Saint-Laurent riding among five federal byelections held Monday
Voters in the riding of Saint-Laurent go to the polls on Monday to replace longtime member of Parliament Stéphane Dion, who quit politics in January after being dropped from the federal cabinet.
The riding is one of the safest Liberal seats in the country, but the Liberal nomination process was filled with controversy after the party rejected the candidacy of Alan DeSousa, the popular mayor of Saint-Laurent, without giving him a reason.
Emmanuella Lambropoulos, a 26-year-old teacher at Rosemount High School, eventually beat out star candidate Yolande James, a former Quebec cabinet minister who was the apparent choice of the party establishment.
The stunning capture of the Liberal nomination in the Saint-Laurent riding by a political unknown was a stern rebuke to party brass, according to DeSousa.
Other candidates say that voters are miffed with how the Liberal nomination was handled and are hoping voters will turn their backs on the party.
“They took our population for granted, but people woke up with the events that happened,” said Jimmy Yu, the Conservative party candidate.
However, Lambropoulos said many voters have told her they’re sticking with the Liberals. “People said they are happy I won and are happy that a local person won,” she said. Lambropoulos grew up in the riding and still lives there.
Mathieu Auclair, a student in international relations, is running for the New Democratic Party and Daniel Green, a longtime environmental activist, is the Green Party of Canada candidate. William Fayad is running for the Bloc Québécois.
Dion, who held the riding since 1996, is now Canada’s ambassador to Germany and the European Union.
Other byelections Monday include the Ottawa-Vanier and Markham-Thornhill ridings in Ontario, and the Alberta ridings of Calgary Heritage and Calgary Midnapore.