LaSalle—Emard

LaSalle—Emard is an urban riding in southwestern Montreal, taking in the borough of LaSalle along the St. Lawrence River and the neighbourhoods of Ville-Emard, Cote-Saint-Paul, and parts of the Angrignon area in the borough of Le Sud-Ouest. The riding sits south of the Lachine Canal and is bounded by the boroughs of Lachine to the west and Verdun to the east. For two decades it was the constituency of former Prime Minister Paul Martin, who retired in 2008.

Candidates

Helene LeBlanc (NDP) — Born in Lyster, Quebec, LeBlanc was an educator and agricultural scientist. She held a Bachelor of Arts from Universite Sainte-Anne, a Bachelor of Education from the University of Ottawa, and a Bachelor of Science in agriculture and environment from McGill University. She taught French in Vancouver and Ottawa and worked as an interpreter and guide for the Canada Museums of Science and Technology Corporation and the Canada Agriculture Museum in Ottawa. She entered the 2011 race as a first-time federal candidate.

Lise Zarac (Liberal) — Zarac came to federal politics from Montreal municipal government, where she served as a city councillor in the LaSalle district from 2005 to 2008. She succeeded Paul Martin as Liberal MP for LaSalle—Emard in the 2008 federal election, entering the 2011 campaign as a one-term incumbent. In Parliament, she served on House of Commons committees during her single term.

Carl Dubois (Bloc Quebecois) and Chang-Tao Jimmy Yu (Conservative) also contested the riding. Lorraine Banville (Green Party), Yves Le Seigle (Marxist-Leninist), and Guillaume Berger-Richard (Rhinoceros) also ran.

About the Riding

The borough of LaSalle, the riding's demographic core, is home to roughly 75,000 residents and occupies the most southerly point of the Island of Montreal along the St. Lawrence River. Formerly an independent suburb before its 2002 amalgamation into the city of Montreal, LaSalle retains a diverse, working-to-middle-class character. The borough has historically supported a varied manufacturing base including building materials, plastics, chemicals, fabricated steel, pharmaceuticals, and food and beverage production. About 58 percent of the riding's residents are francophone, with roughly a quarter listing English as their mother tongue. The LaSalle portion of the riding also has a sizable Italian-Canadian community.

The Ville-Emard and Cote-Saint-Paul neighbourhoods in the northern part of the riding are older residential areas in the borough of Le Sud-Ouest, near Parc Angrignon and its metro station. These neighbourhoods have experienced gradual economic transition as light industry has given way to services and small businesses. The riding's proximity to major transportation corridors and its mixed demographic profile — spanning immigrant communities, established francophone families, and pockets of anglophone residents — gave it a politically competitive character. After two decades under Paul Martin, the riding's political loyalties were less predictable than in Montreal's traditional Liberal strongholds, making it a target for both the NDP and the Bloc heading into 2011.