Fifth term for François Ouimet!

As expected, victory came easily for Marquette riding Liberal MP François Ouimet, who has been re-elected for a fifth term to represent his constituents at the Quebec National Assembly.

At around 9:15 pm on Monday, December 8, 2008, a time when only a little over 75 polling offices had counted the ballots, the outgoing Liberal MP already enjoyed an insurmountable lead of more than 2000 votes over his five opponents: PQ’s Catherine Major, ADQ’s Marc-Antoine Desjardins, Green Party candidate Réjean Malette, Quebec Solidaire Manuel Teigeiro and Marxist-Leninist candidate Yves le Seigle. Ouimet was therefore quickly declared as winner.

When he arrived in his Notre Dame Street office at 9:30 pm, François Ouimet was cheered by numerous supporters and members of his team. He wasted no time introducing and thanking them in the presence of his wife Daniela and his three children.

“I’m very happy about this new victory; from the bottom of my heart, I thank all the men and women who helped me. I promise that I shall continue to work with determination, ardour, passion and dynamism for all riding residents”, said the re-elected Marquette MP who is on his fifth consecutive term since 1994. “I thank all members of my team for making this beautiful victory happen. I shall continue to work for you. I’d also like to acknowledge and congratulate the other candidates who ran in this election”, Francois Ouimet added.

At the dissolution of Parliament last November, François Ouimet was a Parliamentary deputy to Julie Boutet, Minister of Transportation. A graduate with law and literature degrees, the re-elected MP for Marquette was president of the former Catholic School Board of Montreal when he made the switch to provincial politics under the Liberal Party when Daniel Johnson Junior was leader. He succeeded Claude Dauphin as Marquette MP in the 1994 elections, a position he has held to this day.