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Jonquière, Que – “Tell your leader to stop hitting Mark Carney. He doesn’t have to. He’s not the target, Trump is.”
At 4 Chemins restaurants in Jonquière, Alain’s words were heavier than the rain outside, as he dedicated his ideas to conservative candidate Fanny Boulanger, who rode the ride.
Alain is directly part of the voter category targeted by the Conservative Party. He is a hardworking senior who embodies the pro-worker, anti-company slogan “Boots” repeated by Conservative leader Pierre Poilievre.
“Nationwide, I’m not sure… Fanny, I’ll vote in Jonquière because I don’t want the group to win, and there’s no one in the liberals here. But tell your leader he needs to change,” Alan told Blanger.
“I will,” Blanger replied. It was Monday, lunch time. Fanny was eating her soup and mayonnaise, many of them – on her club sandwich.
Alain (not given his last name) is not the only one with such an opinion. In a few days, the Conservatives faced criticism even among their allies that they needed to focus more on Trump than on liberal leaders. But Boulanger is confident in Poilievre’s approach.
“I think my party’s strategy is the right strategy. I don’t think we should change it,” she said.
She happens to know Poilievre very well. The 25-year-old has been serving as a council assistant in his office for two years. She described herself as a “progressive conservative” who was a feminist who grew up with a single mother and worked hard to get to her place. Now she wants to be a member of Congress.
“I’m a fan of Fanny!” Poilievre once said at a rally. As a young MP himself, Poilievre learned to speak French at Chicoutimi, 20 minutes from Jonquière. He has a family in the area, spent a few days of snowmobile here earlier this winter and said he has a special attachment to the area.
As she had lunch, the owner of four Chemins approached Boulanger’s table and handed her a copy of the local newspaper. “Look, it’s you and Mr. Poilievre,” he said proudly. The photo shows her at the Conservative Party’s “Canada No. 1” rally in Ottawa just weeks before the election campaign began. She and conservative MP Michael Barrett were the ones who introduced Poilievre on stage that day.
“We’re very close,” she said of Poilievre. “He really wanted to win the ride in the area.”
Conservatives say their Quebec platform is specifically targeted at voters in the Saguenay-Lac-Saint-Jean area, such as Jonquière and nearby Chicoutimi-Le Fjord. It emphasizes the importance of French language, Canadian radio, strengthening immigration, providing more freedom to the provincial government, and ending the awakening of identity politics.
“The group members here are awakened,” Blanger said of current candidate Mario Simard.
“Dehors Simard!” she added: “Get out of Simard!” in English – in her speech it has become a cry of a rally. The group candidate represents nearly six years of riding, but she accused him of being a Montreal native who mostly was absent against pipelines and large projects.
Simard denied that he was an outsider. “Fanny didn’t tell the truth. I came from here, I lived here for 49 years. These are my people, this is my area.” “In fact, these are personal attacks and tone that don’t match the people here.”
“In Saguenay, she repeated everything Pierre Poilievre said. It’s a comic,” Simard said with a smile.
Quebec nationalism, even separatism, is rooted in about two hours north of Quebec City, where about 283,000 people are distributed on three federal rides.
Former Quebec group leader and Parti Québécois Premier Lucien Bouchard comes from here.
But these days, the group seems to be outdated.
“I’ve been a separatist for 51 years. This time it’s not. This time. This time, I vote for Poilievre.”
Separatists can feel the heat as more and more voters in Chicoutimi and Jonquière are shifting their votes. The current conservative candidate is Chicoutimi, who, Fjord Richard Martel, said he has noticed the change.
Martel is the star here. He was the head coach of Chicoutimi Saguenéens of the Quebec Maritime Junior Hockey League.
He has been a member of the House of Commons since 2018 and said he rarely sees so many undecided voters.
“We definitely need to convince them,” Martel said.
But they can easily choose another option: liberals. Although the party has not been well established in Chicoutimi, Jonquière and Lac-Saint-Jean, the region has previously elected candidates for liberals.
Yvon Bouchard, a leading freelance organizer since the Pierre Trudeau era, believes the region is particularly fertile for his party.
“Nationalists are usually very powerful here,” he said.
In Jonquière, three group Québécois candidates held a press conference earlier this week introducing their “regional platform”. They are well organized. They are full of teams. They have money and want to win.
A few months ago, everything showed that they would sweep the area by joining former local journalist Marc St-Hilaire as a candidate in Chicoutimi-Le Fjord.
But this time, liberal candidates can position themselves in the voting competition with Mark Carney’s popularity and Trump’s threat.
That candidate was Stéphane Proulx, who lived in Chicoutimi for 25 years. PROULX doesn’t know here. He wasn’t even a long-term liberal. But he said he was attracted by Carney’s message.
“It gave me, I have to act,” he said. He was nominated on the first day of the campaign, with no signs, no flyers, no volunteers, only a few hundred dollars in funding.
“But you know, I’m knocking all the time, and the reception is huge. I really want to be the voice of this community. I think anything is possible in the environment we are in.”
According to the poll summary 338CANADA, there are two cyclings that tend to be group-oriented, while the other is expected to elect Martel. But liberals gained support in all three rides.
Still, the real battle in the region seems to be between two blue parties, the group and the Conservatives.
“Pierre Poilievre is considered indigestive, people don’t like this politics, you’re attacking all the time,” said St-Hilaire, a candidate for Chicoutimi. “Pierre Poilievre is not getting a spotlight here. Maybe people will vote for candidate Richard Martel. But the opportunity for (conservative) power is disintegrating, and that’s also speaking.”
At his huge campaign headquarters, Martel calmed, confident and hoped that voters would send him to Ottawa, bringing economic development to the region, with aluminum, forestry and agriculture being key industries.
“We have lost 10 years on liberals and groups. It’s time to take care of our people,” he said.
He added: “The only way they assert that they are is to appear in the media…the group members will eventually become political experts in the media.”
Boulanger agrees.
But send
Blockage
Packing up, she must first win.
“I want to represent the people and make a difference in the region. I know Pierre Poilievre wants this region and I really want him to be proud of me. I did.”
State Post
atrepanier@postmedia.com
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