Less than a week after the announcement of the departure of the caquiste Joëlle Boutin, the solidarity Olivier Bolduc is already launching to delight the riding of Jean-Talon, in Quebec, at the Coalition avenir Québec (CAQ).
“The people of Jean-Talon have the right to have a member who is loyal and who will not let them down,” he said in an interview with The Canadian Press.
Olivier Bolduc has already tried twice to win the county for Quebec solidaire (QS). In 2022, he finished second with 24% of the vote.
“To see the same person appearing three times in Jean-Talon, I think it’s convincing. The person wants to continue. She’s not here to leave,” he said.
In 2018 and 2014, he tried his luck in the riding of Chutes-de-la-Chaudière on the south shore of Quebec.
Olivier Bolduc has been a court reporter since 2015. He worked as a railway worker for six years.
Last week, MP Joëlle Boutin announced that she was leaving politics less than a year after being elected to spend more time with her family. She also received an offer in the private sector.
“I’m still warmed up, yesterday was the general election. […] I think we are leaving with serious advantages. We have a good machine and activists who are ready to return to work, ”assures Mr. Bolduc.
But he will first have to win the solidarity nomination before being officially the candidate for the party in the constituency.
“Unlike the CAQ where François Legault decides everything, we have an internal democracy at QS and that is dear to us. […] It’s more difficult sometimes, it takes a little longer, but it’s worth it,” he says.
At this time, there are no other officially declared candidates for the QS nomination.
The other political parties have not yet announced who will represent them in Jean-Talon.
A hot fight ahead
We can expect a fierce fight in Jean-Talon. Voting intentions in the Quebec region have changed a lot in recent months. With the decline of the Coalition avenir Québec (CAQ) on the third link, the party of François Legault lost support in favor of the Parti québécois (PQ).
The last two Léger polls published in May and June place the PQ at the top of voting intentions in Quebec.
The Parti Québécois (PQ) has also moved the location of its pre-sessional caucus to this riding. Initially, the event was to take place in Alma. The caucus will be held on August 31.
The PQ opened hostilities on social networks last week, less than 24 hours after the resignation of Joëlle Boutin, with messages in which he indicated that he wanted to “beat the CAQ in Quebec”.
The current projections of the poll aggregator Qc125 place the PQ, QS and the CAQ on a statistical equal footing in Jean-Talon.
The government has six months to call a by-election after the departure of a member. The estimated cost of such an election is $585,000. This will be the fourth partial in Jean-Talon since 2008.