Hi my name is Philip and I’m very happy to be your blogger for the riding of Argenteuil-Papineau-Mirabel.

We have almost finished the first week of this 2008 federal election campaign and the battle has indeed started. There is no doubt in my mind that the province of Quebec will play a very important role in crowning the next Canadian government. All over «La Belle Province» multiple riding’s will become intestly contested battlegrounds in wich the Bloc will try to keep as much riding’s as possible but the conservative, who have become since that last election an indisputable competitor in Quebec, won’t make it easy for all Bloc MPs to get re-elected.

During this campaign, I will mostly write about the campaign underway on in the riding of Argenteuil-Papineau-Mirabel. This riding is located in the Laurentians (almost half of the riding is located in the Laurentians but the other half is in Outaouais) and I believe personally that this race could be surprisingly competitive. The incumbent is Mario Laframboise from the Bloc Quebecois and has been easily re-elected in the past two elections with a majority of over 10 000 votes. We can’t denie the fact that Mario Laframboise only won 3 elections ago with a very slim majority (under 500 votes) against the conservative candidate at that time. This year, Mario Laframboise’s main competitor is once again a conservative candidate.

The candidate running as a conservative in Argenteuil-Papineau-Mirabel is Scott Pearce. He is the mayor of Gore and has been very active previous to the start of this campaign in promoting his candidacy. He is one of the rare conservatives seeking office to have credentials when it comes to the environment. In fact, he has put forward a proposal for the protection of our lakes that has been supported by environmental groups and endorsed by many Quebec municipalities. He has also, as mayor of Gore, established in his town one to most strict bylaws on environmental protection in Quebec. Lets not get fooled, this will be a hard campaign for the conservative candidate. With all the attacks coming from other parties directed at his, he will find himself on the defensive not because of his candidacy but for the policies that the party he represents took while in office.In fact, every candidate who joins a party as a candidate must in some way stand by the policies put forward by the political organization he now represents. It also has to be mentioned that he has to overcome a nearly 10 000 vote majority by Mario Laframboise.

The other parties are not really players in this campaign. The Liberals announced their candidate earlier in the week and the NDP announced theirs in the past two days. When driving across this riding (that is huge) the campaign signs are very revealing….. There is only Bloc and Conservative signs up at this moment indicating even more that this race will be between the Bloc and the conservative.

I also wish to inform all of you that I will also be posting in french during the campaign.!! It will all depend on my mood when I start to write

Good luck to all!