By Nick Fonda

Local Journalism Initiative

On Tuesday, March 25, Matthew sent me an email which read, “…any interest in doing candidate profiles in a riding for the upcoming federal election? Maybe Richmond-Arthabaska?”

In fact, I was interested.  Over the years, I’ve had a chance to meet a number of politicians, or aspiring politicians.  With rare exceptions, they’ve been easy people to interview.  Many, by nature, are personable.  They’re usually well informed.  As well, they’ve generally taken the time to think their ideas through, and they’re able to articulate them clearly. 

I wrote back to Matthew and asked if he had the list of candidates in Richmond-Arthabaska.  He didn’t.  I went to plan B and systematically googled the web sites of the federal parties that made up the last parliament:  the Conservative Party of Canada, the Liberal Party of Canada, the New Democratic Party of Canada, the Green Party of Canada, and the Bloc Quebecois.  All I wanted was the name and contact information of the party’s candidate in Richmond-Arthabaska.  I took down the five phone numbers and I started dialing.

My first call was to the Conservative Party.  I was pleased to get through a short option list and to find myself talking to a woman with a pleasant voice.  Curiously, she wasn’t able to give me the information I wanted as she herself had not yet received it.  She was, however, able to give me an email address related to the candidate’s campaign.  My next four phone calls were far less productive as I was only able to leave my name, number, and reason for my call with the four answering machines.

I sent a short email to the address I’d been provided and on Wednesday, I got a phone call from the Conservative candidate’s campaign manager, Yanik Poisson.  We spoke briefly and he told me that, if I didn’t mind driving to Victoriaville, I could meet in person with the Conservative candidate, Eric Lefebvre, on Thursday.

As for the four messages I had left, only one managed to solicit a return call.  Late on Thursday, while I was transcribing my cacographic notes into a story, I got a call from the Bloc Quebecois and arranged an interview early the following week with their candidate, Daniel Lebel.

The other three parties, the Liberals, the NDP, and the Greens—and it’s now six days after I left a message—have yet to call back. 

Given that this election has been anticipated practically since the day after our last federal election in 2021, my expectation was that the five parties would be fully primed to launch their campaigns.

That’s not the case.  A week after Mark Carney’s election announcement, only two parties—the Conservatives and the Bloc—have put up election posters in Richmond-Arthabaska.

With the country going to the polls in less than four weeks, what are the other parties waiting for?  Or is it possible that this riding will only have two candidates? 

The possibility is not far-fetched.  For one thing, parties can run in as many or as few ridings as they wish.  Generally, except for the Bloc, federal parties, in an effort to show that they are truly national, normally like to make a presence in all 343 ridings.  However, with Canada’s first-past-the-post electoral system, only two parties—Conservatives and Liberals—have ever formed a government.  Worse, if political observers and pollsters are correct (and they often are), many ridings can be almost guaranteed to go to one of the three main parties (four in Quebec).  The Greens, when lucky, pick up a seat or two in an upset.

In the case of Richmond-Arthabaska, the Green Party has never picked up more than a few percentage points of the popular vote.  Does it make sense to invest the time and energy needed to find a suitable candidate and then find the money needed to mount an electoral campaign in a riding the Greens will never win?  Doesn’t it make more sense to put very limited resources into those ridings where the Party has a better chance of winning?

Similarly, the NDP in Quebec has only ever been a viable contender once, and that was 2011 when Jack Layton rode the Orange Wave through the province.   Richmond-Arthabaska has never elected an NDP member of parliament.  Given that Jagmeet Singh’s party faces the same challenge as the Greens, it too might well decide to ignore the riding and concentrate on more promising ones.

Nor has the Liberal Party ever been successful in Richmond-Arthabaska.  In 2015, the Liberal candidate was Marc Desmarais.  After the election, which he lost to the Conservative candidate, Alain Rayes, he said that if he’d had an extra week to campaign, he would have won.  His reasoning was based on the remarkable way that Justin Trudeau gained more and more momentum across the country as the election campaign progressed.  With a little more time, Desmarais said, Trudeau’s “sunny ways” would have reached and swayed Richmond-Arthabaska.

As it is, the riding, which was redrawn and renamed in 1997, was first served by André Bachand (Conservative), then, starting in 2004, André Bellavance (Bloc), and then, as of 2015, Alain Rayes (Conservative).  (Canada redraws its electoral districts every 10 years to reflect shifts and growth in population.)

While the Liberals have not so far named a candidate for the 2025 election, it’s not for lack of trying.  Ever since 2022 when Alain Rayes quit the Conservatives to sit as an Independent, he has been courted by the Liberals to run for them. 

Politicians do occasionally change parties.  Very environmentally conscious in his own life, Alain Rayes could easily have been mistaken for a member of the Green Party. When he ran for the Conservatives in 2015, he pointed out that no party platform can align perfectly in every way with a candidate’s personal values.  Conservatives, even as late as Brian Mulroney, were quite environmentally aware.  In the case of Alain Rayes, when he quit the Conservatives in 2022, it was because the new leader, Pierre Poilievre, had a total disregard for environmental concerns.

Had the Liberals been successful in wooing Rayes, the race in Richmond-Arthabaska would have been as unexpectedly competitive as the one between Carney and Poilievre.

While the Bloc has done well in the past in the riding, their candidate, Daniel Lebel, doesn’t have the name recognition of Alain Rayes nor of the Conservative candidate, Eric Lefebvre.  Interestingly, Rayes and Lefebvre ran against each other in a mayoral election in 2009, which Rayes won.  Their terms in public office, one federally and one provincially, closely overlap.  Both are popular with their constituents and both have won three consecutive elections. 

But Alain Rayes is not running and, even if more candidates step forward, the race in Richmond-Arthabaska is shaping up to be a two-horse race with the Conservatives looking to have an early lead.

What will voter turn-out look like?  Certainly, less than might otherwise have been hoped.  Until Stephen Harper’s Conservatives put an end to it, for a short while political parties received two dollars to be spent in the following election for every vote they garnered.  Small as the sum was, it motivated members of small parties (like the Green Party) to vote even if they knew their candidate would never win.

The turn-out will also be less than it would be if Justin Trudeau had carried through on his promise of electoral reform and introduced proportional representation.  Again, it is parties like the Greens and the NDP that would greatly benefit under such a system.   And so would we.  Our parliament would be a far better reflection of our political leanings if we had proportional representation.  Best of all, we would not wake up the morning after to find that a given party, even with less than 40 per cent of the popular vote, because of our antiquated first-past-the-post system, had won an undeserved majority in the House of Commons.