The Montreal Gazette this morning reports that Prime Minister Harper will give a speech on Dec. 7 in Rivière du Loup, the Quebec community high up on the south shore of the St. Lawrence where the Trans Canada Highway makes its hook south towards New Brunswick. Rivière du Loup to be in the riding of Action démocratique du Québec leader Mario Dumont and it looks like Dumont will be in the room when Harper speaks to the area's chamber of commerce. The Gazette says that normally Dumont does not like to be seen hanging around federal politicians but, “This just isn’t any politician,” Dumont’s spokesperson Élodie Girardin-Lajoie tells the Gazette. “This is the prime minister of Canada in his (Dumont’s) constituency.”
The federal Conservative Party is believed to be drawing on many Action démocratique supporters and volunteers as it builds up its political capacity in the province and, at one point in the spring of 2005, when Conservative fortunes seemed as bleak as Liberal fortunes in Alberta, the federal Conservatives were quietly trying to woo Dumont to run for them.
Now, of course, the fortunes of both Harper and Dumont are on the rise in Quebec. In the 2006 general election, Harper won 10 seats in the province (plus an eleventh in a recent byelection) much to his and everyone's surprise and then Dumont became Charest's opposition leader in Quebec's most recent provincial election.