Hull—Aylmer, QC — 2008 Federal Election Results Map

Hull—Aylmer

Hull—Aylmer consists of the former cities of Hull and Aylmer within the amalgamated City of Gatineau, running along the Quebec bank of the Ottawa River directly opposite Parliament Hill and continuing west to Lac Deschênes. Both were independent municipalities until the merger of 1 January 2002. The riding was created as Hull in 1914 and given its present name in 1984.

Candidates

Marcel Proulx (Liberal) — Born at L'Orignal, Ontario, in 1946, Proulx worked as a claims adjuster, businessman, administrator and executive assistant before entering the Commons at the by-election of 15 November 1999, called after Marcel Massé resigned. He was returned in 2000, 2004 and 2006, served as Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Transport, and as Deputy Chair of Committees of the Whole often took the chair as Acting Speaker. He stood for the speakership in 2006 and lost to Peter Milliken on the first ballot. Stéphane Dion named him his Quebec lieutenant in 2007; he gave up the post that October. He entered the campaign as the sitting member.

Raphaël Déry (Bloc Québécois) — Déry was the Bloc Québécois candidate.

Pierre Ducasse (NDP) — Born at Sept-Îles in 1972, Ducasse joined the New Democrats at seventeen and studied at Université Laval. He was associate president of the federal party from 2000 to 2002 and entered the January 2003 leadership race, finishing fifth in a field of six with the endorsement of Canadian Labour Congress president Ken Georgetti. Jack Layton afterwards made him the party's Quebec spokesman and lieutenant, a role he held until 2007. He had run three times in Manicouagan, in 1997, 2004 and 2006, before moving to contest Hull—Aylmer.

Paul Fréchette (Conservative) — Fréchette stood for the Conservatives.

Frédéric Pouyot (Green Party) — Pouyot carried the Green Party banner.

Gabriel Girard-Bernier (Marxist-Leninist) — Girard-Bernier also contested the seat.

About the Riding

The federal public service is the riding's industry. Place du Portage and the Terrasses de la Chaudière, the office complexes that dominate downtown Hull, house departments including Public Works and Government Services, and thousands more residents cross the river each morning to offices in Ottawa. Decentralization from the 1970s onward turned a pulp-and-paper town into a government town, and staffing levels, procurement and official-languages requirements all land here as employment issues.

Aylmer keeps a separate identity. Philemon Wright Jr. opened it up in 1818, clearing part of the Chaudière Lake farm at Turnpike End, improving the landing and putting up a hotel, a tavern and two stores; the place took the name of Lord Aylmer when the post office opened in 1831, was incorporated as a village in 1847, and served as the administrative seat of the Outaouais until 1897. Long an English-speaking community, it still holds the largest anglophone concentration in the riding, though francophones have formed the majority for decades. The old Rue Principale and the marina at Parc des Cèdres give the sector a residential character unlike the office district downstream, and its population had grown quickly as subdivisions pushed west.

The Hull sector supplies the region's cultural infrastructure: the Canadian Museum of Civilization on the riverfront, the Casino du Lac-Leamy and the Université du Québec en Outaouais. Gatineau Park, administered by the National Capital Commission, begins immediately to the north and west, and the absence of statutory boundaries protecting it from development was a standing local campaign.

No candidate other than a Liberal had ever carried the seat, and the one interruption came in mid-term: Gilles Rocheleau, a former mayor of Hull elected here as a Liberal in 1988, left the party on 2 July 1990 after the collapse of the Meech Lake accord and sat as a founding member of the Bloc Québécois until 1993. Bridge congestion, interprovincial transit, park protection and the security of federal employment were the questions most often raised locally in the autumn of 2008.