Justin Trudeau wins Papineau riding in a landslide

CBC News | Posted: October 20, 2015 2:46 AM | Last Updated: October 21, 2015

Liberal leader declared elected in his home, leading with 60 per cent of the vote early in counting

Liberal Leader Justin Trudeau has cruised to an easy victory in his home riding of Papineau in Montreal.

With just 20 of 215 polls reporting, the CBC has declared Trudeau the winner in the riding.

He is leading with two-thirds of the vote, well ahead of NDP candidate Anne Lagacé Dowson, who has less than 17 per cent of the votes at this stage in the counting.

This central Montreal riding, bordered by the affluent ridings of Mount Royal to the west and Outremont to the south, is one of the poorest, most multiethnic and most densely populated ridings in the country.

Papineau has seen many boundary changes over the years but has nearly always been a safe seat for the Liberals, the traditional haven of new immigrants.

It's been Trudeau's home riding since 2008. Trudeau took the riding from the Bloc Québécois, winning by just 1,200 votes in 2008, then more than tripling that margin in 2011.

Lagacé Dowson went into this race betting the New Democratic Party's early lead in the polls could be enough to knock Trudeau out of his seat.

But the Orange Wave of 2011 has been overtaken by a Red Tide in 2015, and it's now clear that Trudeau's hold on Papineau is more than secured.

The Bloc's Maxime Claveau was hoping to come up the middle in a split vote, however, at this stage he is polling a mere 8.6 per cent of the vote.

Candidates 2015

Maxime Claveau, Bloc Québécois
Yvon Vadnais, Conservative Party of Canada
Danny Polifroni, Green Party of Canada
Chris Lloyd, Independent
Kim Waldron, Independent
Justin Trudeau, Liberal Party of Canada
Peter Macrisopoulos, Marxist-Leninist Party of Canada
Anne Lagacé Dowson, New Democratic Party
Beverly Bernardo, No Affiliation
Tommy Gaudet, Rhinoceros Party

Riding History

The riding was created in 1996, combining portions of the St-Denis and Papineau–St-Michel ridings.
The riding and its former incarnations have been mostly Liberal for nearly a century.
The Bloc won the riding in 2006, but it has gone to the Liberals since 2008, when the party first ran Justin Trudeau as a star candidate.

Riding snapshot

Population: 108,975 (2013 Census)

Mother tongue: French (47 per cent), English (5.7 per cent), Non-official languages (47.3 per cent; largest linguistic groups are Arabic, Greek, Italian and Spanish)

Average household income: $57,715 (2010 National Household Survey)

Results last election

Liberal 16,429
NDP 12,102
Bloc Québécois 11,081
Conservative 2,021
Green 806
Marxist–Leninist 228
Communist League 95