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this.
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The
2020 Port Riche general election will take place on or before October 20, 2020 to elect all 55 members of the National Assembly of Port Riche. Per the province's electoral law, the election will held on the third Tuesday of October in the fourth calendar year after the previous election, although the possibility exists of an early election if either the government loses a confidence motion or the premier recommends an early dissolution to the lieutenant governor.
The governing
Union Progressiste (UP) is seeking a second term after winning the 2016 election. The man who led the UP to victory, Richard Rousseau, was forced to resign in August 2019 after massive public protest following the leak of chat logs where Rousseau and members of his office made homophobic, racist and sexist remarks and discussed how they would use the media to discredit political opponents. An RCMP investigation into both the source of the leaks and whether the premier or his office committed potential crimes or employment law violations. His successor, Pierre Perreault, assumed office as premier and then won the party leadership in an uncontested race in September 2019.
Opposing the government in the election will be the
Liberals, led by former Saint-Jean mayor Camille Lacroix. Lacroix gained international fame after the province was devastated by Hurricane Maria, criticizing both Rousseau and the federal government of being unprepared for such a massive natural disaster in the tropical province. She entered the National Assembly in a by-election after taking the party leadership in September 2018.
The anti-corruption, reformist
Parti Boriquien (PB) will also contest all 55 seats in the election. The party's leader Alexandra Pôte will be the only major party leader from the previous election to run again in 2020. The party has yet to gain representation in the National Assembly.
This will be the first election where two major parties will be led by women. The Liberals have lead the UP in polling since the months after Hurricane Maria in 2017, and the chat log scandal and resignation of Rousseau briefly had the UP dipping to third in most polls behind the Liberals and PB.
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Alexandra Courtois is a Canadian politician who has represented the riding of Baie-Saint-Jean in the House of Commons since the 2015 federal election. She is a member of the New Democratic Party (NDP).
Courtois was born and raised in Saint-Jean, attending Queen's University and graduating
cum laude from Queen's University in 2011 with a bachelor of arts in international relations and economics. While in university, she interned in the office of federal NDP leader Jack Layton. After her father's untimely death from lung cancer, she returned to Port Riche and began working as a bartender to help her mother pay bills. Between her graduation in 2011 and her election, she was active in social justice and anti-poverty causes on the island.
The NDP under Layton's successor Thomas Mulcair selected Courtois to be the party's candidate in the riding of Baie-Saint-Jean in 2015, a seat held by cabinet minister Louis Fortin and widely considered to be one of the safest Conservative seats in Port Riche. In spite of the federal receding of NDP fortunes following the 2011 election, Courtois managed to defeat upset Fortin by a convincing margin after an intense and well-coordinated local campaign, one of the party's few bright spots as they returned to third place nationally behind the Conservatives and new Liberal government.
Under both Mulcair and Jagmeet Singh, Courtois has served as the NDP's Youth critic since taking office. She retained her seat handily in the 2019 federal election, making her the sole NDP MP from Port Riche in the 43rd Parliament.