Encouraging byelection result has Greens hoping for a breakthrough in Quebec
MONTREAL — The Green Party of Canada’s encouraging result in a federal byelection in a Quebec riding last week has deputy leader Daniel Green hopeful the party can make a major breakthrough in this fall’s general election.
Green, who finished third in Outremont behind the Liberal and NDP candidates, believes it’s possible Quebecers could once again choose to shift their vote en masse to a new party, as they’ve done previously, and send as many as five or six green party MPs to Ottawa.
“Quebec at the federal level has always voted in waves, which have changed Canadian history,” he said in an interview. “We did it with the Bloc Quebecois, we did it with the NDP. Now, it’s the Greens’ turn.”
Green earned nearly 13 per cent of the vote in Outremont, finishing ahead of the candidates from the Bloc Quebecois and the Conservative Party of Canada. It’s a big improvement over 2015, when the party won only 3.6 per cent of the vote.