Liberal support slips in West Island, but party still earns a clean sweep

"As a jurist and as a community activist, I can tell you I am going to be a very strong voice for minorities and cultural communities," said Brigitte Garceau, who won her first seat for the Liberals in Robert-Baldwin.

While the Quebec Liberal Party dropped slightly in popularity in the West Island and two other ridings on the western end of the Montreal Island, they repainted the area Liberal red in Monday’s election.

In Jacques-Cartier, a Liberal stronghold for decades, Gregory Kelley, the incumbent MNA, was declared one of the first candidates to win a riding on the island of Montreal.

“I am so grateful to my constituents for giving me a second mandate. I look forward to bringing their concerns to the National Assembly for the next four years,” Kelley wrote in a statement to The Montreal Gazette. With nearly 97 per cent of results in, Kelley had more than 62 per cent of votes. It represents an easy win, but the Liberals appear to have lost popularity in ridings they have long considered strongholds. In 2018, Kelley won with nearly 72 per cent of the votes.

The riding covers the southwestern tip of Montreal Island and includes the municipalities of Pointe-Claire, Beaconsfield, Baie-D’Urfé, Ste-Anne-de-Bellevue and Senneville.

Voter turnout also appeared to be low in the five ridings in the western part of the island.

Louis-Charles Fortier, the candidate for the Conservative Party of Quebec, gained in popularity over the 2018 election, when he garnered only two per cent of votes in Jacques-Cartier. This time around, Fortier had 11 per cent of the votes and was in second place as the vote counting neared its end.

“When I was touring the the riding polling stations, the voter turnout was not really high,” Fortier said. “People did not feel that they wanted change. They did not want to change representation.

“I was hearing very much differently at the beginning. People wanted change. They wanted the Liberals out. I do not know what changed from what people were originally saying. That is part of why we will have a debriefing on what happened. Why didn’t people get out (and vote). What turned them off?”

With more than 95 per cent of votes counted in the Nelligan riding, Monsef Derraji, the incumbent candidate and Liberal MNA, kept the seat he won in 2018 with two-thirds of the vote. This time around, it appears he will win with a little more than 52 per cent of the votes.

The riding includes Kirkland and part of the Île-Bizard—Sainte-Geneviève and Pierrefonds-Roxboro boroughs. During his first term as an MNA, Derraji served as deputy leader of the official opposition and was named the party’s health and social services critic in January, a position that raised his profile while, as the official opposition, the Liberals questioned the CAQ government’s handling of COVID-19.

In this election, the CAQ candidate in the Nelligan riding was Cynthia Lapierre, the press attaché for the CAQ’s government whip in the National Assembly. She is in second place with 15.6 per cent of the vote. Gary Charles, the conservative candidate was in third place with 15.5 per cent of votes.

In the Robert-Baldwin riding, Brigitte Garceau, a lawyer who has practised family law for 30 years, won her first seat as an MNA on the same day she earned a prestigious honour from the Quebec Bar Association. Just before the polls opened, she was named, along with seven other lawyers and a judge, as the bar’s emeritus jurists for 2022.

“I think Oct. 3 will be a day I will remember for a long time,” said Garceau, who replaces former finance minister Carlos Leitão as the MNA for the riding that includes Dollard-des-Ormeaux and part of the Pierrefonds-Roxboro borough.

Garceau is also a member of the West Island Women’s Shelter.

In 2018, Leitão won the Robert-Baldwin seat for the Liberals with 74 per cent of votes and, with more than 90 per cent of votes counted on Monday, Garceau had nearly 58 per cent of votes.

“We worked very hard since my nomination and I am very happy with the work we did together. All I can say is that it is a nice victory in Robert Baldwin.”

Garceau said she is not surprised to hear voter turnout appeared low in the West Island.

“It’s not a surprise when you’re meeting people on a daily basis and you’re attending many events, of course you are discussing many issues. And we all know that a lot of people were frustrated and angry in terms of Bill 96 in particular,” she said. “There has been a lot of divisive politics and from the Legault government and some very negative comments and narrative about immigration. As a jurist and as a community activist I can tell you I am going to be a very strong voice for minorities and cultural communities.”

In the Marquette riding, comprised of Dorval and part of the Lachine borough, incumbent Liberal MNA Enrico Ciccone was headed to a clear victory with more than 96 per of votes tabulated. While the website Qc125.com projected Marquette would be somewhat close, Ciccone had nearly 47 per cent of the votes, a slight improvement over 2018, and the Marc Baaklini was a distant second with only 21 per cent.

Ciccone’s election campaign got off to an unfortunate start as his riding office was broken into and computers were stolen. A homeless man with a drug problem has been charged with the break-in and, so far, it appears the motive for the crime was not political sabotage.

With almost 95 per cent the votes counted in the Saint-Laurent riding, which includes the borough by the same name and part of the Ahuntsic-Cartiervile borough, the incumbent MNA, Liberal candidate Marwah Rizqy was also headed to a clear victory.

Rizqy had nearly 50 per cent of votes and the CAQ and conservative candidates had more than 13 per cent each.

pcherry@postmedia.com

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   Man arrested for making threats against Liberal MNA Marwah Rizqy