- 注册
- 2002-10-07
- 消息
- 402,205
- 荣誉分数
- 76
- 声望点数
- 0
Residents in Glengarry-Prescott-Russell have the opportunity today to be kingmakers, or perhaps even prime minister-makers, as the decisions made by the riding’s 84,340 eligible voters will not only determine their local representative, but possibly also help decide the national outcome.
The battle in this closely contested riding boils down to the top two candidates: Conservative Pierre Lemieux and Liberal Francis Drouin.
As the incumbent, Lemieux increased his margin of victory through each of his three previous campaigns, turning a 200-vote nail-biter in 2006 into a 10,000-vote landslide four years ago.
In his nine years on the Hill, the 52-year-old Casselman resident and former engineer and Canadian Forces veteran has three times served as Parliamentary Secretary: for Official Languages, Agriculture and Agri-Food, and Veterans Affairs.
A 31-year-old Rockland resident and government-relations consultant, Drouin, meanwhile, appears set to benefit from both a general restlessness many voters appear to have with Stephen Harper and the Conservatives, and the riding’s historical tendency to elect Liberals.
In the 53 years that the riding existed prior to Lemieux’s election in 2006, the seat had been red for all but five years. Even in the 1984 general election that saw Brian Mulroney and the Conservatives sweep to power with 211 seats — a record that still stands — GPR voters just as resolutely stuck with their Liberal MP, Don Boudria, returning him to Ottawa with the confidence of more than half of the riding’s voters.
The other candidates in the race are neophyte New Democrat Normand Laurin, a Vankleek Hill IT consultant; Green Party first-timer Genevieve Malouin-Diraddo, a 40-year-old freelance graphic designer from Alexandria; and Libertarian Jean-Serge Brisson, a 61-year-old Embrun native who runs a radiator-repair shop and is a veteran of election campaigns. This is Brisson’s third crack at a federal seat, while he’s also run, unsuccessfully, in five provincial contests. However, he did serve as Russell town councillor from 2003-06.
Polls have recently given a considerable and growing edge to Drouin — somewhere between a five- and a dozen-point advantage. But given the riding’s swing potential, it seems unlikely that the NDP or Green candidates will improve much on their parties’ results here four years ago, with voters increasingly inclined to vote for, or against, Drouin and Lemieux and their respective parties and leaders. In 2011, NDP candidate Denis Seguin captured nearly 17 per cent of the vote, while the Green Party’s Sylvie Lemieux wrestled about 3.5 per cent from the electorate.
Maxville’s Sharon Johns may be typical of many Glengarry-Prescott-Russell voters when she says, “It’s time for a change of government.”
She is “appalled,” she says, by some of the positions taken by the Conservative government over the past four years.
“And I’m particularly upset that people cannot go to a meet-the-candidates night and have a Conservative member there,” she says. “And what they’re saying is, ‘We’re busy going door to door.’ Well I’m sorry, but nobody has come to our door.”
A key issue facing voters in this largely rural riding is the Trans-Pacific Partnership free trade agreement, which is of significant concern to dairy farmers, who are reluctant to give up a share of the Canadian market without compensation from the federal government. Other issues include energy costs, improvements to Highway 17 and the economy, the latter especially in areas such as Hawkesbury, where average incomes are much lower and unemployment rates higher than the provincial average.
bdeachman@ottawacitizen.com
查看原文...
The battle in this closely contested riding boils down to the top two candidates: Conservative Pierre Lemieux and Liberal Francis Drouin.
As the incumbent, Lemieux increased his margin of victory through each of his three previous campaigns, turning a 200-vote nail-biter in 2006 into a 10,000-vote landslide four years ago.
In his nine years on the Hill, the 52-year-old Casselman resident and former engineer and Canadian Forces veteran has three times served as Parliamentary Secretary: for Official Languages, Agriculture and Agri-Food, and Veterans Affairs.
A 31-year-old Rockland resident and government-relations consultant, Drouin, meanwhile, appears set to benefit from both a general restlessness many voters appear to have with Stephen Harper and the Conservatives, and the riding’s historical tendency to elect Liberals.
In the 53 years that the riding existed prior to Lemieux’s election in 2006, the seat had been red for all but five years. Even in the 1984 general election that saw Brian Mulroney and the Conservatives sweep to power with 211 seats — a record that still stands — GPR voters just as resolutely stuck with their Liberal MP, Don Boudria, returning him to Ottawa with the confidence of more than half of the riding’s voters.
The other candidates in the race are neophyte New Democrat Normand Laurin, a Vankleek Hill IT consultant; Green Party first-timer Genevieve Malouin-Diraddo, a 40-year-old freelance graphic designer from Alexandria; and Libertarian Jean-Serge Brisson, a 61-year-old Embrun native who runs a radiator-repair shop and is a veteran of election campaigns. This is Brisson’s third crack at a federal seat, while he’s also run, unsuccessfully, in five provincial contests. However, he did serve as Russell town councillor from 2003-06.
Polls have recently given a considerable and growing edge to Drouin — somewhere between a five- and a dozen-point advantage. But given the riding’s swing potential, it seems unlikely that the NDP or Green candidates will improve much on their parties’ results here four years ago, with voters increasingly inclined to vote for, or against, Drouin and Lemieux and their respective parties and leaders. In 2011, NDP candidate Denis Seguin captured nearly 17 per cent of the vote, while the Green Party’s Sylvie Lemieux wrestled about 3.5 per cent from the electorate.
Maxville’s Sharon Johns may be typical of many Glengarry-Prescott-Russell voters when she says, “It’s time for a change of government.”
She is “appalled,” she says, by some of the positions taken by the Conservative government over the past four years.
“And I’m particularly upset that people cannot go to a meet-the-candidates night and have a Conservative member there,” she says. “And what they’re saying is, ‘We’re busy going door to door.’ Well I’m sorry, but nobody has come to our door.”
A key issue facing voters in this largely rural riding is the Trans-Pacific Partnership free trade agreement, which is of significant concern to dairy farmers, who are reluctant to give up a share of the Canadian market without compensation from the federal government. Other issues include energy costs, improvements to Highway 17 and the economy, the latter especially in areas such as Hawkesbury, where average incomes are much lower and unemployment rates higher than the provincial average.
bdeachman@ottawacitizen.com
查看原文...
