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Canada Votes 2008

Results, Ridings and Candidates

Beauce

2008 Results

Beauce
Party Candidate Votes Status
Updated: Nov. 7, 2008 5:00 PM EST 269/269 polls
CON Maxime Bernier 31,883 Elected
BQ André Côté 7,143
LIB René Roy 5,270
NDP Véronique Poulin 4,352
GRN Nicolas Rochette 2,436

Unofficial results were updated at the time shown following judicial recounts in six ridings. For more recent results, visit Elections Canada. The CBC does not endorse and is not responsible for the content of external sites. External links will open in a new window.

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This riding is in southern Quebec along the Quebec-U.S. border. The riding contains the Regional County Municipalities of Beauce-Sartigan and Robert-Cliche and part of Les Etchemins, La Nouvelle-Beauce and Le Granit. The municipalities of Ste-Aurélie, St-Benjamin, St-Prosper and St-Zacharie, St-Ludger and St-Robert-Bellarmin are in the riding.

Manufacturing is the major industry here, followed by the service sector and agriculture.

According to the 2006 census, over 98 per cent of residents claim French as their mother tongue. Only 0.6 per cent of the population has English as a first language. The immigrant population is less than one per cent.

Eight per cent of residents over age 25 have a university certificate or degree. The average family income is $63,907 and the unemployment rate is just four per cent, one of the lowest in the province.

In 2004, a small area was added from Frontenac-Mégantic. The riding was established in 1867. The 1996 redistribution kept 97.6 per cent of the riding.

Population: 103,617 (2006 census; an increase of 1.5% since 2001)

Political History

The riding switched hands again in 2006, this time to the Tories. Maxime Bernier won a decisive victory, capturing almost 70 per cent of the vote. In 2004, Liberal Claude Drouin defeated Bloc Québécois candidate Jean-François Barbe by 2,424 votes to win a third term.

This riding voted Liberal from 1887 to 1945. In the 1950s and 1960s, there was support for Social Credit and its 1963 offshoot, the Ralliement des Créditistes. Liberal Yves Caron was elected in 1972 and 1974, but was defeated in 1979. Social Credit's Fabien Roy won in 1979, but was defeated in 1980. Liberal Normand Lapointe was elected for a single term in 1980.

Then the riding voted Conservative, for the first time since a byelection in 1884, electing PC Gilles Bernier in 1984 and 1988. Bernier faced fraud and breach of trust charges and then prime minister Kim Campbell said she would not authorize him as 1993 PC candidate. He ran as an Independent in 1993, but didn't run in 1997.

  • 1867, 1872, 1874 - LIB
  • 1876 byelection to 1884 byelection inclusive - CONS
  • 1887-1945 inclusive - LIB
  • 1949, 1953, 1957 - IND
  • 1958 - LIB
  • 1962, 1963 - SC
  • 1965 - LIB
  • 1968 - R des C
  • 1972, 1974 - LIB
  • 1979 - SC
  • 1980 - LIB
  • 1984, 1988 - PC
  • 1993 - IND
  • 1997, 2000, 2004 � LIB
  • 2006 - CON