Election traces new political map for Quebec, and the West Island

BY ANDY BLATCHFORD

andy.blatchford@transcontinental.ca

As Quebecers head into a political landscape unseen in more than a century, the West Island remains a Liberal bastion - with a few dents.

“I think the Liberals are now going to have to listen to what their constituents want,” Baie d’Urfé Mayor Maria Tutino said yesterday morning.

Liberals finished strong in local ridings, but candidates from the Action démocratique du Québec, and even the Green Party, snatched votes to surge into second- and third- place finishes in the region.

But it was ADQ Leader Mario Dumont who stole the show on Monday night, as his party swept into Opposition to the new Liberal minority government — Quebec’s first since 1878.

Reverberations from the National Assembly’s new dynamic will likely have a local impact.

Tutino and two other West Island mayors - Ste. Anne de Bellevue’s Bill Tierney and Senneville’s George McLeish - threw their support behind Mario Dumont’s ADQ in January, after the Liberals failed to adjust Montreal’s agglomeration council.

Dumont pledged to abolish the council in charge of island services, which the mayors of Montreal’s de-merged cities say is unfairly taxing their citizens.

Tutino said her support for Dumont has positioned Baie d’Urfé in a favourable spot.

“We now have an ally in the ADQ and I think we should also have, based on the results of (Monday), a more motivated Liberal government to make corrections to the agglomeration.” Tutino said. “If (the Liberals) don’t fix the cracks that they saw this time, they will become canyons next time around.”

Kirkland Mayor John Meaney, a vocal critic of Premier Jean Charest’s handling of municipal de-mergers, said the Liberals “procrastinated themselves to death” on agglomeration.

“I think it’s great,” Meaney said of the election results. “During the election, I think (Dumont) said all the right things. Now, how will he react? He’s got to become a leader.”

But Concordia University political science professor Harold Chorney was cautious when discussing Dumont’s future, especially in urban and suburban regions.

“When you’re sitting there with a second-place finish and all the momentum behind you, you’ve got plenty of cards,” said Chorney, who taught Dumont at Concordia in the early 1990s. “The problem for him is his personnel. His members of the assembly are almost all rookies.”

Chorney, who recalls the ADQ leader as “very intelligent” and “doggedly curious,” said for Dumont to break through in the Montreal area he has to get rid of party members with anti-immigrant and anti-Semitic beliefs.

“These are not things that make him very attractive to urban voters,” the Dollard des Ormeaux resident said. “They wouldn’t want to go near him with a barge pole because of that.”

Chorney also doubts there will be any adjustments to the agglomeration council.

“The agglomeration issue might come up, but my hunch is that this issue is one that won’t be delivered on,” he said. “Politicians have short memories about promises.”

Still, Chorney said the election results sent a message to local politicians.

“The electorate is a much surlier beast than it was a long time ago,” he said. “Now people are much more demanding and are less loyal to parties.”

Robert Baldwin Liberal MNA Pierre Marsan, meanwhile, said voters are looking for more from his government.

“The population has chosen a minority government, we have to accept it,” he said yesterday. “We have to be more attentive to what people want. We also have to show people what we are doing is very good (governing).”

Marsan understands that the agglomeration council was a priority to many West Island voters.

“The agglomeration situation is something people want changed,” Marsan said. “Maybe we weren’t fast enough but we are working on it.”

As for the ADQ’s significant gains, Marsan said Dumont will now have to provide specifics to promises he made during the campaign, such as abolishing school boards and the agglomeration councils.

“Dumont has to give some answers to many issues,” he said. “It’s easy to say he will abolish school boards and the agglomeration, but what will he do afterwards?”

Off the island of Montreal, re-elected Vaudreuil Liberal MNA and Justice Minister Yvon Marcoux said his party now faces the challenge of working with the ADQ and

the Parti Québécois in the minority government.

“There’s a responsibility on their part . . . to maintain a stable National Assembly,” Marcoux said yesterday. “It certainly requires, from all the elected people, maturity and a sense of duty.”

Meanwhile, Jacques Cartier Liberal MNA and Native Affairs Minister Geoff Kelley said working within the new government will be a learning experience.

“We haven’t had a minority government in 129 years and nobody left the instructions around,” Kelley said Monday night after the election. “We’ll have a throne speech and we’ll present a budget and obviously we’re going to have to look to the parties in opposition when we move forward.”



West Island results:



Jacques Cartier



Geoff Kelley (Liberal) 22,381 70.12%

Walter Rulli (ADQ) 3,973 12.45%

Ryan Young (Green) 3,545 11.11%

Sophia Caporicci (PQ) 1,352 4.24%

Jill Hanley (QS) 501 1.57%

Andy Srougi (Indy) 166 0.52%



Nelligan



Yolande James (Liberal) 21,458 63.82%

Jean Lecavalier (ADQ) 6,096 18.13%

Dorothée Morin (PQ) 2,977 8.85%

Jonathan Théorêt (Green) 2,560 7.61%

Elahé Machouf (QS) 532 1.58%



Robert Baldwin



Pierre Marsan (Liberal) 22,131 74.75%

Ginette Lemire (ADQ) 3,243 10.95%

Shawn Katz (Green) 2,136 7.21%

Alexandre Pagé-Chassé (PQ) 1,578 5.33%

Jocelyne Messih (QS) 517 1.75%



Marquette



François Ouimet (Liberal) 14,985 47.76%

Mark Yerbury (ADQ) 6,464 20.60%

Daniel Hurteau (PQ) 6,448 20.55%

Réjean Malette (Green) 2,313 7.37%

Johanne Létourneau (QS) 944 3.01%

Russell Wood (Indy) 220 0.70%



Vaudreuil



Yvon Marcoux (Liberal) 15,465 44.09%

Jean-Claude Levesque (ADQ) 8,787 25.05%

Louisanne Chevrier (PQ) 8,198 23.37%

Jean-Yves Massenet (Green) 1,940 5.53%

Micheline Déry (QS) 686 1.96%