Western Quebec's eastern-most riding feeling the Bloc surge

The Liberal Party has a fight on its hands to hang on to western Quebec's eastern-most riding as polls suggest a surge in support for the Bloc Québécois.

While polls show the Liberals still have a lock on most of the region, Bloc Leader Yves-François Blanchet is actively courting voters in Argenteuil–La Petite-Nation, a rural riding with a strong francophone majority and history of Bloc support.

"That could be one that goes over to the Bloc," explained CBC poll analyst Eric Grenier. "It is the kind of seat the Bloc would be targeting if their numbers tick up to a high enough support."

Liberal candidate Stéphane Lauzon, a former teacher and Gatineau city councillor, took the riding from the NDP in 2015 and would like to hold on to it.

• The Liberals are struggling to hold their ground in small-town Quebec
• Liberals aiming to hang onto Argenteuil–La Petite-Nation

"I won by 43 per cent of the vote," Lauzon said. "I feel people are still behind me."

But before that Argenteuil–La Petite-Nation was Bloc country, from its inception in 1993 until it was swept up in the NDP's "orange wave" of 2011.

It seems voters are now kicking the BQ tires once again, reflecting the rise in Bloc fortunes in the polls since the first French-language leaders' debate.  

"The Bloc leader was very ... good," said Melanie Tardif, an employment consultant in Lachute, about 125 kilometres east of Gatineau.

Tardif said her mind isn't completely made up, but she's been disappointed with the Liberals on local issues.

In particular, Tardif was unhappy with last week's news that Agropur has decided to shut its dairy plant in Lachute, leaving 180 people out of work. 

"Where are [the Liberals]?" Tardif asked. "I think people are ready to have change."

Social worker Yves Destroismaisons, the Bloc candidate in the riding, lost his bid to become mayor of Saint-André-Avellin in 2017, then lost again as a candidate for the Parti Québécois in the 2018 provincial election to Coalition Avenir Québec's Mathieu Lacombe. Destroismaisons is hoping the third time's the charm.

"I would like to make a difference in the riding," he said.

Blanchet dropped by Lachute last Friday to support Destroismaison's bid. Standing beside the local candidate, he told a crowd the Bloc wants "to be the conscience of the Quebec National Assembly in Ottawa." 

Destroismaisons said that message seems to resonate at the door, where the Bloc has championed Bill 21, the Quebec law that bans some public servants from wearing religious symbols while on the job.

According to polls, a majority of Quebecers supports the law, and people perceive the party's defence of it as a sign the Bloc will defend Quebec values in Parliament. 

Despite the party's sovereigntist goals, Destroismaisons said he hopes even federalists can appreciate that idea.

NDP candidate Charlotte Boucher Smoley had a late start to the campaign, but she said she's been canvassing in earnest, hoping to remind voters why they elected an NDP candidate in 2011.

She said the party's platform is resonating with local voters, with a focus on boosting pensions and housing, as well as investing in infrastructure to make the region more resilient to climate change and the flooding that comes with it. She said she's also encouraged by the growing support for NDP Leader Jagmeet Singh in the province.

But Quebec polls suggest Singh's popularity hasn't translated into the level of support needed to fend off the Bloc in many NDP-held ridings, let alone ones the party lost last election.

The Liberals had hoped to get a chance at some of those volatile NDP seats, but are now concerned about their own seats in ridings like Argenteuil–La Petite-Nation.

"They had been counting on Quebec to deliver them a lot of seats to help them make up for losses in other parts of the country, but now it's more of a question of which seats they can prevent from going over to the Bloc," Grenier said.

One thing going for Lauzon and the Liberals is the fact that Argenteuil–La Petite-Nation was redistributed in 2015 and now includes just 70 per cent of the former riding of Argenteuil–Papineau–Mirabel, its eastern-most region.

At the same time, the riding gained 30 per cent of the more federalist Pontiac riding to the west.

In Saint-André-Avellin, voter Alice Gratton-Blais said while she's heard plenty of talk about the need for change, she craves political stability. That means supporting Lauzon's bid for re-election. 

The other candidates in Argenteuil–La Petite-Nation are Conservative Marie Louis-Seize, the Green Party's Marjorie Valiquette and Sherwin Edwards of the People's Party of Canada.