Laval Liberals hope to unseat incumbent Bloc Québécois in Alfred-Pellan
They believe there’s a probability of an election within the next 12 months
Published March 24, 2010
By Martin C. Barry • TLN

Federal Liberals from Laval say they are confident that Angelo G. Iacono, their nominee in the riding of Alfred-Pellan, will be able to defeat incumbent Bloc Québécois MP Robert Carrier in the next election. Following a round table discussion held locally by the Liberals last Saturday, which was attended by several hundred people, Laval-les Îles Liberal MP Raymonde Folco said the idea of the meeting was to listen to the party members.

National congress
“The idea was to try to get people from Laval-les Îles and Alfred-Pellan, which are really the two poles in Laval with two different socio-economic groups, to tell us their ideas on a number of subjects,” she said. “The subjects that we chose are exactly the subjects that are going to be discussed at the end of the month by experts.” The Liberal Party is preparing for a two-day congress during which the same subjects will be under discussion.
“We thought it would be important to hear people from Laval tell us what they think,” added Folco. “These aren’t the experts. These are Mr. and Mrs. Everman and Everywoman, Canadians all, who have ideas on what they want to see as taxpayers, as people who vote and so on.” The half day’s activities included five workshops, followed by a plenary session during which the outcome of the workshops was openly discussed. People were able to ask questions of the various MPs present, including Westmount-Ville Marie MP Marc Garneau.

Discussion themes
The themes dealt with were: Jobs Today and Tomorrow; A creative and competitive economy; Real life issues for Canadian families; Energy, environment and the economy; and A strong presence in the world in terms of trade, values and relationships. The results will now be handed over to Liberal Party leader Michael Ignatieff. With the exception of Folco’s riding, four others in the region of Laval are currently held by the Bloc Québécois. Nonetheless, she sees signs of a shift from the Bloc to the Liberals, who have not been elected election after election in any of those ridings.
Folco marvels at the voting tendencies in the Laval region. While the federal Liberals are currently out of favour here and the sovereignist Bloc dominates, provincially the Quebec Liberals now hold all the seats in Laval, while the Parti Québécois is in the dog house. “I’ve lived a long time in Laval and Quebec and I’ve never understood that,” she said. “I’ve never understood how you could be Liberal at the provincial level and Conservative at the federal level or Bloquiste or whatever. Bloquiste and PQ, there’s a logic there. But how you can be Liberal at the provincial and Conservative at the federal that’s an enigma I have been able to understand.”

Election coming?
The federal Liberals believe there’s a high probability of an election taking place within the next 12 months. “I think it’s not impossible that we have one in the fall, or before the next budget which would mean before next March,” said Folco. “We think this budget that the government presented two weeks is a totally empty shell. There’s nothing for women, nothing for seniors, nothing for the population. The next time we feel they’ve going to come down really hard on the population with really restricting measures in the budget. So it is in their interest we think to have an election before the budget because if they have an election after the chances are they might lose it.”
Iacono said in an interview following the meeting that he was pleased with what was accomplished at the meeting. “I was really impressed in seeing so many people and how attentive, how involved and how passionate they were talking about issues of concern to them,” he said. “The turnout was great. The feedback I received was tremendously positive. It’s something we’re going to do again and connect with the people so that we get closer.”