This Bloc challenger lost by 12 votes last time. He’s back to take on a Liberal star candidate

Patrick O’Hara might be one of the most motivated federal candidates in Canada.

“Either way it’s going to go this year,” the Bloc Québécois candidate told CBC Radio’s The House, “I know what to expect, right?”

Last election night, in September 2021, O’Hara believed he’d won his seat by 286 votes. But everything changed two weeks later, when a recount concluded he had lost — by just 12 ballots.

“It was probably the worst experience I’ve had in my life.”

O’Hara is back running in the renamed and redrawn riding of Châteauguay-Les Jardins-de-Napierville, a suburban-rural corner of southwestern Quebec that stretches from the South Shore of Montreal down to the U.S. border.

The agriculturally rich region — often referred to as the “garden” of Quebec — is surrounded by Bloc incumbents and likely would have flipped to the Bloc in 2021 if the new boundaries had been in place.

“It keeps you focused on, you know, how many more doors did I need to knock on?” O’Hara explained while visiting a local business in the riding.

“How many more phone calls did I need to do? How many people turned around in the [voting] lineup because it was too long, and said, ‘Oh, Pat’s got it?’ That all comes back. And it’s even more motivating now in 2025.”

A new face for the Liberals

Liberal incumbent Brenda Shanahan announced late last year she would not be seeking re-election, opening the door for a fresh face to run against the returning O’Hara.

Nathalie Provost, a longtime gun control advocate and survivor of the 1989 École Polytechnique shooting, reached out to the Liberal Party and was formally unveiled as a candidate shortly after the election was called.

On day three of the campaign, Liberal Leader Mark Carney made headlines for flubbing her last name and confusing the shooting she survived with the one that happened at Concordia University years later.

“The fact that he named me ‘Pronovost’ instead of ‘Provost’ — for me, it’s nothing,” Provost said in an interview at her campaign office in Châteauguay.

“I understand that in 1989, Mr. Carney was living in England … so he didn’t [feel] what many Canadians felt in December 1989,” she said. “It’s a major marker in my own life. So for me, it’s very difficult to understand that somebody [doesn’t] know. And I’m a bit sad.

“So, he made a mistake. But the major item there is not the mistake. It’s the fact that he talked about me, he talked about my situation and the values I want to to protect.”

Provost previously criticized the Liberal Party for not acting more quickly on gun control, but made a point of praising her fellow candidates’ more recent work on the file.

This week, she also appeared alongside Carney and other Liberals at a policy announcement on public safety.

“Why am I running with the Liberals? Because I could not imagine a Canada run by the Conservative Party, and if I can play a role to keep our values alive [I will],” she said.

“I don’t think that the Conservatives right now are those who are able to maintain our values as I understand them.”

The bid for undecided voters

The riding’s location on the Canada-U.S. border means the trade war launched by U.S. President Donald Trump continues to loom large in the minds of candidates and voters alike.

“We are walking together in the dark,” said Provost, pointing to the wider sense of economic uncertainty in the country. “We will have to be very quick in our reaction and in our co-ordination to go from an idea to the solution, and I think that’s what’s most important.”

While Provost’s pitch to voters leans on her advocacy experience and the leadership on offer from Mark Carney, O’Hara emphasizes his tight regional focus.

“What I’m pitching to people, when I’m going door to door to door, is — we need to make sure that we’re well [represented], so that Quebec can intervene in any future negotiations, and make sure that our industries are protected,” he said.

“When I go to Ottawa, I have one concern: defending this region. I don’t need to think about or worry about what’s going on outside of here.”

Poll aggregators like 338Canada.com and TheWrit.ca peg Châteauguay-Les Jardins-de-Napierville as a likely pickup for the Liberals, namely due to plummeting support for the Bloc Québécois across the province.

According to CBC’s Poll Tracker, which translates polling averages into seat projections, the party could end up with a caucus as small as 14 seats — down from 33 at the time Parliament was dissolved.

But with two weeks remaining for on-the-ground campaigning, some voters in the riding are still waiting to be swayed one way or the other.

“We want to hear from political parties as actually having a plan for moving forward with Canada,” said winemaker Normand Guénette of Vignoble Le Chat Botté, whose vineyard is just a few kilometres north of the U.S. border in Hemmingford, Que.

“Trump is an issue. The Americans are an issue right now. But once that’s settled, what happens with immigration? What happens with the economy?”

Fellow winemaker Sébastien Daoust of Les Bacchantes will cast his ballot in Montreal but keeps a close eye on local chatter.

“I think for people around here, immigration is something to think about. Not so much of the composition of immigration, which is a debate in itself, but just how we secure the border.”

Guénette explained he’s still on the fence, even knowing his riding was decided by just 12 votes last time.

“The previous results don’t really impact the way I’m going to vote now. It’s more like we were saying before — voting for the right person that that proposes a plan for Canada.”

“But it shows,” said Daoust, “that when we say that every vote counts — this is a clear example where every vote counts.”