Ridings to watch: Where the six party leaders are seeking (re)election

Federal political leaders spend nearly the entire election campaign period zipping back and forth across the country, doing their best to court votes for their respective parties, but they’ve also got their own ridings to win.

Of the six party leaders who have been invited to participate in the official leaders’ debates in October, three are vying for a Quebec seat in the House of Commons, two are running in British Columbia and the last is looking to lock down his Saskatchewan riding once again.

Here’s where the leaders of the Liberal Party, the Conservative Party, the New Democrats, the Green Party, the Bloc Québécois and the People’s Party are running in the 2019 federal election.

Justin Trudeau: Papineau, Que.

Liberal Leader Justin Trudeau is seeking re-election in the Montreal riding of Papineau for the fourth time and a second term as prime minister of Canada.

The riding is located in the centre of the island of Montreal. Trudeau ran his first federal race there in the 2008 election, which saw him edge out the incumbent Bloc Québécois candidate by just over 1,000 votes.

The results were much different by the 2015 election when, as Liberal leader, Trudeau scored more than 50 per cent of the votes.

Save for one term with a Bloc MP, the riding has elected a Liberal to the House of Commons since the mid-1950s. Support for the Bloc in the riding has diminished since 2008; the NDP proved to be Trudeau’s main rival in the 2011 and 2015 elections.

In 2019, the 47-year-old Liberal leader is running against the following candidates:

• • Conservative: Sophie Veilleux
  • NDP: Christine Paré
  • Green: Juan Vazquez
  • Bloc Québécois: Christian Gagnon
  • People’s Party: Mark Sibthorpe

Andrew Scheer: Regina Qu’Appelle, Sask.

Conservative Leader Andrew Scheer is asking voters in his riding to send him to the House of Commons for a sixth term.

Scheer’s riding, Regina Qu’Appelle, covers the northeastern area of Regina and the rural areas to the north and east.

Scheer was first elected in Regina Qu’Appelle in 2004 at age 25. He snatched the riding from the New Democrats, who had held Regina Qu’Appelle since 1988, by 861 ballots.

Over the next federal elections, Scheer scored a larger share of the votes cast, with the NDP consistently coming in second place. In 2008 and 2011, Scheer won with more than 50 per cent, but that percentage dipped to 44.7 per cent in 2015.

In 2019, the 40-year-old politician is running for re-election as the leader of his party — a title he narrowly won after a crowded leadership race in 2017. He is running against the following candidates in this fall’s federal election:

• Liberal: Jordan Ames-Sinclair
• NDP: Ray Aldinger
• Green: Dale Dewar
• People’s Party: Tracey Sparrowhawk

Jagmeet Singh: Burnaby South, B.C.

This will mark NDP Leader Jagmeet Singh’s second federal race in less than a year.

The 40-year-old lawyer and former Ontario MPP did not hold a seat in Parliament when NDP members chose him as their new leader in fall 2017. He led the NDP for more than a year outside Parliament before running and winning the byelection in Burnaby South — a seat formally held by NDP MP Kennedy Stewart, who is now mayor of Vancouver.

Burnaby South, as the name suggests, covers the southern area of the city of Burnaby in Metro Vancouver. Burnaby South is a relatively new riding; the district’s boundaries came into effect for the 2015 election and include areas from two neighbouring Burnaby ridings, both of which have leaned NDP in recent years.

While Stewart only barely won the riding over the Liberals in 2015, Singh captured 39 per cent of the vote in the Burnaby South byelection in February. The Liberals finished second with 26 per cent and the Conservatives with just short of 23 per cent.

The four candidates vying to unseat the NDP leader are:

• Liberal: Neelam Brar
• Conservative: Jay Shin
• Green: Brennan Wauters
• People’s Party: Al Rawdah

Elizabeth May: Saanich-Gulf Islands, B.C.

The 2019 campaign will mark Green Party Leader Elizabeth May’s third campaign in Saanich-Gulf Islands.

The riding is located on Vancouver Island. It sits just above the city of Victoria and includes many of the islands just north of the peninsula.

May, 65, has served as her party’s leader since 2006. After a failed election bid in Nova Scotia in 2008, she moved to the West Coast. May first ran and won Saanich-Gulf Islands in 2011, snatching it from the Conservatives with 46.3 per cent of the vote. She continued to build support among constituents, capturing 54.4 per cent support in 2015, with the Tories again in second place.

May’s rivals in 2019 include the mayor of Central Saanich, who is running under the Liberal banner.

Here’s who the Green leader is running again:

• Liberal: Ryan Windsor
• Conservative: David Busch
• NDP: Sabina Singh
• People’s Party: Ron Broda

Yves-François Blanchet: Beloeil-Chambly, Que.

This is the Bloc Québécois leader’s first run for public office at the federal level. Yves-François Blanchet, however, is a familiar face provincially, having served as a Parti Québécois MNA for two terms and as environment minister in the cabinet of former premier Pauline Marois.

Before joining politics, Blanchet worked in entertainment. After his defeat in the 2014 Quebec election, he was regular on a public affairs TV show.

Blanchet’s candidacy for leader of the Bloc went uncontested, and he was ultimately named party leader in January 2019. He replaced Martine Ouellet, who resigned as leader in June 2018 after a tumultuous reign that saw seven of the party’s 10 MPs resign from caucus. All seven have since returned.

To win the riding, Blanchet, 54, has to unseat Matthew Dubé, the incumbent, two-term NDP MP. Dubé is the last standing MP of the five McGill students who were elected to the House of Commons during the orange wave of 2011; he was the only one re-elected in 2015.

Here’s who is running against the Bloc leader in Beloeil-Chambly:

• Liberals: Marie-Chantal Hamel
• Conservatives: Véronique Laprise
• NDP: Matthew Dubé
• Green Party: Pierre Carrier
• People’s Party: Chloé Bernard

Maxime Bernier: Beauce, Que.

The race in Beauce will undoubtedly be closely watched on election night as ex-Conservative Maxime Bernier fights to return to the House of Commons under the banner of the right-wing party he founded only a year ago: the People’s Party of Canada.

This local campaign will be a crucial test for the future of the People’s Party on the national stage and Bernier’s own political career.

The riding of Beauce is located south of Quebec City. Under the Conservatives, Bernier ran and won in Beauce four times, capturing nearly 60 per cent of the vote in 2015. Scoring a fifth victory is less certain.

Bernier quit the Conservative party in August 2018, just over a year after narrowly losing the Tory leadership to Scheer. In mid-September, he announced the debut of the People’s Party, or le Parti populaire.

By coming out against supply management during his bid for the Conservative leadership and proposing to phase it out as leader of the People’s Party, Bernier has risked alienating the high number of farmers who operate under the supply-management system in his riding.

In hopes of keeping the riding for themselves, the Conservatives recruited a serious challenger in Richard Lehoux, an agriculture entrepreneur whose family has worked in dairy farming for eight generations. Lehoux served as mayor of a municipality in the region for two decades and later served as president of the Fédération Québécoise des municipalités from 2014 to 2017.

Bernier is running against the following candidates in the 2019 federal election:

• Liberals: Adam Veilleux
• Conservatives: Richard Lehoux
• NDP: François Jacques-Côté
• Green Party: Josiane Fortin
• Bloc Québécois: Guillaume Rodrigue

(The satirical Rhinoceros Party decided to have a bit of fun and has pit its own Maxime Bernier against the incumbent Bernier.)

— With files from Rachel Browne and the Canadian Press