Liberals are pinning their hopes on volatile BQ ridings around Montreal

MONTREAL-The suburban shores north and south of Montreal seem to Justin Trudeau's Liberals like the path back to power, and to the NDP like the land of former glory.

Even for the sovereigntist Bloc Quebecois, which seized most of these ridings in 2019, the region is terra-not-so-firma in this fall's election battle.

The ring that surrounds Canada's second-largest city is a zone of closely fought skirmishes and unsettled scores. It is a part of Quebec that hasn't been afraid to change electoral allegiances in past elections.

The ridings never warmed to Stephen Harper's Conservative government. But the north and south shores were swept up in the 2011 orange wave, when Jack Layton's New Democrats became the Official Opposition. The region went largely Liberal in 2015, then jumped to the Bloc in 2019.

Now, these areas are among the points on the electoral map where a Liberal victory could be secured or squandered.

No surprise, then, that the first stop on Trudeau's 2021 election tour was the town of Blainville, Que., and the riding where Liberal Ramez Ayoub is trying to win back the seat he lost to the Bloc Quebecois by a narrow margin in 2019.

Ayoub was a veteran city councillor and mayor before jumping into federal politics. He still claims a special bond with the residents of the Therese-De Blainville riding, and has a plain, direct message for those who would be tempted to stick with 2019's victor, the Bloc's Louise Chabot.

If I have the ear of the prime minister such that he comes to my region, imagine how I'll have the ear of the prime minister ... to advance the programs that will benefit the citizens," he said in an interview. The channel of communication is already there."

The Bloc Quebecois, which refused the Star's request for interviews with candidates or officials, argues that only it can defend Quebec's interests in Ottawa.

In his Aug. 19 campaign launch, the Bloc incumbent in Riviere-des-Mille-Iles dismissed the Conservative party's chances in this part of Quebec and accused the Liberal party of imposing a pan-Canadian party line that took little account of the unique needs and desires of the province.

Liberal MPs from Quebec or elsewhere can't take another path than the one dictated by the prime minister," Luc Desilets told supporters.

The NDP's strategy with Leader Jagmeet Singh is to recreate the interest and enthusiasm that Layton inspired in Quebec voters in the 2011 election, just a few months before his death from cancer, said Mathieu Gauvin, the party's Quebec campaign director.

We're going to be trying to show that Jagmeet is someone they can put their confidence in and who understands the realities that people are facing," he said, noting the party's emphasis on affordable housing and climate change.

The last of the NDP's Quebec ridings to be lost after the so-called orange wave was on Montreal's south shore. Longueuil-Saint-Hubert was held by Pierre Nantel before he joined the Green party in 2019 and lost in the subsequent election. Fewer than 3,000 votes separated the Liberal candidate from the victor, the Bloc Quebecois's Denis Trudel, a popular Quebec actor.

The 2021 election in many ridings is shaping up to be a rematch.

Pierre Duchesne, a former Parti Quebecois cabinet minister who now teaches politics at the Universite du Quebec a Montreal, said voters on the north and south shores of Montreal tend to be strongly nationalist and respond to issues like official bilingualism and secularism, hot-button topics in the province.

It was the opposition of the Trudeau government and the NDP to Bill 21, a Quebec law to prohibit public-sector workers from wearing religious symbols on the job, that is believed to have contributed to the Bloc Quebecois going into the 2019 election with 10 MPs and coming out of it with 32.

Where there is space for the nationalists is with the Bloc Quebecois," Duchesne said.

That nationalist sentiment shone through in the electoral success of the provincial Coalition Avenir Quebec, which formed the provincial government in Quebec in 2018. The CAQ is led by Premier Francois Legault, a former Parti Quebecois cabinet minister, who runs a conservative-leaning government that rejects the need for sovereignty.

The federal Conservative party has some affinity - and shares some members - with the provincial CAQ. To that end, the Tories are trying to seduce Quebec voters with a so-called contract" that promises to give the province more powers over immigration, language and culture, among other measures.

As we often say, people here are more conservative than even they consider themselves to be. When I meet with people, that's what I'm trying to make them understand," said Patricia Morrissette, the Conservative candidate in Riviere-du-Nord.

Next door in the riding of Terrebonne, Michel Boudrias has no doubt about the sovereigntist leanings of the riding he has held since 2015, even though he will be running this time not for the Bloc Quebecois, but as an independent candidate.

After a dispute with the party's leadership over his management of the riding association, the former military officer and Afghanistan veteran will be battling his former party's hand-picked candidate, an Oxford-educated environmental economist, Nathalie Sinclair-Desgagne.

Boudrias was re-elected in 2019 by a wide margin but is well aware of the risk that the pro-sovereignty vote is divided, leaving space for a third candidate to claim victory.

Even last night while buying a bottle of wine at the store there were six clients and staff and came up to me and said, Monsieur Boudrias, it's horrible what they've done to you. We're with you and we're happy that you're continuing on,'" he said. It's not exactly a Gallup poll, but it still says something."

Ridings to watch

• Therese-De Blainville: Bloc Quebecois incumbent Louise Chabot, a former union leader, is seeking re-election against Liberal Ramez Ayoub, a longtime city councillor and mayor. Ayoub was elected by a little more than 3,000 votes in 2015, then defeated by Chabot by about 3,500 votes in 2019. Now the Liberals are looking to reclaim the seat north of Montreal.

• Longueuil-Saint-Hubert: This riding on the south shore of the Saint Lawrence River, across from Montreal was won by the NDP in 2011 (under a slightly different configuration) and maintained in 2015 by Pierre Nantel. But when Nantel switched to the Greens ahead of the 2019 vote, the riding fell to the Bloc's Denis Trudel. The Liberals came a close second in 2019 and hope to steal it away this fall with candidate Florence Gagnon.

• La Prairie: Like Therese-De Blainville, this riding south of Montreal was won by the Liberals in 2015, then flipped to the Bloc in 2019 under candidate Alain Therrien, a former Parti Quebecois MNA. Therrien is seeking re-election, but he will be up against Liberal Caroline Desrochers, a former Global Affairs bureaucrat with diplomatic postings to Haiti and New York City.

• Riviere-des-Mille-Iles: Once seen as a Bloc stronghold, this riding in Montreal's northern suburbs fell to the NDP in the so-called orange wave" of 2011, when the New Democrats ended up as the Official Opposition. In 2015, voters opted for Liberal Linda Lapointe, then jumped back to the Bloc in 2019, electing Luc Desilets, a school principal and writer, who defeated Lapointe by just over 2,600 votes.

• Terrebonne: Former military officer Michel Boudrias won this riding for the Bloc in 2015 and was re-elected by a handy margin last time. But the party's dissatisfaction with Boudrias's management of the riding association and fundraising efforts led to a decision to back a different candidate for the riding, Nathalie Sinclair-Desgagne. Boudrias is now running as an independent and the sovereigntist vote risks being divided, leaving space for other candidates, like Liberal Eric Forget, to profit from the scorched earth in the riding.

Allan Woods is a freelance reporter for the Star. Follow him on Twitter: @WoodsAllan