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Bloc Quebecois Leader Gilles Duceppe hams it up with star recruit Daniel Paille at a press conference in Montreal on Sept. 4, 2009 .

Monday, November 9, 2009 3:54 PM

Will Harper face his former polling watchdog?

Bill Curry

Daniel Paillé was a surprising choice when Prime Minister Stephen Harper appointed him in 2007 to review polling practices when the federal Liberals were in charge.

The move came back to bite the government, as Mr. Paillé’s report directed its strongest criticism toward the Conservatives for spending too much on federal polling.

Today, Mr. Paillé will find out if he’ll have the chance to square off with Mr. Harper in the House of Commons.

The former Parti Québécois cabinet minister is the Bloc Québécois’ candidate in the by-election in Hochelaga, one of two Quebec ridings up for grabs.

Both ridings have voted solidly for the Bloc Québécois in recent years, and last week's move to kill the gun registry - which is hugely popular in Quebec - is expected to hamper the Tories.

Hochelaga, an urban riding in Montreal’s East end, is bordered by two Liberal ridings and two Bloc ridings.

In 2008, veteran Bloc MP Réal Ménard held on to the riding easily, winning with 49.7 per cent of the vote. The Liberal candidate finished second with 20.7 per cent and the NDP candidate Jean-Claude Rocheleau – a union leader who is also running in today’s by-election – finished third with 14.5 per cent support. The Conservatives were fourth with 9.2 per cent.

A subplot to this race is the battle between the Liberals and the New Democrats. The Liberals have long been the federalist option on the island of Montreal. New Democrats are hoping deputy leader Thomas Mulcair’s back-to-back victories in Outremont will translate into more support for New Democrats across the city.

The Bloc candidate in the other Quebec byelection is Nancy Gagnon, a former high school teacher who has spent the past five years as a Parliamentary aide to the Bloc. Former Bloc MP Paul Crête won the riding (Montmagny—L'Islet—Kamouraska—Rivière-du-Loup) in 2008 with 46 per cent of the vote, followed by the Conservatives at 30.6 per cent, the Liberals at 15.4 per cent and the NDP at 5.5 per cent.

Ms. Gagnon’s challengers include two local mayors who stepped down to run federally. The former mayor of La Pocatiere, Bernard Généreux, is the Tory candidate while Marcel Catellier, who stepped down from his municipal post at Cap-Saint-Ignace in September, is the Liberal candidate.

The NDP candidate is François Lapointe, who works in the riding on programs to promote adult literacy.

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Ottawa Notebook Contributors

Jane Taber, senior political writer

Jane Taber

Jane Taber has been on Parliament Hill since the Mulroney days, first writing for the Ottawa Citizen in 1986. Since then, she's reported for a small television network, WTN, and for the National Post before joining The Globe’s parliamentary bureau in 2002. She is the senior political writer and also co-host of Question Period, which airs Sundays on CTV.

 
John Ibbitson

John Ibbitson

John Ibbitson started at The Globe in 1999 and has been Queen's Park columnist and Ottawa political affairs correspondent. Most recently, he was a correspondent and columnist in Washington, where he wrote Open and Shut: Why America has Barack Obama and Canada has Stephen Harper. He returned to Ottawa as bureau chief in 2009. Before joining The Globe, he worked as a reporter, columnist and Queen’s Park correspondent for Southam papers.

 

Steven Chase

Steven Chase has covered federal politics in Ottawa for The Globe since mid-2001. He's previously worked in the paper's Vancouver and Calgary bureaus. Prior to that, he reported on Alberta politics for the Calgary Herald and the Calgary Sun, and on national issues for Alberta Report. He's had ink-stained hands for far longer though, having worked as a paperboy for the (now defunct) Montreal Star, the Winnipeg Free Press, the Vancouver Sun and the North Shore News.

 
Deputy Ottawa bureau chief Campbell Clark

Campbell Clark

Campbell Clark has been a political writer in The Globe and Mail’s Ottawa bureau since 2000. Before that he worked for The Montreal Gazette and the National Post. He writes about Canadian politics and foreign policy. He stopped being fascinated by ShamWow commercials after that guy’s nasty incident in Florida, but still wonders if one can really pull a truck with that Mighty Putty stuff.

 

Bill Curry

A member of the Parliamentary Press Gallery since 1999, Bill Curry worked for The Hill Times and the National Post prior to joining The Globe in Feb. 2005. Originally from North Bay, Ont., Bill reports on a wide range of topics on Parliament Hill. He is very protective of the office copy of Marleau & Montpetit.

 

Gloria Galloway

Gloria Galloway has been a journalist for almost 30 years. She worked at the Windsor Star, the Hamilton Spectator, the National Post, the Canadian Press and a number of small newspapers before being hired by The Globe and Mail as deputy national editor in 2001. Gloria returned to reporting two years later and joined the Ottawa bureau in 2004. She has covered every federal election since 1997 and has done several tours in Afghanistan.

 

Daniel Leblanc

Daniel Leblanc studied political science at the University of Ottawa and journalism at Carleton University. He became a full-time reporter in 1998, first at the Ottawa Citizen and then in the Ottawa bureau of The Globe and Mail. While he likes the occasional brown envelope, he is also open to anonymous emails.

 

Stephen Wicary

Stephen Wicary has been with The Globe since 2001, working on the news desk as a copy editor, page designer, production editor and front page editor. During the U.S invasion of Iraq, he pulled a three-month stint as overnight editor of the website. He moved to the parliamentary bureau at the end of 2008 to bolster online political coverage.