Conservative Luc Berthold elected in Mégantic-L’Érable

MONTREAL – Conservative Luc Berthold has been elected in Mégantic-L’Érable, replacing former Intergovernmental Affairs Minister Christian Paradis.

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Paradis had announced he would not be running in 2015.

Mégantic-L’Érable was one of five ridings the Conservatives won in 2011, located in southern Quebec and encompassing Thetford Mines and Lac-Mégantic.

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It’s a riding that was created in 2004.

In the first year of its creation, the Bloc Québécois scooped it up before losing it to Conservatives in 2006.

In 2011, Paradis won with 49.1 per cent of the vote, while the NDP had their best-ever finish, with Cheryl Voisine placing second with 26.3 per cent.

Chemist David Berthiaume ran for the Liberals, coming in second.

The NDP nominated Thetford Mines councillor Jean-François Delisle, who came in third place.

READ MORE: Full results from the 2015 federal election

The 18-year-old Bloc Québécois candidate got some attention early in the campaign, after a year-old social media post was revealed.

READ MORE: 7 social media embarrassments from the campaign trail

In it, VirJiny Provost indicated that in the event of a catastrophic nuclear attack, all she would need to survive would be her cell phone, a penis and chips.

She came in fourth.

The riding’s boundaries were changed slightly in 2011 to add Saint-Robert-Bellarmin and Saint-Ludger from the Beauce riding.

The Conservatives were up to nine seats in Quebec Monday evening compared with the five seats in the 2011 election.

All the same, those gains were dwarfed by the surging Liberals, who were up a whopping 45 seats and counting in Quebec an hour after polls closed.

The Liberal wave came largely at the expense of the plummeting NDP (-48 in Quebec).