{"id":104415,"date":"2017-05-28T23:24:53","date_gmt":"2017-05-29T03:24:53","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/?p=104415"},"modified":"2017-05-28T23:24:53","modified_gmt":"2017-05-29T03:24:53","slug":"mixed-reactions-to-berniers-leadership-defeat-in-his-home-riding-of-beauce","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/2017\/05\/28\/mixed-reactions-to-berniers-leadership-defeat-in-his-home-riding-of-beauce\/","title":{"rendered":"Mixed reactions to Bernier’s leadership defeat in his home riding of Beauce"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Quebecers and the \u201cextremely strong\u201d lobby of the province’s professional farmers’ union are to blame for Maxime Bernier’s defeat in the Conservative leadership race, according to an ex-mayor in Bernier’s hometown in Quebec’s Beauce region. (Photo: Maxime Bernier\/ Facebook<\/a>)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

ST-GEORGES, Que. \u2013 Quebecers and the \u201cextremely strong\u201d lobby of the province’s professional farmers’ union are to blame for Maxime Bernier’s defeat in the Conservative leadership race, according to an ex-mayor in Bernier’s hometown in Quebec’s Beauce region.<\/p>\n

Roger Carette, a Bernier supporter who served as mayor of St-Georges from 1994 to 2009, says he can’t understand how Quebec let the candidate down.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt’s Quebec that took him out of there,\u201d he said, moments after learning Bernier had lost the race to Andrew Scheer. \u201cIf you look at the difference of one per cent of votes, that’s the difference in Quebec.\u201d<\/p>\n

According to Conservative party data, Bernier was beaten by Scheer in his home riding of Beauce, collecting 48.89 per cent of support compared to 51.11 per cent for the Saskatchewan native.<\/p>\n

With the support of farmers, Scheer campaigned in Beauce against Bernier’s plan to gradually abolish supply management, the quota and price control system that ensures a stable income to dairy and poultry farmers despite market fluctuations.<\/p>\n

Bernier wanted to liberalize the system, arguing it keeps prices artificially high and limits competition. He suggested a transition period with compensation.<\/p>\n

Carette blames the \u201cundue intervention of the farmers’ movement\u201d for sabotaging the campaign of \u201ca guy from home.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI’m disappointed. I recognize that Quebec decided it wanted a guy from Saskatchewan to lead the party and, maybe one day, the country,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt’s a bit distressing to see we’ve been a part of that,\u201d said Carette, who believes Bernier’s proposal to abolish supply management would not have passed easily and would have been the subject of vigorous debate within the party.<\/p>\n

At \u201cChez Gerard\u201d restaurant in St-Georges, the 40 or so Bernier supporters who had gathered to watch the results were feeling the same letdown.<\/p>\n

Swear words rang out as Scheer’s victory was confirmed, with many of the partisans getting up to leave soon after.<\/p>\n

A party atmosphere had reigned for much of the evening, as supporters paused between bites of sausage and breaded mozzarella sticks to express their confidence in Bernier, who they described as generous, sincere, and \u201cclose to his people.\u201d<\/p>\n

By the tenth tour, that confidence began to evaporate.<\/p>\n

\u201cMaxime had a split vote in Beauce, but he had a lot of support in Alberta. It’s incomprehensible,\u201d said Johanne Maheu, a Bernier volunteer.<\/p>\n

The Beauce riding has one of the country’s largest concentrations of farmers under supply management.<\/p>\n

Several dairy farmers in the region, including Frederic Marcoux, had set out to block Bernier’s campaign and damage his campaign co-president, Jacques Gourde.<\/p>\n

A Facebook page whose title translates as \u201cfriends of supply management and the regions\u201d got almost 10,000 members.<\/p>\n

On Saturday, Marcoux said farmers didn’t just beat Bernier -they’ve also made the entire political class take notice of them.<\/p>\n

\u201cEveryone saw us, everyone heard us…everyone saw the final result,\u201d he said in a phone interview. \u201cFor me, we won’t see anyone attacking supply management for a damned long time.\u201d<\/p>\n

Marcoux said it was \u201ceasy\u201d to blame the professional farmers’ union — the Union des Producteurs Agricoles — but believes the grumbling against Bernier was in fact more widespread.<\/p>\n

\u201cMaxime Bernier held himself back,\u201d he said. \u201cSupply management, just in his riding is a half-billion, what did he think would happen?\u201d<\/p>\n

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 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

ST-GEORGES, Que. \u2013 Quebecers and the \u201cextremely strong\u201d lobby of the province’s professional farmers’ union are to blame for Maxime …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":33,"featured_media":104418,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[18,16,483],"tags":[13804],"class_list":["post-104415","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-news-ca","category-news","category-politics","tag-maxime-bernier","mauthors-caroline-plante","mauthors-the-canadian-press"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/104415","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/33"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=104415"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/104415\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/104418"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=104415"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=104415"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=104415"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}