Beauce

South of Quebec City in the Chaudière-Appalaches region, Beauce follows the Chaudière River valley through a string of entrepreneurial towns and villages. The riding includes Saint-Georges, the region's largest city, as well as Sainte-Marie, Beauceville, Saint-Joseph-de-Beauce, and parts of the Le Granit regional county municipality encompassing Lac-Mégantic. The Beauce region is renowned across Quebec for its manufacturing dynamism and deeply rooted culture of entrepreneurship.

Candidates

Maxime Bernier (Conservative) — A lawyer admitted to the Barreau du Québec, Bernier studied commerce at the Université du Québec à Montréal and law at the University of Ottawa. Before entering politics, he held positions at the law firm McCarthy Tétrault, the Quebec Securities Commission, the National Bank of Canada, and Standard Life of Canada. First elected in Beauce in 2006, he served as Minister of Industry before being promoted to Minister of Foreign Affairs, a portfolio he resigned from in May 2008 after acknowledging he had left classified documents at a former girlfriend's residence. He was seeking a fourth consecutive term in the riding.

Adam Veilleux (Liberal) — Originally from Saint-Georges, Veilleux was a businessman involved in community fundraising, including work with the Maison Catherine de Longpré.

Daniel Royer (NDP) — Royer carried the NDP banner in a riding where the party had historically struggled to gain traction.

Stéphane Trudel (Bloc Québécois) — Trudel represented the Bloc Québécois in the Beauce riding.

About the Riding

The Beauce's entrepreneurial culture has produced a disproportionate number of major companies for a region of its size. Originally an agricultural area centred on maple syrup production and dairy farming, the economy diversified over the 20th century into manufacturing, with firms producing everything from steel structures and prefabricated buildings to industrial machinery and bathroom fixtures. Canam Group, headquartered in Saint-Georges, grew into a major national enterprise in steel construction. The École d'Entrepreneurship de Beauce, a training institution based on entrepreneur-to-entrepreneur learning, reflects the region's self-image as a cradle of enterprise. Proximity to the U.S. border has made export-oriented manufacturing a pillar of the local economy. The riding also carried the weight of the Lac-Mégantic rail disaster of July 2013, when a runaway train carrying crude oil derailed and exploded in the town's centre, killing 47 people and destroying much of the downtown core. The tragedy raised federal questions about rail safety regulation, the transportation of hazardous materials, and the pace of reconstruction assistance. Bernier's dominance in the riding made the 2015 contest less competitive than in many Quebec seats, as the Beauce had been a Conservative stronghold since his first election.