Sherbrooke between powder blue and orange

(Sherbrooke) In front of the full room of the amphitheater of the Cégep de Sherbrooke, the CAQ member did not pretend.

“I know I’m not the most popular in the room,” said Geneviève Hébert, elected in 2018.

She guessed right. The students only have one for the star candidate of Québec solidaire, the D^D Mélissa Généreux, repeatedly applauded.

We are in Saint-François, a riding that encompasses the eastern part of the city of Sherbrooke, but extends south to the US border, from Stanstead to Saint-Venant, via Coaticook.

M^me Hébert, former owner of a breastfeeding products store and manager of a construction firm, won Saint-François with only 34.7% of the votes. QS finished third, at 22.7%, but 251 votes from the Liberals, who were second.

As everyone knows, the Liberals have since collapsed. No one knows this better than the Liberal candidate himself, Claude Charron, who gave a sleepy performance in front of the students, as if he had already conceded victory and was waiting to return to his activities as mayor of the borough of Lennoxville. .

“I have the impression that when you campaign positively, it bullies you,” analyzes the candidate.

Where will the 23.3% of Liberal votes in 2018 go?

The Liberals have gone to the CAQ, says the CAQ. They’re at QS, QS says.

All parties would have liked to recruit Mélissa Généreux. This professor at the Faculty of Medicine at the University of Sherbrooke was barely 30 years old when she was appointed head of Public Health in Estrie in July 2013. A week later, a runaway train blew up downtown Lac-Mégantic and killed 47 people…

Everything she knew about dealing with extreme disasters she had read to prepare for the inevitable exam question on the subject during her studies in public health. She learned the importance of “not politicizing” these crises, she says.

She developed expertise and was consulted during the Alberta wildfires and then during major floods. And even though she left the function in 2019, the pandemic brought her back to the field. It was his team who decided to close or open the schools, who investigated the spread and at the same time tried to assess the ambient stress of the children.

It may have a solid reputation and be effective in debates, Saint-François is not limited to the Cégep de Sherbrooke, and the fight is far from won.

It is no coincidence that on Wednesday evening, Gabriel Nadeau-Dubois came to encourage the troops, shake hands with activists and make calls in the candidate’s office on King Street.

After Verdun and even Maurice-Richard, Saint-François is the number 3 hope of winning for QS.

“Exit QS from Sherbrooke”

On the other side of the Saint-François River, in Sherbrooke, it’s the same story, but in reverse. Jean Charest’s former seat was taken from the Liberal Party in 2018 by Christine Labrie of Québec solidaire. But she too only won with a third (34.3%) of the votes; the liberals, second, are absent subscribers; and the CAQ, third but very close, nominated a star candidate, Caroline St-Hilaire. And it’s very tight.

The former Bloc member (1997-2012) and former mayor of Longueuil (2009-2017), who later became known as a political commentator at LCN, admits that her arrival was a surprise at first.

She had to explain that she left the South Shore to live in Austin, in the neighboring riding of Orford.

She also said that the Liberals had joined the CAQ “to get out of QS”.

“The MP did not go once to the Chamber of Commerce. I went to see the community groups.

“It’s the capital of Estrie, we can’t just talk about housing. Can we talk about economic development? Can we talk about the solutions? »

For her, MP Christine Labrie is an “activist” who is not there for “the whole population”, and who offers “ridiculous” ideas for public transport.

In particular more tram kilometers than in Quebec, but for less, an electric train to Montreal, buses, for a total of 4 billion just for Sherbrooke.

“Even the reserved lanes bother people. You have to work on the frequency of the buses, not the volume. Neither the City nor the transport company requested a tram. That doesn’t solve the transport problem next week, that. »

She, who has done some of them, assures us that it is ” [sa] finest countryside. “If we win, it will be extraordinary, if we lose, we will have tried everything and we will have had fun with my team. And I’m trying to teach my boys something [de 20 et 24 ans]. That even when it’s not easy, you have to keep going. Work. It’s so good afterwards! »

Turn others left

— What is the true power of an opposition MP?

My question ignited the united MP, intercepted on the campus of the University of Sherbrooke with Manon Massé.

“We have an enormous power of influence, says Christine Labrie. And we exercised it to such an extent that we made the other political parties veer to the left on many issues.

“The promises of social housing, we did not see that in 2018. The PLQ which promises to make specific programs in high school free. We already offered that. »

“Are they really copying you?”

“I find that quite correct, because it shows that we have influence on the public debate. The CAQ, which had appeared before the voters without any environmental program, ended up having a law passed to prohibit the exploration and exploitation of hydrocarbons in Quebec. They did this because we convinced them to give up LNG.

“The ban on the sale of gasoline vehicles in 2035 is not soon enough, but we have led them to take much more progressive positions. In Sherbrooke, we are asking for a secondary school. We were told no three times. There they came to announce it during the campaign. Why do you think? »

Christine Labrie, who was part of the transpartisan group of deputies on the specialized tribunal for sexual violence, heaves a long sigh when I ask her why she did not go to the chamber of commerce.

In terms of housing, the crisis here hits even harder because 25% of housing is occupied by students, who are only passing through, which makes increases easier.

The tram ?

“My job in politics is to think long term. You have to start talking about it, because it takes 10 years minimum to develop a transportation plan like that. For the CAQ, public transit is Montreal and Quebec, and again! In several districts, there is no serious alternative to the car. Beyond the environmental crisis, it is an issue of the aging of the population. They come to my office because they’ve lost their driver’s license and they no longer have a way to get around. »

Apart from the student vote, generally favorable to QS, the other unknown is the performance of the Parti Québécois in the two ridings. If, as elsewhere, it rises a little, will it be at the expense of QS or the CAQ?