The way Marthe Bernier sees it, the people got robbed in the
sponsorship scandal and the Liberals do not deserve to stay in office.
"I
am pretty darn angry," Bernier said, walking down the main street of
this quiet Eastern Townships town. "You know, it costs a lot to live
now. I don't think we should let ourselves get ripped off."
On Jan. 23, Bernier is one Brome-Missisquoi riding voter who will vote for the Bloc Quebecois.
Emilien Couture has a similar view but, as a federalist, can't quite bring himself to vote for the Bloc.
"If
I vote, it will be for the man (Liberal candidate Denis Paradis). There
was a scandal and frankly it was not (acceptable). But Mr. Paradis had
nothing to do with it."
Chantale Duchesne has a similar dilemma but has found a different exit.
"I'll probably go with the Conservatives," she said.
Voters
in Brome-Missisquoi and the Townships in general are being pulled in
all directions in this campaign - just as they were in the last
election in 2004 which left the region with a single Liberal seat in
the House of Commons - Brome-Missisquoi.
The rest of the ridings,
Compton-Stanstead, Shefford, Sherbrooke and Richmond Arthabaska - the
last Conservative-held seat in the province - went to the Bloc
Quebecois.
The race in Brome-Missisquoi was a squeaker, too.
Incumbent Liberal MP Denis Paradis, brother to provincial Liberal MNA
Pierre Paradis, pulled off a last-minute win in 2004, defeating his
Bloc opponent Christian Ouellet by a mere 1,072 votes.
Today, the
two are at it again. Making matters worse for Paradis is the fact that
the Bloc has put his riding on its "must have" list, meaning it is
getting special attention from the Bloc leadership. You just have to
see the number of Bloc signs in the riding to realize the party is
deeply involved in this campaign.
"It's going well," Paradis said
in an interview last week when asked if the sponsorship scandal is
dragging him down. "It could be that people tell me different things
then they do reporters, but I think it is going twice as well this time
as the last."
Paradis said he thinks much of the voter anger
about the sponsorship scandal was expressed in the last campaign, where
the biggest problem was Liberals abstaining from voting - giving the
Bloc a real chance at the riding.
"This time, I hope they are going to come out," he said.
But Paradis said he has a new problem in the form of two conservative candidates - both federalists.
The
first, David Marler, is running for Stephen Harper's Conservative Party
of Canada. The other, Heward Grafftey, is running for the Progressive
Canadian Party. The Progressive Canadian Party is a splinter group of
conservatives who never accepted the disappearance of the Progressive
Conservative Party of Canada. That party merged with the Canadian
Alliance to become the Conservative Party of Canada.
Paradis thinks Marler and Grafftey will siphon off federalist votes, leaving the path open to the Bloc.
"If
we divide the vote, we are giving the Bloc a free ticket," Paradis
said. He added vote splitting can be a hard thing for voters to grasp
so he is explaining it everywhere.
But Grafftey - who was re-elected as Progressive Conservative
MP for the riding seven times and is 76 - dismisses Paradis's warning.
"It's the most irresponsible thing to say," Grafftey said. "I am not a Conservative candidate. I am a progressive conservative."
Grafftey
- who said he has been campaigning to get his old seat back since
October 2004 and has visited 15,000 homes - said voters do not have to
listen to Paradis because they can block the Bloc by voting massively
for him.
"I am going to win and go back to Parliament and die,"
said Grafftey, who is proud of his "gnome from Brome nickname," and
long record of public service.
But there is a similar electoral
re-run going on in the riding of Shefford where Liberal David Price,
who lost his seat in 2004, is trying for a comeback against the Bloc's
France Bonsant, who beat him in 2004 by 4,878 votes.
In Shefford, Bloc MP Robert Vincent is again up against Liberal Diane St. Jacques, who lost last time around.
In
Sherbrooke, symbolically important for the Bloc because provincially it
is the home riding of Premier Jean Charest, Bloc MP Serge Cardin faces
opponent Robert Pouliot.
The Bloc will also try to keep the
riding it inherited from the Conservatives in the last election,
Richmond-Arthabaska. Bloc MP Andre Bellevance faces Liberal challenger
Louis Napoleon Mercier there.
pauthier@thegazette.canwest.com
© The Gazette (Montreal) 2006
| wiki | CBC Main » Candidates & Ridings » Quebec » 044 Brome-Missisquoi 2006
Heward Grafftey
Party: Progressive Canadian Party
Birth Date: Aug. 5, 1928
Age: 77
Birthplace: Montreal, Que.
