What matters to the Mayor of Gatineau is that her city and region are now at the heart of the political contest between Quebec political parties and their local candidates.
Frankly, I don’t care who it is. What I hope is that they realize that this city is the fourth largest in Quebec and that it has been neglected for too long.
she says in an interview.
For decades, the Outaouais could be painted red in advance on the map of election results in Quebec.
But a new dynamic has been at work since 2018, when the Coalition Avenir Québec (CAQ) won victories in Papineau, Chapleau and Gatineau. The first two ridings had been in the hands of the Quebec Liberal Party (PLQ) since 1981, while Gatineau had been red since 1962.
The results of the last election, according to the mayor of Gatineau, are no strangers to confirmation this week that Quebec will build a new 600-bed hospital in the Outaouais by the early 2030s.
promised by the CAQ in the 2018 election, the long-awaited hospital is expected to help the region emerge from its dependence on the medical system across the border in Ontario, and better withstand crises like the COVID-19 pandemic.
What changed in 2018 is that the candidates of the different parties saw here a possibility that things would change. They fought to convince us
adds France Bélisle.
Even Hull is at stake
Declining in polls across Quebec, the QLP can hardly afford to lose its last two seats in the Outaouais, namely Hull and Pontiac.
For the moment, the projections of the Qc125.com site give the CAQ ahead in four of the region’s five ridings, including Hull, which has been represented by Liberals for 61 of the past 66 years. The only exception came in 1976, when the Parti Québécois won by two votes.
” If the QLP does not keep Hull, it will probably also lose the majority of the seats in Laval and also the seats in French-speaking Montreal… Losing Hull means that the Liberals will probably fall below 20 seats. »
Liberal MP for Hull since 2008, Maryse Gaudreault believes that the saga of the future Outaouais hospital – including a long public debate on the best site to build it – illustrates her ability to represent the region well in the National Assembly.
She worked with a coalition that opposed the construction of the facility in a residential area north of the city of Gatineau. Finally, Quebec rallied to the regional consensus and will build the hospital closer to the city center, in an industrial park better served by public transit.
The new health campus will be located in his constituency.
We don’t need a CAQ MP in Hull for a government – no matter which one – to make big plans in a riding
says Maryse Gaudreault in an interview.
She promises to give a firm battle to the CAQ in the next elections on two main fronts: the place of Quebec within Canada and the protection of individual freedoms.
According to Maryse Gaudreault, whose percentage of the vote fell from 55% to 34% in the last election, voters in Hull should remember that there will be no only one option
federalist on the ballot in the next election, the QLP.
The last mandate of the Coalition Avenir Québec has shown us that the protection of individual rights is not its priority.
she adds, referring to laws 21 on the secularism of the state and 96 on the French language.
The CAQ will rely on two candidates
Mathieu Lacombe, MNA for Papineau and minister responsible for the Outaouais, says that the entire region emerged a winner from the CAQ breakthrough.
I often said it during the 2018 election campaign, all it took was a little blue spot on the electoral map in Outaouais for the day after the election to win for the following decades.
explains the Minister of the Family. It would mean that we would never again be taken for granted, that the political parties would be in constant competition to be more attractive and to deliver the goods to us to win our votes.
Without giving their names, he says that the CAQ has already recruited two brilliant women, involved in their community
to run in the counties of Hull and Pontiac in the next elections.
Québec solidaire finished third in Hull in the last two elections.
Its candidate this year will be Mathieu Perron-Dufour, an economist who teaches at the University of Quebec in Outaouais. He says he wants to help the region get its share of the pie in terms of funding for health, education and culture, among others.
It’s time to put an end to chronic underfunding in the Outaouais
he recently launched in an open letter, asking among other things for more nurses and doctors.
Éric Duhaime, the leader of the Conservative Party of Quebec, notes that the Outaouais has demonstrated its openness to political change at the federal level for a long time. The region had been part of the orange wave in 2011, having elected MPs from the Bloc Québécois and the Conservative Party of Canada in the previous elections.
This greater diversity makes the region more attractive to all parties just months before the provincial election, he said, adding that he was pleasantly surprised by the reception he received in the Outaouais this year.
” It is clear that all political parties will have to concentrate more efforts in the Outaouais. Nobody can say that the five counties are guaranteed to a political party, on the contrary. It will be an important battleground for the next election campaign. »
Reference-ici.radio-canada.ca