PQ narrowly wins Kamouraska

LA POCATIÈRE – Parti Québécois leader Pauline Marois said last night her party’s narrow win in the Kamouraska-Témiscouata byelection “is a sign that something is happening in Quebec.”

“The first Liberal line of defence has fallen,” Marois told cheering, chanting supporters, noting that the win by PQ candidate André Simard was far from a certainty when the campaign began.

“We have taken a fortress.”

“It starts here,” Marois noted, is the motto of La Pocatière, the town of less than 5,000 people that is the largest community in this riding, where the economic base is agriculture and forestry.

“It starts here and it starts now,” Marois said, outlining a plan that calls for winning the next Quebec election, then creating a public inquiry into construction corruption and political influence-peddling.

“I commit myself to do so,” she added.

Simard – a veterinarian and retired director of the Institut de technologie agroalimentaire, a CÉGEP-level agricultural college with campuses in La Pocatière and St. Hyacinthe – is a first-time PQ candidate who only joined the party in September.

He had a hand from Paul Crête, a former Bloc Québécois MP who was his organizer, and Marois, who visited the riding six times during the campaign.

His victory, by 196 votes, represents just one percentage point of the 19,871 votes cast.

Simard said it was easy campaigning with Marois, describing her as a “social worker and former finance minister."

“I want Quebecers to discover you as their premier,” Simard said.

The PQ winner also said that he knew Claude Béchard, the Liberal minister whose death in September made the by-election necessary.

“You can rest in peace,” Simard said, addressing Béchard. “Your riding is in good hands.”

On hand in La Pocatière to face the music, Premier Jean Charest immediately highlighted the fact there were more rejected ballots (296) in the election then the PQ’s majority, but gave no indication that the party will ask for a recount.

The loss, however, further adds to the Liberal’s problems. The riding had been Liberal for 25 years and the party put everything it had into the race to keep it.

Sounding humbled, Charest said his troops faced a very difficult campaign given the climate across Quebec. His government has been on the ropes for months over its refusal to call an inquiry into allegations of corruption in the construction industry.

But he said politics can be a humbling experience and he respects the will of the people of Kamouraska-Temiscouata.

“In the final analysis, the voters are sovereign,” Charest told a sullen crowd of Liberals who had grown used to winning time after time. “It’s they who decide."

“Who could have predicted tonight that the results would be the one that the voters of Kamouraska-Temiscouta gave us? Nobody. Nobody could have predicted such close results."

“All this reminds us, my dear friends, that we have to conduct politics with lots of humility. We have to accept the result, we have to work but also stay loyal to our principles and ideas which we defend."

“My dear friends, until the next time.”

Simard’s victory was only confirmed when the final ballot box was counted.

As the results came in, it was a see-saw race at first with Liberal France Dionne and Simard alternately taking the lead.

At one point it was a tie and when Simard went ahead, his lead rarely exceeded 200 votes.

Marois noted that the last time the PQ won Kamouraska-Témiscouata was in 1981 and the party place third in the behind Action démocratique du Québec in the last two elections.

The PQ focused on the allegations of corruption and Premier Jean Charest’s refusal to call a public inquiry, while the Liberals stuck to local issues.

Bérubé said Claude Béchard, the Liberal minister who died in September, creating the vacancy, was well respected in the riding.

As well, the premier’s announcement that Montreal’s new métro cars would be built in the riding helped the Liberals.

And the Liberal promise to keep underpopulated Kamouraska-Témiscouata, slated to disappear from Quebec’s electoral map, to be replaced by a new riding in Montreal’s growing off-island suburbs, curried favour with voters.