Lévis—Bellechasse

Lévis—Bellechasse spans a broad swath of Quebec's Chaudière-Appalaches region on the south shore of the St. Lawrence River, directly opposite Quebec City. The riding stretches from the eastern neighbourhoods of the city of Lévis southeastward through the rural municipalities of the Bellechasse regional county municipality toward the Maine border.

Candidates

Steven Blaney (Conservative) — A civil engineer born in 1965 in Sherbrooke, Blaney held a bachelor's degree from the Université de Sherbrooke and an MBA from the Université du Québec à Rimouski. He spent 15 years working in water purification and energy efficiency, founding the environmental technology firm Stratech in 1993. He also served as president of the Québec–Chaudière-Appalaches chapter of Réseau Environnement, Canada's largest association of environmental professionals, from 2003 to 2006. First elected in Lévis—Bellechasse in 2006 by defeating the Bloc Québécois incumbent, he was re-elected in 2008 and entered the 2011 campaign as the two-term Conservative incumbent. During the 40th Parliament, he chaired the Standing Committee on Official Languages from 2007 to 2010.

Nicole Laliberté (NDP) — Laliberté ran as the New Democratic Party candidate in Lévis—Bellechasse, part of the NDP's expanded slate of Quebec candidates in the 2011 campaign.

Danielle-Maude Gosselin (Bloc Québécois) — A veteran of Quebec's labour and public service sectors, Gosselin had made history as the first woman elected president of the Syndicat de la fonction publique et parapublique du Québec (SFPQ), serving from 1993 to 1996, during which she led the completion of the 1994 pay equity agreement. She subsequently held several senior positions in Quebec's civil service before seeking the Bloc nomination in Lévis—Bellechasse.

Francis Laforesterie ran for the Liberals and Sacha Dougé for the Green Party.

About the Riding

The riding combined two distinct zones: the suburban eastern portion of Lévis and the deeply rural Bellechasse countryside. Lévis, a city of roughly 138,000 people in 2011, anchored the riding's northern end and served as a major employment centre on the south shore. The Desjardins Group, Canada's largest federation of credit unions, was headquartered in Lévis and was among the region's top employers. The Davie shipyard in the Lauzon sector — Canada's oldest and largest shipbuilding facility, founded in 1825 — was a perennial source of both employment and economic anxiety, having gone through bankruptcy and ownership changes. In 2011, the shipyard was acquired by Upper Lakes Group.

The Valero Jean-Gaulin oil refinery in Lévis, one of eastern Canada's largest refineries, was another major industrial presence. South of the city, the MRC de Bellechasse was characterized by agriculture, forestry, and small manufacturing operations. Communities such as Saint-Anselme, Sainte-Claire, and Saint-Lazare-de-Bellechasse served as local service centres for surrounding farm country.

The riding was overwhelmingly francophone, with French spoken as a mother tongue by over 99 percent of residents. It had swung from the Bloc Québécois to the Conservatives in 2006 and remained competitive between those two parties heading into 2011, with the NDP's Quebec surge adding a new dimension to the contest.