Montreal's West Island painted red by Liberals
CBC News | Posted: October 20, 2015 3:04 AM | Last Updated: October 20, 2015
West Island Liberals return to power with candidates winning massive margins over opposition
Montreal's West Island, largely a Liberal stronghold until the 2011 Orange Wave, has turned red once again.
Liberal candidate Francis Scarpaleggia was re-elected in Lac-Saint-Louis, winning with a massive margin reminiscent of pre-2011 numbers.
Scarpaleggia bested Conservative candidate Éric Girard and the NDP's Ryan Young by about 30,000 votes.
Dorval-Lachine-Lasalle, a new riding, and Pierrefonds-Dollard, which went to the NDP in 2011, were both swept up in the red tide.
NDP loses in Dorval-Lachine-Lasalle
In Dorval-Lachine-Lasalle, Anju Dhillon took the riding from the NDP incumbent Isabelle Morin by a comfortable margin.
Morin trailed behind Dhillon with the Conservative's Daniela Chivu well behind.
Located in the south-central part of Montreal Island, this redistributed riding includes the cities of Dorval and L'Île Dorval, as well as the borough of Lachine and part of the borough of LaSalle.
In its former incarnation, the riding was held for more than three decades by Liberal MP Warren Allmand, who served as solicitor general and as minister of Indian Affairs as well as consumer and corporate affairs during his tenure.
The Liberals held on to the seat for another decade after Allmand's departure, before Morin, a 26-year-old French teacher and a virtual unknown, won the riding in 2011.
Dhillon, a lawyer, was also up against Jean-Frédéric Vaudry, a young political organizer running for the Bloc Québécois, and Soulèye Ndiaye, a public administrator running as an independent candidate.
Liberals take back Pierrefonds-Dollard
Likewise, in Pierrefonds-Dollard, the riding has gone Liberal red once again. Businessman Frank Baylis won it easily.
Baylis gave some of the credit for the strength of his victory to the man who ran his early campaign, Cameron Ahmad – a campaign organizer who Baylis said was so good that Justin Trudeau poached him for the Liberals' national campaign.
"I said, 'Justin you owe me one,'" Cameron told supporters.
Baylis is the president of a medical technology company who also established his own film-production house.
In 2011, long-time Liberal Bernard Patry saw nearly 20 years of domination dissolve at the hands of a virtual unknown: NDP candidate Lysane Blanchette-Lamothe.
Blanchette-Lamothe was appointed opposition critic for seniors and later critic for citizenship and immigration in her first term in office.