Sarah Rennie – LJI reporter

An election call in Canada is expected to be announced in the coming days, once Mark Carney is sworn in as the new leader of the Liberal Party of Canada and as prime minister.

The election will usher in many changes for the country. At the local level, candidates in the current Salaberry-Suroît riding will find themselves running to represent the constituents of Beauharnois-Salaberry-Soulanges-Huntingdon (BSSH). The Chateauguay-Lacolle riding will also change names, becoming Chateauguay-Les-Jardins-de-Napierville.

The new riding boundaries, which were announced following the 2022 redistribution of federal electoral districts, will see the Haut-Saint-Laurent split in two – where the Town of Huntingdon, as well as the municipalities of Elgin, Hinchinbrooke, Ormstown, Saint-Anicet, Sainte-Barbe, and the township municipalities of Dundee and Godmanchester, as well as Akwesasne, will be part of the BSSH riding.

The Chateauguay-Les Jardins-de-Napierville riding will include all the municipalities in the MRC des Jardins-de-Napierville, including Hemmingford Village and Hemmingford Township, as well as the municipalities of Franklin, Howick, and Saint-Chrysostome, and the parish municipality of Très-Saint-Sacrement.

Salaberry-Suroît MP and Bloc Québécois candidate Claude DeBellefeuille has already announced she will seek a fifth term in the next election. She says that while it is not ideal for an MRC to be divided between two federal ridings, the MRC du Haut-Saint-Laurent was one of only a handful of MRCs that had not been split in some way prior to this election. “When there is a redistribution every ten years, and the demographic growth is happening outside of the Haut-Saint-Laurent, at a certain point the electoral commission has to create a boundary somewhere,” she explains.

DeBellefeuille says she would not be surprised, given the demographic growth predicted in Vaudreuil, Salaberry-de-Valleyfield, Beauharnois and Soulanges, if the Haut-Saint-Laurent were to be reunited in ten years following the next redistribution process, but towards the Chateauguay-Les-Jardins-de-Napierville riding.

The new BSSH riding will be the second most populous in Quebec after the new Vaudreuil riding. DeBellefeuille says she is more concerned about the upcoming election than the change in boundaries. “A quick election call is in everyone’s interest,” she insists, suggesting the government is not being taken seriously by the United States because parliament is not sitting.

“If we want to do our job properly, it is absolutely essential that the election be called quickly so a legitimate and democratically elected government is in place,” DeBellefeuille says, while pointing out that the U.S. administration is seeding uncertainty, which is not good for Quebecers. She says the next few weeks will be very interesting.

Tyler Jones, the newly acclaimed candidate in the BSSH riding for the federal New Democratic Party, agrees. “Everything is up in the air right now,” says the first-time candidate, who is growing his team of volunteers while introducing himself to the many communities in the riding.

Jones knows the Chateauguay Valley well, and says he is disappointed that the Haut-Saint-Laurent was separated between the two ridings. He says he would work to ensure common ground is found between the two ridings and that the area is properly represented as a whole, despite the boundary line.

He says he is also concerned about the upcoming election with so little time to prepare. “It is just a question of connecting with voters, and getting out and hearing their concerns and frustrations,” he adds, while acknowledging there is a lot of territory to cover and a lot of different issues at hand.

The official candidates for the federal Liberal and Conservative parties in the BSSH riding were not named as of press time. Kristian Solarik will run once again for the Green Party of Canada, while Martin Lévesque will run for the People’s Party of Canada.

None of the main federal parties have announced the names of their candidates in the Chateauguay-Jardins-de-Napierville riding.