Former NDP MP Ruth Ellen Brosseau announces run for her old seat in Quebec

Ruth Ellen Brosseau is hoping to win back her old seat in Quebec as the NDP looks to make gains in the province.

The former MP for the Berthier—Maskinongé riding announced Friday she will be running as a candidate with the party in the federal election.

“To be honest with you there isn’t a day I haven’t thoughts of federal politics and the people of Berthier—Maskinongé,” she told reporters.

Brosseau represented the Trois-Rivières-area riding for eight years. She was first elected during the so-called orange wave in 2011, when the New Democrats swept through the province.

As a greenhorn candidate, Brosseau’s landslide victory came as a surprise. She was criticized at the time for spending part of the election campaign in Las Vegas and having never visited the riding. Allegations also spread that Brosseau couldn’t speak French, even though the constituency was 98 per cent francophone.

But Brosseau rose through the party ranks, becoming the official opposition’s agriculture critic and vice chair of the NDP national caucus. She also took French lessons to improve her proficiency in the language.

The two-term incumbent was then ousted in 2019, when she was narrowly defeated by the Bloc Québécois’ Yves Perron. The NDP were all but decimated in Quebec, where Alexandre Boulerice was the party’s sole candidate to win a seat in the province.

Perron is seeking re-election on Sept. 20. Leo Soulieres is the candidate for the Conservative Party while Alexandre Bellemare is running for the Liberals. Geneviève Sénécal is the People’s Party of Canada’s candidate.

—with files from Global News’ Annabelle Olivier and The Canadian Press

by Global News