Education: BA with majors in political science and history from Mount Allison; Bachelor of Law from McGill
Profession: Lawyer, author and businessman
Children: Three children: Arthur Heward, Clement Tai-Yong, and Leah Yoon Hee
Career Background: He is a Q.C. Active in business and is CEO of SafetySense, a company that publishes basic safety booklets for businesses
and schools. Author of several non-fiction books, including one in 2001 on the state of Canadian politics titled
Democracy Challenged: How to End One-Party Rule in Canada
Electoral History
Federal: Elected to the House of Commons for Brome-Missisquoi in the general election of 1958; re-elected in 1962, 1963, 1965,
1972, 1974, and 1979. Ran unsuccessfully in the 2000 general election. After the Progressive Conservative Party and the Canadian
Alliance merged to form the Conservative Party of Canada, Grafftey maintained that he was still a Progressive Conservative. He is
running in this election for the Progressive Canadian Party.
Political History
Cabinet: 1962-63: Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Finance; 1979-1980: Minister of State for Social Programs and for
Science and Technology
Caucus: Member of the Progressive Conservative Party caucus from 1958-68 and 1973-79
Campaign Contact:
www.grafftey.ca/
2006 Brome-Missisquoi: A tight two-way race is shaping up in this Eastern Township riding.
Four-time Liberal MP and former minister Denis Paradis won last time with just over 1,000 votes. His main opponent again is architect Christian Ouellet who is running for the Bloc Québécois. In December, Ouellet embarrassed his leader, Gilles Duceppe, by saying he didn't have time to talk about the separation of Quebec during the campaign because there were a lot of other important issues on the table. Duceppe shrugged it off as a lack of political experience. He repeated the Bloc's goal was to promote the separation of Quebec. Brome-Missisquoi is the lone Liberal riding in the Eastern Townships. David Marler, a prominent lawyer, is running for the Conservative party. But he'll have to face off with Heward Grafftey representing the Progressive Canadian party. Grafftey was the former Progressive Conservative science minister. Josianne Jetté is carrying the NDP flag. Michel Champagne will run for the Green party. Border security is an issue in this riding, which straddles the American border.
2005
Thu, 17 Nov 2005 Fight to revive old PC party dealt another blow. . Sinclair Stevens, a cabinet minister with the defunct Progressive Conservatives, has lost another legal round in his battle to nullify the merger of the Alliance and the PC parties.
| Portraits from a Life
by
Grafftey, Heward
|
William Heward Grafftey (born August 5, 1928) is a
Canadian politician and businessman. Grafftey received a Bachelor of Arts degree from
Mount Allison University, majoring in Political Science and History, and a
Bachelor of Civil Law degree at McGill University. He was admitted to the
Bar of the Province of Quebec.
Born in Montreal, Quebec, to a prosperous family, he was a
cousin of artist Prudence Heward, and wrote "Chapter Four: Prudence Heward" in the 1996
book Portraits of a Life.
Grafftey was first elected to the Canadian House of Commons in the
1958 general election that elected John George Diefenbaker's Progressive
Conservative Party in a landslide victory. A resident of the Eastern Townships, he was the Member of Parliament (MP)
for the riding of Brome-Missisquoi from 1958 to 1968. From 1962 to 1963, Grafftey served as
Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Finance. Due to his relatively short stature and impish looks, Grafftey earned the
infamous nickname of "The Gnome from Brome," during his twenty years in politics.
more Wikipedia
MONTREAL, Dec. 3, 2004 /CNW Telbec/
---------
Heward Grafftey, former Member of Parliament from Quebec and Minister of
Science and Technology, has issued, today, the following statement relating to
the proposed merger of the Progressive Conservative and Alliance parties.
Grafftey stated:
"This is the time for all good Progressive Conservatives to stand up and
be counted. I am also asking all Progressive Conservatives to contact me so we
can unite our forces into a fighting unit of foot soldiers before the next
election. The people of Canada at the grass roots do not want our party to
die. I say it will never die. We shall carry on and someday, in the future,
form a government. The MacKay-Harper initiative constitutes the wholesale
takeover of my party by the Alliance. MacKay's initiative is both illegal,
unconstitutional and immoral. He has effectively resigned as leader of the
Progressive Conservative party. Last May he was elected to lead my party. He
signed a solemn pledge not to enter merger talks with Harper. He has broken
this pledge. I, along with approximately twenty other party members from coast
to coast, am a plaintiff in taking legal action against Mr. MacKay in order to
stop him and others from destroying and putting an end to my party.
No matter what happens, we are determined that our party will carry on.
No vote on Saturday, December 16th, can put an end to our party. The shameful
Mackay-Harper initiative will not prevail."
For further information: Hon. Heward Grafftey, (514) 845-5429
Why Canadians get the politicians and governments they don't want: by Heward Grafftey
Grafftey, a cabinet minister in Joe Clark's short-lived government in 1979, declared his intention to run for the Tory leadership at a news conference on Parliament Hill.
http://www.wordiq.com/web/Heward%20Grafftey.html
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Heward Grafftey, is running for the Progressive Jan 4th 2006 
Andy Nulman 
Bourque
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