Jacques Cartier: Challengers face off against Liberal minister

BY MARC LALONDE

marc.lalonde@transcontinental.ca

The Jacques Cartier riding has a history of making noise in protest votes but it’ll be tough to unseat Liberal incumbent Geoff Kelley in the March 26 election, considering voting results from 2003.

In the last election, Kelley beat his closest adversary, Parti Québécois candidate Guy Amyot, by over 28,000 votes and garnered about 87 per cent of valid ballots. The Equality Party won the riding in the 1989 election amidst a backlash by anglophones over language restrictions on commercial signs imposed by the Robert Bourassa Liberal government of the time.

Kelley, who has represented the riding in the National Assembly since 1994, launched his campaign last week with the message that the Liberals will continue to address local-democracy issues in the aftermath of the de-merger/agglomeration battle to reconstitute and gain some level of control over tax dollars.

“We understand there is a problem with the regional governments, but there was a problem before we reconstituted the cities, and we plan on working with them to find solutions to the problems we’re seeing,” Kelley said.

Last year, for instance, some Beaconsfield residents saw property tax increases above 30 per cent. Meanwhile, Baie d’Urfé Mayor Maria Tutino is urging her citizens to vote for the Action Démocratique du Québec over what she perceives as broken promises by the Liberal government.

But Kelley, the Minister of Indian Affairs, said he was confident that the perceived glitches in the agglomeration-council structure could be fixed.

“Remember, the agglomeration council is only 14 months old,” he said, adding government isn’t only about municipal affairs.

“It’s also about health care, Quebec’s place in Canada, the plight of immigrants and minorities, education. To focus only on municipal affairs would be to lose sight of all the other issues,” he said.

ADQ candidate Walter Rulli disagreed with Kelley, saying Liberal leader Jean Charest hoodwinked West Islanders into voting in a massive majority for Kelley in 2003.

“Residents were tricked into believing they would get their cities back by the Charest government,” he said. “I think the Liberals blew it and (West Islanders) got screwed by it. Now, the de-merged towns are being taken for granted.”

Rulli, a Pointe Claire resident, said if many Jacques Cartier voters switch allegiances, then the message he’s trying to send to the Liberals will have gotten through.

“You can’t take voters for granted,” he said. “And they have,” he said.

Parti Québécois candidate Sophia Caporicci likened Charest to former U.S. president Richard Nixon.

“Nixon won his first election by saying he was going to bring troops home from Vietnam. He won the second time around by saying — again — that he was going to end the war. That’s what Charest and the Liberals are trying to do,” she said, adding she hopes to convince historically federalist Jacques Cartier voters to go nationalist through a new sovereignist model.

“I find the idea of an independent state is closer to confederation than any other party suggests, and I think I can explain this to voters,” the Pointe Claire resident said. “Even though the West Island is not very PQ-oriented, I like the idea of unifying people.”

Green Party candidate Ryan Young blasted the Liberals for their decision to lift the university tuition freeze.

“Education is a right, and education needs more government money. In a lot of European countries, tuition is free, and I think the freeze should stay in place, at least to give everyone the right to an education,” the John Abbott College professor said. “At John Abbott, we need a new building, and we got some government funding, but we had to raise a large part of the costs ourselves. John Abbott College shouldn’t have to prostitute themselves to expand,” he said.

Québec solidaire candidate Jill Hanley, a McGill University professor, said she opted to run for the party because of its roots in social justice.

“My background is in community work and I have had the chance to meet people who are having major problems because of government policies. I feel Québec solidaire fit best with my personal point of view and (Québec solidaire’s) platform is based on a social-justice perspective and I think voters will agree,” she said.

Andy Srougi, a member of Father’s 4 Justice Quebec, will run as an independent candidate in Jacques Cartier.

The riding is comprised of Pointe Claire, Beaconsfield, Baie d’Urfé, Ste. Anne de Bellevue and southern Kirkland. There are 49,485 registered voters (based on numbers from 2003) in Jacques Cartier.