The Shotgun Blog
« The Charter's other 'notwithstanding' clause | Main | Our Flayed and Dismembered Morality »
Friday, January 27, 2006
Breaking Down The Quebec Vote
On December 3 I identifited 12 vulnerable Quebec Liberal ridings in this article. 9 of the 12 ended up going either BQ or CPC, the exceptions being Honoré-Mercier, Hull-Aylmer and Outremont. Le blog de Polyscopique has an excellent article up noting among other things that in 5 of 6 of the seats the BQ took from the Liberals the BQ actually dropped in support compared to the 2004 election. The CPC took eight seats from the Bloc and two from the Liberals.
The popular vote broke down 42% BQ, 24% CPC, 20% Liberal, with the Bloc taking 51 seats, the Liberals 13, the CPC 10, and one Independent. Here's a closer look at what happened in the ridings that were in play, my pre-election comments in italics:
Ahuntsic: Liberal incumbent Eleni Bakopanos took 21234 votes to BQ candidate Maria Mourani's 20020 in 2004. Look for Mourani to take the rematch in this Greek-flavoured riding.
Mouriani took it by less than a thousand votes in this working class north island riding. This was not one of the CPC's better showings.
Maria Mourani BQ 19428 38.94% X
Eleni Bakopanos LIB 18594 37.27%
Étienne Morin CON 6089 12.2%
Honoré-Mercier: BQ candidate Gérard Labelle has good chance to knock off sitting Liberal Pablo Rodriguez; this riding is not especially separatist but I suspect some Liberal support will go to the CPC here.
Rodriguez ended up winning by almost 2,000 votes. From CBC: "According to the 2001 census, 61 per cent have French as a mother tongue, while almost 19 per cent cited Italian as their ethnic origin, third highest in Canada. The total immigrant population is almost 23 per cent."
Pablo Rodriguez LIB 19632 38.39% X
Gérard Labelle BQ 17693 34.6%
Angelo M. Marino CON 8950 17.5%
Jeanne-Le Ber: Liza Frulla won this by only 72 votes in 2004; I can't see how this tainted cabinet minister will get re-elected in this working class, largely French-speaking riding.
Frulla did not come close to getting re-elected here:
Thierry St-Cyr BQ 20229 40.23% X
Liza Frulla LIB 17116 34.04%
Pierre-Olivier Brunelle CON 5936 11.8%
Outremont: BQ star candidate former MNA Jacques Léonard and NDP "economist" Léo-Paul Lauzon are vying to unseat Jean Lapierre. This will be a battle, like one of those Nordiques-Habs playoff games of yesteryear.
I think Lauzon sucked a ton of votes from the BQ which allowed for the easy Liberal win here:
Jean-C. Lapierre LIB 14281 35.13% X
Jacques Léonard BQ 11714 28.81%
Léo-Paul Lauzon NDP 6965 17.13%
Daniel Fournier CON 5218 12.84%
Papineau: Pierre Pettigrew only won this by 468 seats last time and stands a real chance at losing his seat to BQ candidate Vivian Barbot, a Hatian-Canadian and ex-Vice-présidente de la Fédération des femmes du Québec.
I'll bet Pettigrew is seriously ticked at Paul Martin for blocking his bid to become OAS honcho. The OAS is similar to the UN, only more bureaucratic and not as effective, so it wouldn't break my heart to see him end up there.
Vivian Barbot BQ 17775 40.77% X
Pierre Pettigrew LIB 16785 38.5%
Mustaque A. Sarker CON 3628 8.32%
Gatineau: Another narrow Liberal win in 2004, I think this will go BQ. Incumbent Françoise Boivin squares off against colourful BQ candidate Richard Nadeau.
This was an easy win for the BQ in a riding within sight of the Peace Tower. Puzzling, since "In the 1995 referendum, 72 per cent of this riding voted against sovereignty." I think a heavyweight CPC candidate could take this riding in the future.
Richard Nadeau BQ 21093 39.25% X
Françoise Boivin LIB 16826 31.31%
Patrick Robert CON 9014 16.77%
Hull-Aylmer: Flyboy BQ candidate Alain Charette has a chance to take this riding, which lays across the river from the House of Commons. The CPC is fielding an exceptional candidate here in Gilles Poirier.
The Liberals held this one but it was close. CBC says "In the 1995 referendum, 75 per cent in this riding opposed sovereignty for Quebec."
