Beauce

Located south of Quebec City in the Chaudière-Appalaches region, the riding of Beauce followed the valley of the Chaudière River through one of Quebec's most distinctive and entrepreneurial regions. The riding encompassed the regional county municipalities of Beauce-Sartigan, most of Beauce-Centre, La Nouvelle-Beauce, and parts of Les Etchemins and Le Granit, with Saint-Georges as its largest city.

Candidates

Maxime Bernier (Conservative) — The son of former Progressive Conservative MP Gilles Bernier, who had represented the riding from 1984 to 1997, Maxime Bernier held a Bachelor of Commerce from UQAM and had studied civil law at the University of Ottawa before being called to the Quebec Bar in 1990. He worked in law, finance, and banking before becoming vice-president of the Montreal Economic Institute. First elected in 2006 with an overwhelming majority, Bernier was appointed Minister of Industry and later Minister of Foreign Affairs in the Harper government. He resigned from cabinet in May 2008 after it was revealed he had left classified documents at an unsecured location. Despite the controversy, he was re-elected in 2008 and entered the 2011 campaign as a backbencher.

Serge Bergeron (NDP) — Bergeron carried the NDP banner in a riding where the party had historically been marginal.

Claude Morin (Liberal) — Morin stood as the Liberal candidate in the strongly conservative riding.

Sylvio Morin (Bloc Québécois) — Morin represented the Bloc in a riding where the sovereigntist party had never gained significant traction.

Etienne Doyon Lessard (Green Party) — Doyon Lessard ran for the Green Party.

About the Riding

The Beauce was renowned across Quebec for its culture of entrepreneurship. The region's economy was built on a dense network of small and medium-sized enterprises in manufacturing sectors including furniture, food processing, textiles, metalworking, and printing. Saint-Georges, the regional centre with a population of approximately 31,000, was home to major firms such as the Canam Group, a steel fabrication company that had grown to operate plants across North America, and Garaga, a leading garage door manufacturer. The École d'Entrepreneurship de Beauce, a unique institution offering training through direct entrepreneur-to-entrepreneur mentorship, reflected the region's business-oriented identity.

The Beauce was also Quebec's heartland of maple syrup production, containing over half the province's sugar maples and sugar shacks. Dairy farming and mixed agriculture remained important in the rural portions of the riding. The Chaudière River, which gave the broader region its name, was both a scenic feature and a source of periodic flooding concerns for riverside communities including Beauceville and Saint-Joseph-de-Beauce.

Politically, the Beauce stood apart from much of francophone Quebec. The riding had strong conservative and federalist leanings, having sent Conservative or Progressive Conservative members to Ottawa for most of the previous three decades. In the 2006 census, 84 percent of residents identified their ethnic origin as Canadian — the highest proportion of any riding in the country — and the population was almost entirely francophone. Low taxes, small government, and support for small business were the dominant political priorities.