Éric Duhaime no longer doubts it: the electorate of Chauveau will roll out a red carpet for him until the Salon bleu on October 3. However, the outcome of the vote is not fixed. In this riding located north of Quebec, the Conservative leader’s unpaid taxes could cost him dearly.
“When I started, honestly, I wasn’t going there to win,” says Mr. Duhaime on the phone. But now I am convinced of it. I know that I will make my entry into the National Assembly on October 4th. »
Needless to say, the Conservative leader exudes confidence. “I don’t see how I could lose at this time,” he said in an interview. Two days before talking to the To have toÉric Duhaime received a welcome worthy of a rock star at the Videotron Center, adored by a crowd of activists estimated at 2,500 people.
The stars seem aligned for Chauveau to become Éric Duhaime’s springboard to the National Assembly. His party has nearly 2,000 members here, more than anywhere else in Quebec. It is also here that the Conservatives recorded their best score in the last elections, winning more than 3,300 votes and 9% of the vote. At the federal level, Conservative MPs have represented the territory of the riding since 2006, with the exception of the orange wave of 2011.
For Éric Duhaime, only one outcome is possible in Chauveau: his victory on October 3. “In the current context, I do not see how it could not happen,” said the main interested party.
The polls are less categorical. Less than two weeks before the vote, Quebec125 still foresees a tight duel and places the two leaders neck and neck, with a slight advantage for the CAQ.
“It is a serious mistake to take the voters for granted”, warns the main opponent of Éric Duhaime. Sylvain Lévesque speaks from experience: the former PQ candidate, who became a member of the ADQ and then the CAQ, tasted defeat as often as victory in six election campaigns. In the last ballot, he dominated Chauveau under the Caquist banner, winning more than 18,000 votes and nearly half of the votes.
The projections of Quebec125 initially gave victory to Éric Duhaime—until the episode of his unpaid municipal taxes burst into the headlines. Since then, the Conservative leader has never regained the upper hand over his rival.
On the phone, Éric Duhaime admits that the population speaks to him “from time to time” about his overdue accounts which made the headlines during the third week of the campaign. The Conservative leader is not overly concerned. “People talk to me about it positively. They say to me: “Me too, it has already happened to me not to pay the Hydro.” It shows that I have strengths and weaknesses. It’s not the end of the world, ”he explains on the phone.
“Taxes broke me! »
The campaign raging here has already claimed victims: the CAQ signs. Those hoisted very high were able to escape the hecatomb. The others, lacerated or completely butchered, litter the edges of the rue de la Faune crossing St-Émile.
It is the outgoing deputy, the caquiste Sylvain Lévesque, who bears the brunt of this vandalism. “The climate is quite unhealthy right now; there is aggression in the air,” he laments.
In this riding where the median household income, propelled by the opulence of Lac-Beauport and Stoneham, reaches $92,000 — some $20,000 more than the Quebec average — many disapprove of this anger that is expressed of Exacto.
“I am very disappointed that the world is ripping his face off on the signs. I hate it,” vociferates Johanne, met at the entrance to the supermarket. Even if her boyfriend sets his sights on Éric Duhaime, this energetic retiree does not want the Conservative leader to represent her the day after the election. “Taxes broke me. It broke me! Don’t tell me you’re credible when you don’t have credibility anymore. »
His aunt, Céline Paquet, joins the conversation with her basket full of groceries. “I’m tired of Legault. I find him arrogant and I like him less”, lists the retired antique dealer. “But the others are also zero. Especially not the three little fellows, the three little elves, ”she says again about the PQ, Solidarity and Conservative captains.
” [Éric Duhaime] has just disappointed us,” says the 71-year-old retiree. “He may be there to make things better, but he’s not paying for his business. “Dominique Anglade, then? “It seems that the fact that it is a woman, it bothers me. That’s not very feminist, is it? »
Strategic Voting
Another client discreetly invites himself into the debate: “PQ! PQ! PQ! »
Well-filled bags in each hand, Jacques Fortin repeats his intention to vote as he walks towards his car, just loud enough to attract attention. “I’m a former PQ player who dropped out of the project, but I think we have to go back to the country,” he explains. Especially with Ottawa which puts us aside a lot ”. His vote “really comes from the heart”, he adds, well aware that it is not in Chauveau, “an ultra-federalist and very conservative riding”, that the Republic of Quebec will germinate.
Failing to have a country, he could have a deputy party leader the day after the election. “I don’t want to know anything about Duhaime! plagues Mr. Fortin. “It’s not complicated: I don’t like the radios where he was. And he is a populist and a demagogue of the first order, as much as mine. It’s easy to tell the world what they want to hear, to say something one day and the opposite the next. »
A little further north, in Lac-Beauport, Sylvain Lévesque’s signs are not as disfigured as in St-Émile, but they are clearly outnumbered. Éric Duhaime’s face appears at both posts on Boulevard du Lac, his confident smile silhouetted against a dark blue background.
“I inquired, I read about him,” explains Mélanie Wagenhoffer, 43 and mother of a 7-year-old boy, recently returned to Quebec after having lived in Montreal.
His vote is also the subject of intense debate within the family unit. “There, we are more in the” how we vote compared to the one that we do not want to see return “”, she says. And who is it? “The gentleman on the little sign over there,” she said, pointing to Eric Duhaime’s smiling face, visible everywhere. Why ? “Because… EVERYTHING!” exclaims M.me Wagenhoffer. “His vision, his speeches, his opinions on certain subjects… It is so unlike us! »
“I am very Duhaime”
Not everyone in Chauveau shares this aversion. In the riding’s streets and parking lots, many windshields bear the conservative “Libres chez nous” sign. Steve Émond says it right away in his freshly opened snack bar: “I’m very Duhaime. »
This 41-year-old entrepreneur, father of 3 children, has always loved “the philosophy and ideas” of the conservative leader. “I followed him a bit when he was on the radio. I also wondered why he didn’t make the leap into politics before. “Also owner of a travel agency, he concedes that his business has suffered during the pandemic:” It ended up that I got into debt of $ 260,000. »
Mr. Émond still has on his heart the jokes with which certain newspapers have decked out tourists who were traveling despite COVID-19. “Me, being called a ‘touristata’ by a journalist who goes to Mexico… It didn’t pass,” said the businessman, referring to the media treatment reserved for Quebecers who took advantage of the South during the time. of the Holidays of 2020, ignoring sanitary measures.
The conversation spills over into the kitchen, where employees discuss the election race over fryers. “But his tax business, it’s not much!” comments an employee above the sizzle.
The episode marked the spirits in Chauveau. To claim victory, Éric Duhaime will have to get the vote out – and hope that the electorate will not make him pay his taxes a second time.