Marcel Proulx LIB 17573 32.69% X
Alain Charette BQ 15788 29.37%
Gilles Poirier CON 9247 17.2%
Pontiac: Paint it blue. Experienced CPC candidate Lawrence Cannon should knock off Liberal incumbent David "Abotech" Smith.
Cannon wins this one easily and the Liberal incumbent finished 3rd with 24% of the vote:
Lawrence Cannon CON 16067 33.63% X
Christine Émond Lapointe BQ 13790 28.87%
David Smith LIB 11539 24.15%
Louis-Saint-Laurent: Paint it blue. in addition to being sssssmoking hot, CPC candidate Josée Verner is an experienced policy wonk who finished a strong second to BQ incumbent Bernard Cleary in 2004.
She won in a landslide. There was one report that 7 Quebec City Liberal candidates were sharing one campaign office, and looking at the 6.41% Liberal vote here I can't say I blame them.
Josée Verner CON 28606 57.68% X
Bernard Cleary BQ 11977 24.15%
Isa Gros-Louis LIB 3180 6.41%
Beauce: Liberal incumbent Claude Drouin is not seeking re-election; if BQ candidate Patrice Moore can swing a few disaffected votes his way in this relatively federalist riding then chalk up another Liberal loss. UPDATE: I just noticed Maxime "Son of former Beauce Tory MP Gilles" Bernier is running for the Conservatives; this will be a good race.
Look at this freaking huge landslide. More voters voted for Maxime Bernier - a CPC candidate in Quebec - than Monte Solberg.
Maxime Bernier CON 36915 67.01% X
Patrice Moore BQ 10997 19.96%
Jacques Lussier LIB 4364 7.92%
Brome-Missisquoi:Shady Liberal incument Denis Paradis won by just over 1000 votes in 2004. This could be a good one: BQ candidate Christian Ouellet lists "Professeur, Université de Montréal, école d’architecture" among other things on is CV. CPC candidate David Marler is an award winning expert in international law and would make an excellent MP.
The Bloc took this one easily:
Christian Ouellet BQ 18600 38.31% X
Denis Paradis LIB 13572 27.95%
David Marler CON 9879 20.35%
Brossard-La Prairie: Liberal incumbent Jacques Saada took this riding by ~2500 votes in 2004. BQ candidate Marcel Lussier is an engineer and an experienced campaigner. Whoa, what is this??? Here is a guy to watch: CPC candidate Tenzin Dargyal Khangsar
Goodbye former president of the Quebec wing of the Liberal Party of Canada Jacques Saada:
Marcel Lussier BQ 21433 37.11% X
Jacques Saada LIB 20190 34.96%
Tenzin D. Khangsar CON 9749 16.88%
It is a great day to be a Conservative in Quebec, where support is broad if not deep; as Polyscopique astutely observed:
...the Conservative candidate finished in second place in 40 Québec ridings compared with 14 second places for the Liberals. In other words, only in 25 Québec ridings has the Conservative candidate finished in third place or behind whereas the Liberals finished in third place or worse in 48 or almost two-thirds of Québec's ridings.
Posted by Anonalogue on January 27, 2006 in Canadian Politics | Permalink
TrackBack
TrackBack URL for this entry:
https://www.typepad.com/services/trackback/6a00d834515b5d69e200d8346fae8553ef
Listed below are links to weblogs that reference Breaking Down The Quebec Vote:
Comments
I'm just trying to figure out how strong the Liberal vote still is in Quebec.
That 20% of the popular vote--was it bunched in Montreal? Or are they still a force in the ROQ?
Posted by: SheilaG | 2006-01-27 8:33:12 AM
Has anyone heard about the wide spread voter fraud that was going on during this election? We have a conservative MP that is investigating the matter in his own riding. According to his areas local poll he had almost 50% of the vote going into the election, and on election day he won by only 3,000 votes! I hear Toronto is having a ton of complaints about this as well. Why is the main stream media not covering any of this?
Posted by: Dave | 2006-01-27 9:02:19 AM
Radio-Canada and CBC are too busy reporting on poor terrorists resisting deportation or drug traffickers.
Posted by: Rémi houle | 2006-01-27 10:26:06 AM
It appears the Libs live and die by the immigrant vote. Honoré-Mercier, Outremont and St. Laurent-Cartierville all have large immigrant populations. Dion's riding is almost 50% immigrant and he took 60% of the vote. He just hammered the BQ and CPC.
Posted by: DJ | 2006-01-27 12:38:25 PM
The comments to this entry are closed.