MONTREAL – Thursday night’s leadership debate focused on a wide spectrum of economic policy priorities, ranging from job creation to sustainable growth.
Those are the issues dominating the discourse in the riding of Ahuntsic-Cartierville.
All parties are trying to demonstrate to constituents that their platform will address the problem of unemployment in the region.
Melanie Joly is the Liberal candidate.
After coming in second to Denis Coderre in Montreal’s 2013 mayoral election, Joly decided to enter the realm of federal politics.
READ MORE: Federal Election 2015: Ahuntsic-Cartierville riding
She believes her past experience in municipal politics will serve her well.
“People are saying, ‘Melanie, we’re with you. Continue. We know you can have a positive impact,’” Joly told Global News.
In 2013, Joly was appointed to head the Quebec Advisory Committee for Trudeau’s leadership campaign.
Her challenge: unseating incumbent MP Maria Mourani, a former member of the Bloc Québécois, who ran for the party’s top job in 2011.
Mourani is now representing the NDP.
She was expelled from the Bloc’s caucus in 2013 for opposing the Quebec Charter of Values.
“I do politics for rights. So, I can’t accept something against rights,” she said.
She now considers herself a federalist.
“I already have a country,” Mourani told Global News.
“I don’t need another one.”
Yet, the Liberals remain unconvinced.
Joly noted that “Mourani was with the Parti Québécois and then the Bloc Québécois.”
“For 10 years, she was a sovereigntist and then she recently decided to go with the NDP,” said Joly.
“It’s up to her to explain why.”
Mourani said she chose the NDP because of its party leader, Thomas Mulcair.
“Tom was the only leader who called me when I decided to resign from the Bloc,” she told Global News.
With the Bloc, Mourani won three consecutive elections in the former riding of Ahuntsic.
The Bloc Québécois’ new candidate is Nicolas Bourdon, a French teacher at Cégep Bois-de-Boulogne.
He said he feel confident, but recognizes that it’s going to be a close race.
Wiliam Moughrabi, a store manager for the The Brick Warehouse, is running for the Conservative Party.
He told Global News he was impressed by Stephen Harper‘s performance in Thursday night’s debate.
He thinks the Conservatives offer the best platform to protect constituents’ economic and security interests.
Moughrabi deleted his social media accounts in August after posts from his Facebook page containing allegedly violent and sexist content were exposed by a political blog.
He told Global News that he apologizes if anyone was offended.
Gilles Mercier, the Green Party candidate, worked as an inspector for over 34 years for the Occupational Health and Safety Commission.
This year, there are new boundaries to the riding.
Ahuntsic now together with Cartierville, former Liberal party leader Stéphane Dion‘s riding.
Though Ahunstic has voted Bloc consistently for quite some time, Cartierville is a Liberal stronghold.
With 31 days to go until the election, candidates in Ahuntsic-Cartierville are working day in and day out to try to finish on top.
Comments