MONTREAL — “Ma’am, there is a squirrel in your apartment.”
Louis-Philippe Sauvé was standing at the doorstep of three undecided voters when he witnessed an improbable scene. The family wasn’t wealthy. Quite the opposite, in fact. But their votes count in this election, where about a third of the LaSalle—Émard—Verdun electorate appears undecided.
“Why would we vote for you?” asked a man who lives with his parents in the apartment that “cost too much and that is barely heated.”
The squirrel quickly vacated the home, but the Bloc Québécois candidate continued to fight for their votes, relentlessly, for more than ten minutes.
Sauvé’s pitch is simple.
Elected in a September 2024 massive byelection upset,
he fought tirelessly for his constituents. He lives in the riding. He rents and knows what it’s like to deal with a landlord. He wants the riding to be proud of its history. Nationally, he declared that his party would fight for the aerospace industry, supply management in agriculture, and Quebec culture.
In September, he implored voters to grant him a one-year probation. He won with 269 votes in a three-way race against the Liberals and the NDP. Seven months have passed, and now he’s demanding the whole thing. “I will fight for you,” he promised.
They agreed. It was in the bag. On to the next door.
At the time, his victory created a veritable tsunami in Ottawa, which ultimately led to the resignation of Prime Minister Justin Trudeau in January. It’s actually a line he uses when he needs to demonstrate the Bloc’s relevance.
Because this riding is the very definition of a Liberal stronghold. Former Prime Minister Paul Martin represented the old riding for over 15 years, and David Lametti, former Attorney General, represented the current riding for eight years.
And according to the polls, the Liberals will easily win again this time
, with former IBM Canada president Claude Guay
as their “star” candidate.
So, in a sense, Sauvé has about as much chance of winning this election as finding a squirrel in an apartment.
“You know, we had a miracle the first time and we just need to try for another one,” he said.
But he’s not a fool. He knows a victory is unlikely. Sources within the party aren’t even suggesting they can hold onto this riding. The leader’s caravan hadn’t yet visited him by the time the National Post spent the day with Sauvé on Saturday.
Locally, his campaign is hoping that leader Yves-François Blanchet will shine in the debates later this week to give the party a boost. If the Bloc Québécois wins 30 or 31 per cent of the vote in Quebec, a victory in LaSalle—Émard—Verdun might be more likely.
In Sauvé, the separatist party has a strange breed of candidate. He’s not your average politician. He’s been involved in politics for years but has only been elected for seven months.
He joined the Bloc Québécois in April 2011, in the riding of Laurier-Sainte-Marie. At the time, he went to the office of former Bloc leader Gilles Duceppe to help him prepare for the election. A few weeks later, the Bloc was heavily decimated and recorded its worst result in history, with only four seats.
At the time, he saw firsthand what defeat meant. In Duceppe’s riding, a few days before the election, people refused leaflets, avoided eye contact, and expressed their disdain. The atmosphere on the ground today is nothing like it was back then, he said.
He was there when the party was trying to rebuild itself and later worked for leader Yves-François Blanchet. He knows what confidence and defeat feel like.
“I’m not afraid of losing anymore. I’m 32 years old and I have my life ahead of me,” he said as he was eating his breaded sole fillet at Zappy Restaurant, an institution located a few meters away from the mythical Verdun Auditorium.
The auditorium is a legendary arena where former NHL head coach and Verdun native Scotty Bowman left his mark, where epic rock bands like Metallica, Nirvana, and Foo Fighters blew the roof off, and where the greatest political figures in Quebec history galvanized crowds and captured the collective imagination.
As he grabbed a bite of his fish and a sip of his coffee, Sauvé revealed his candour. “Losing is a relief. You have nothing to do anymore. When you win, the trouble begins. You work, you have important responsibilities,” he said.
“You have to fight to remember that you must win,” he added.
The campaign is tough, he said, as he considered himself “bipolar” from the time the writ dropped up to election night.
“One day I’m depressed, the next day I think I’m winning, and I have a knife between my teeth,” he said. At this point, we were behind the auditorium, near the Saint-Lawrence River.
A local group organized a major cleanup of the banks of the St. Lawrence. Sauvé arrived with dozens of leaflets and spent more than two hours there. He didn’t distribute any. He began cleaning the beach and trails with dedication. Few hands were shaken. Some recognized them, others didn’t.
“When I want to help my constituents, I show up, and I help, for real. I don’t do photo-ops,” he said much to the dismay of Linda Mohammedi Tramoni, his communications director.
“It’s about trying to make him understand that sometimes you must do things you don’t like,” she said.
“Sometimes you do it for the image, but he has his convictions, which are very strong, he has his ideals, and it’s honestly very noble. He’s not there just to show off; he’s there to do real work,” she added.
Then, he’s told by volunteers that Liberal candidate Claude Guay was on site.
“I don’t want to meet him,” he said. Sauvé wasn’t impressed that Guay skipped the local debate the week before.
On the beach, Guay and the army of Liberal volunteers took photos. There was a dog. They seemed to be having fun.
The organizers confirmed they came over, cleaned up a bit, took videos and photos, and left 30 minutes later.
“I told you,” Sauvé said, as he was dropping off his third enormous garbage bag filled with waste.
So, Sauvé is perhaps a bit like the squirrel in the voter’s apartment. He’s on the move, he can’t stop. He’s everywhere, but people don’t necessarily notice him.
He said he’s more like a beaver, a French-Canadian symbol, an organized, hard-working, and creative species.
“Louis-Philippe is a grassroots guy. He’s always there. And honestly, that counts, it’s very important,” said Alain Bourque, who is running to become Verdun’s next mayor and who knows him well.
When he saw an apartment for rent, Sauvé told his volunteer he should take a photo to send to a business owner looking for a place to live.
Across the street, a resident called out to him: “Are you the Bloc candidate? I’m voting for you!”
The next door is another nice surprise.
“I don’t know if I’ll support you,” the lady first said. After a fifteen minutes conversation, she tells him will vote for him. “You are a real human,” she said.
As he drove to the last event, a dinner for a local organization that supports families with autistic children, he admitted he was exhausted.
“I haven’t fully appreciated my win yet,” he said. And now he might lose.
In the room, an old church, an accordionist played a piece from the French film “Amélie Poulain.” The atmosphere was gentle. People smiled as Sauvé shook their hands.
One participant told us that Sauvé “was always there for his constituents” and that they had seen him more often in seven months than any of his predecessors, who were “ghosts.”
Soon, Sauvé was drinking another coffee and thanking the volunteers, speaking… Spanish.
All four of them were moved. The music rose to the heights of the old church.
“We chose you,” one of them told him. “We’re voting for you. Thank you for everything.”
Sauvé isn’t supposed to win. But who doesn’t believe in miracles? Not him.
National Post
atrepanier@postmedia.com
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