Liberals and CWC go head-to-head in election races on Montreal’s South Shore

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Montreal may be Quebec’s last bastion of resistance to François Legault’s Coalition Avenir Québec, but as the provincial election results in the South Shore show, things change quickly once you cross the bridge.

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Several races in the Montérégie region are strongholds of CAQ led by some of the heavyweights in the match, and that trend continued on Monday night as the results came in.

Lionel Carmant, Minister of Health and Social Services, had no problem keeping his seat in the riding of Taillon, where he won 41.8 percent of the vote with 181 of 186 reported electoral colleges, more than double that of Andrée-Anne Bouvette. -Turcot of the Parti Québécois.

Carmant made headlines for the past four years by spearheading Bill 15, a proposed revision of Quebec’s youth protection regulations, adopted in April; and by announcing $1.15 billion, including $361 million in new funding, over the next five years to improve mental health services.

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Health Minister Christian Dubé, who took over from Danielle McCann in June 2020, quickly won La Prairie, winning 50.9 per cent of the vote with 147 of 161 reported electoral colleges.

Dubé was first elected as CAQ MNA for Lévis in the 2012 elections, in which the PQ won a minority government. He was re-elected in 2014, but resigned in August of that year to take over as vice president of the Caisse de dépôt, before returning to politics four years later. Despite having had “some pretty tough times over the last two years,” as he told 98.5 FM in May, Dubé said he would return for another term, after discussing it with his family.

McCann announced he would not seek re-election earlier this year, following heated criticism of the Legault government’s handling of the deadly 2020 COVID-19 outbreak at Herron’s long-term care facility in Dorval.

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That left McCann’s job at Sanguinet up for grabs. Christine Fréchette was tasked with holding the fort for the CAQ, and she rose to the challenge, taking 48.7 per cent of the vote in the riding with 131 of 147 electoral colleges reporting.

Culture and Communications Minister Nathalie Roy cruised to victory in Montarville with 45.7 percent of the vote, with 164 of 173 stations reporting, beating the PQ’s Daniel Michelin with 19 percent.

The former journalist and lawyer has held her post at the CAQ since 2012. In April, she announced a relaunch plan for Quebec’s cultural sector with $225.8 million in funding over three years to help it recover from the pandemic.

The Liberals had their own heavy hitter who was not seeking re-election. Former Health Minister Gaétan Barrette announced in November 2021 that he would not run again at La Pinière, after being stripped of his Liberal shadow cabinet role.

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The president of the Quebec Liberal Party, Linda Caron, replaced him as the party’s candidate in La Pinière, where he faced stiff competition from the CAQ’s Samuel Gatien, a family doctor who recently entered politics. Caron got 38.4 percent of the vote with 124 of 185 reported polling stations, followed by Gatien with 32.6 percent. Caron ran as a Liberal candidate in Vachon in 2018.

Another Liberal candidate, comedian Mathieu Gratton, had hoped to retain the party’s seat in Laporte, after veteran Liberal MNA Nicole Ménard announced in April that she would not seek re-election. Ménard served five terms in 15 years and was Minister of Tourism between 2008 and 2012 and President of the government group from 2014 to 2017.

Gratton had a 282-vote lead over Isabelle Poulet of the CAQ, with 131 of 187 reported polls, giving him 30.8 per cent of the vote to her 29.5 per cent.

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The CQA’s Shirley Dorismond was vying to hold on to her Marie-Victorin seat, and was well up with 33.1 per cent of the vote, with 146 of 151 reported polls, ahead of the PQ’s Pierre Nantel on 24.8. percent.

It was Dorismond’s second pick this year. She won the April by-elections to replace independent MNA Catherine Fournier, who was elected mayor of Longueuil in November. Dorismond beat Nantel in that race, in what was previously considered a safe PQ drive.

The CAQ hoped to retain its seats in a couple of close matches in which the party’s previous candidates resigned.

Marie-Belle Gendron, former dentist and president of the Grand-Roussillon chamber of commerce and industry, replaced Marie-Chantal Chassé at Châteauguay. Chassé had taken the lead with 37 percent of the vote in 2018, and Gendron followed suit, with 39.2 percent of the vote with 172 of 183 reported polls, ahead of Jean-François Primeau of the Liberals with 24.7 percent.

And the former mayor of Ste-Julie, Suzanne Roy, was seeking to replace Suzanne Dansereau in Verchères. Dansereau won equestrianism with 37.5 percent of the vote in 2018, but she announced this year that she was leaving politics. Roy defeated all the competition, claiming 51.5 percent of the vote with 192 of 200 poll reports.

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