Outremont, QC — 2008 Federal Election Results Map

Outremont

Outremont was the only Quebec seat the New Democratic Party held going into the 2008 campaign, and Thomas Mulcair was only the second New Democrat the province had ever sent to Ottawa. The riding wrapped around the north slope of Mount Royal: the borough of Outremont at its core, plus eastern Côte-des-Neiges, the western end of Mile End, a corner of Parc-Extension and slivers of La Petite-Patrie and Ville-Marie. Its 95,771 residents in 2006 lived in just over fourteen square kilometres.

Candidates

Thomas Mulcair (NDP) — A lawyer who ran Quebec's Office des professions from 1987 to 1993, Mulcair was elected to the National Assembly for Chomedey in 1994 and became Jean Charest's minister of sustainable development, environment and parks in April 2003. He opposed a condominium development on protected land at Mont-Orford, left cabinet in February 2006 rather than accept a lesser portfolio, quit the Assembly in March 2007, joined the New Democrats and won the Outremont by-election of 17 September 2007. Jack Layton made him Quebec lieutenant and a co-deputy leader; his re-election was the test of whether the by-election had been a one-off.

Sébastien Dhavernas (Liberal) — An actor since leaving the Conservatoire d'art dramatique de Montréal in 1973, Dhavernas was known to television audiences from Le temps d'une paix, Urgence and Virginie, and had directed dozens of plays. Appointed weeks earlier to chair the federal tribunal governing relations between artists and producers, he resigned it over the government's arts and culture cuts and entered the race days before the candidate deadline.

Marcela Valdivia (Bloc Québécois) — A lawyer practising in criminal and family law, Valdivia sat on a Montreal committee examining racial profiling and had travelled to Colombia with Lawyers Without Borders in 2006.

Lulzim Laloshi (Conservative) — An entrepreneur with a background in computer science and project management, Laloshi ran his own technology firms and headed the association of Quebec's Albanian community.

F. Pilon (Green Party) — Pilon had lived in Côte-des-Neiges since 1980 and had installed clotheslines in Montreal for about twenty years — the trade behind the name he registered with Elections Canada. He had carried the Green banner here at the 2006 general election and the 2007 by-election.

About the Riding

The borough itself was one of Montreal's wealthier addresses, a district of stone houses, mature trees and the shops of Laurier and Bernard avenues, and the traditional home of French-speaking Montreal's professional and political class. Its northeastern streets housed a large Hasidic community, and the borough had seen repeated disputes over zoning and places of worship. The Université de Montréal and HEC Montréal stood inside the riding, filling the surrounding blocks with students and academic staff.

Beyond the borough the riding changed quickly. Mile End, once a garment and textile quarter, had become a centre of the city's video game, software, design and independent music industries, working out of converted factory lofts. Parc-Extension, on the far side of the tracks, ranked among the densest and poorest neighbourhoods in Canada and drew immigrants from South Asia, Greece, North Africa and Latin America. Eastern Côte-des-Neiges added its own immigrant and student mix.

About 42 per cent of residents gave French as their mother tongue and 16 per cent English; the rest reported other languages, Arabic, Yiddish and Spanish the largest among them. Roughly one resident in ten was Jewish and nearly as many Muslim.

The cuts to arts and culture programmes announced in August 2008 landed hard in a riding full of performers, producers and studios and framed much of the local campaign — sharply enough that they supplied the Liberal challenger's reason for running. Housing costs, student debt and the Afghanistan mission also figured.