These are individual decisions of a handful of people who say 'For me, I'm turning the page on active politics,' " said Lisée.
Lisée said he is confident they will be able to recruit more candidates and that there will "not be a dearth but an avalanche" of them.
But reports are suggesting the PQ, which has been stuck in third place in recent public opinion polls behind the governing Liberals and the Coalition Avenir Québec, may lose some other key MNAs before the Oct. 1 election.
Le Devoir's report suggests Abitibi-Ouest MNA François Gendron, the dean of the National Assembly who was first elected alongside René Lévesque in 1976, and Claude Cousineau, who's held the north-shore Bertrand riding since 1998, are also thinking about jumping ship.
Gendron's name was last in the news in November, when he was criticized for using the n-word during a presentation at a high school.
The Journal de Québec, meanwhile, suggested aside from Maltais, former finance minister Nicolas Marceau was also pondering his political future.
-CJAD 800's Richard Deschamps and Shuyee Lee contributed to this report.