{"id":57699,"date":"2015-07-30T20:53:19","date_gmt":"2015-07-30T12:53:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/?p=57699"},"modified":"2015-07-30T20:53:19","modified_gmt":"2015-07-30T12:53:19","slug":"ndp-leader-tom-mulcair-visits-region-key-to-partys-hopes-of-forming-government","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/2015\/07\/30\/ndp-leader-tom-mulcair-visits-region-key-to-partys-hopes-of-forming-government\/","title":{"rendered":"NDP Leader Tom Mulcair visits region key to party\u2019s hopes of forming government"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Tom<\/a>
Tom Mulcair (Screengrab from Canucks Politics)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

SAINT-HYACINTHE, Que. \u2013 The soil-rich farmland south of Montreal called the Monteregie is currently an NDP bastion with nearly all of the region’s ridings under the party banner, and Leader Tom Mulcair knows he needs to keep these seats to have a strong shot at becoming prime minister in the fall.<\/p>\n

Mulcair toured a major agricultural fair in the Monteregie town of Saint-Hyacinthe, Que., on Wednesday, feeding goats and shaking hands a few days before Prime Minister Stephen Harper is expected to trigger an early election campaign.<\/p>\n

Roland Bastien, 76, who sells cowboy hats at the fair, said she likes the NDP but is still not 100 per cent certain she\u2019ll choose the party on election day.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe NDP is younger, they have new ideas,\u201d she said. \u201cI think people over 40, they want to see change. The NDP is interesting.\u201d<\/p>\n

The region used to be a Bloc Quebecois stronghold but switched to the NDP in 2011, helping to propel the party to official Opposition status for the first time.<\/p>\n

The NDP needs to maintain its support in the region in order to give it a strong shot at forming a government after the scheduled Oct. 19 election.<\/p>\n

Claude Lemaire, 62, walking alone in the sweltering heat on the fairgrounds, said he likes the NDP, but he’s a Bloc Quebecois supporter and said he probably won\u2019t change his mind \u2013 unless he thinks the NDP could actually win the election.<\/p>\n

Lemaire said he decided to vote Bloc after he learned Gilles Duceppe came back from political exile to lead the party once more.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think people around here switched to the NDP because of Jack Layton,\u201d he said, referring to the late NDP leader who led the party to its 2011 surprising result.<\/p>\n

\u201cMulcair has credibility for sure,\u201d he added. \u201cI would like to see the NDP win. I don\u2019t think they will but I hope they do. If I think they\u2019ll win then I\u2019d consider voting for them.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Monteregie has roughly 1.5 million people and covers much of the territory south of Montreal down to the U.S. border.<\/p>\n

The region is considered \u201cQuebec\u2019s pantry\u201d due to it being the province\u2019s top region for poultry, dairy, pork, vegetables and apples.<\/p>\n

The land is the most arable in Quebec and its 7,070 agriculture companies produce 25 per cent of the province\u2019s total agricultural yield with annual revenues of $3 billion.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s why the supply management system used to set prices, control costs and protect the farming industry from foreign competition is so important to the region, according to Saint-Hyacinthe Mayor Claude Corbeil.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s extremely important the system doesn\u2019t change,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Mulcair told reporters at the fair that an NDP government would \u201cfight tooth and nail\u201d to keep the current system in place, while reports suggest the government might be considering opening the system to foreign competition.<\/p>\n

But while the election campaign is reportedly a few days away, most people approached at the fair Wednesday had summer festivities on their minds.<\/p>\n

Luc Daigneault, 39, was walking with his family towards the games section of the fairgrounds and said he is still undecided about which party he\u2019d vote for.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think I voted Liberal last time \u2013 but I don\u2019t even remember,\u201d he said with a chuckle.<\/p>\n

The NDP is on his radar, though.<\/p>\n

He said he\u2019d consider voting for the party \u201cas long as they don\u2019t make fake promises and say they\u2019ll do things that we know will never happen.\u201d<\/p>\n

Mulcair will pay a visit to Edmunston, N.B., Thursday and hold a news conference with Yvon Godin, the MP for Acadie-Bathurst, and Rosaire L\u2019Italien, the NDP candidate for Madawaska-Restigouche.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

SAINT-HYACINTHE, Que. \u2013 The soil-rich farmland south of Montreal called the Monteregie is currently an NDP bastion with nearly all …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":33,"featured_media":25819,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[18,16,483],"tags":[35],"class_list":["post-57699","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-news-ca","category-news","category-politics","tag-original","mauthors-giuseppe-valiante","mauthors-the-canadian-press1"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/57699","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=57699"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/57699\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/25819"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=57699"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=57699"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=57699"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}