Bourassa, QC — 2008 Federal Election Results Map

Bourassa

Bourassa is the compact northeastern corner of the Island of Montreal, a little over thirteen square kilometres holding close to a hundred thousand people. It is built on the borough of Montréal-Nord, with a narrow strip of neighbouring Ahuntsic-Cartierville along the Rivière des Prairies. The riding is named for the boulevard that crosses it, which in turn honours Henri Bourassa, the journalist and parliamentarian who founded Le Devoir — not the Quebec premier of the same surname.

Candidates

Denis Coderre (Liberal) — Coderre had held Bourassa since 1997 and was seeking a fifth consecutive term. Three earlier attempts at a seat had failed first: Joliette in 1988, a Laurier—Sainte-Marie by-election in 1990 against Gilles Duceppe, and Bourassa itself in 1993. In office he was appointed Secretary of State for Amateur Sport in August 1999, moved to Citizenship and Immigration in January 2002, and served the first seven months of Paul Martin's government as President of the Queen's Privy Council, Minister responsible for la Francophonie and federal interlocutor for Métis and non-status Indians. In opposition after 2006 he handled the defence file for his party.

Daniel Mailhot (Bloc Québécois) — Mailhot, a Montreal resident, carried the Bloc Québécois nomination.

Michelle Allaire (Conservative) — Allaire, of Montréal-Nord, stood for the Conservatives.

Samira Laouni (NDP) — Laouni held a doctorate in economics from the Sorbonne and had lived in Quebec since 1998, working across community, non-profit and intercultural organisations in the Montreal area.

François Boucher (Green) — Boucher, also of Montréal-Nord, carried the Green Party's nomination.

Geneviève Royer stood for the Marxist-Leninist Party.

About the Riding

Montréal-Nord governed itself from its incorporation in 1915 until the municipal mergers of 1 January 2002 folded it into Montreal. About 84,000 people live on its eleven square kilometres, one of the highest densities on the island, and the borough contains one of the largest Haitian communities in the country. French is the main language at home for roughly two-thirds of residents, with Haitian Creole, Arabic and Spanish widely spoken alongside it. There is no large industrial employer: commerce runs along a grid of boulevards — Henri-Bourassa, Pie-IX, Léger, Lacordaire, Langelier and Saint-Michel — lined with small retail, restaurants and services, and much of the working population travels elsewhere on the island for work. The housing stock ranges from walk-up apartment blocks to comfortable single-family streets, and the borough holds both settled middle-class enclaves and one of the higher concentrations of low-income households in Montreal.

What set this campaign apart happened two months before the vote. On 9 August 2008 a Montreal police officer shot and killed eighteen-year-old Fredy Villanueva in a parking lot beside the Henri-Bourassa arena; two other young men were wounded. The following night disturbances broke out in the surrounding streets, fires were set, a police officer was shot in the leg and an ambulance technician was hurt. Through the late summer, community organisations pressed for a public inquiry, and questions about policing, poverty, youth services and the treatment of immigrant families ran through the campaign here in a way they did not elsewhere in the city. Immigration processing times, money for social housing and transit funding were the other federal files that landed closest to home in a borough where household incomes sit well below the Montreal average.