Elections Canada says a judicial recount has confirmed another NDP candidate has been elected to represent a Quebec riding in the next session of Parliament.
The recount found that Francois Lapointe beat Conservative incumbent Bernard Genereaux by nine votes in the northeast Quebec riding of Montmagny-L'Islet-Kamouraska-Riviere-du-Loup, Elections Canada announced Friday evening.
The judicial recount was called after Lapointe outpaced Genereaux by five votes in the May 2 election, which saw Quebecers turn in mass numbers toward the New Democrats. The party won a total of 102 seats, 59 of them in Quebec, backed by the wave of popular support, enough to be named the Official Opposition.
Judicial recounts must be held whenever a candidate's lead is less than 1/1,000th of the total votes cast in the riding.
Elections Canada released these official recount results in the electoral district of Montmagny–L'Islet–Kamouraska–Rivière du Loup:
- François Lapointe (NDP): 17,285
- Bernard Généreux (CON): 17,276
- Nathalie Arsenault (Bloc): 9,550
- Andrew Cadell (LIB): 2,743
- Lynette Tremblay (Green): 691
Genereaux was first elected in a November 2009 byelection. His loss means Prime Minister Stephen Harper has only five MPs in Quebec.
Elections Canada also announced on Saturday that a judicial recount will be held in the Manitoba riding of Winnipeg North, where Liberal incumbent Kevin Lamoureux defeated the NDP's Rebecca Blaikie by just 45 votes. That recount will start on Monday.
Recounts have previously been called in Toronto's Etobicoke Centre riding and in Nipissing-Timiskaming, in northern Ontario.
In preliminary results, Etobicoke Centre Liberal incumbent Borys Wrzesnewskyj trailed Tory Ted Opitz by 26 votes, 21,635 to 21,661.
In Nipissing-Timiskaming, Conservative Jay Aspin led sitting Liberal Anthony Rota by 14 votes, 15,507 to 15,493.
With files from The Canadian Press
