Marsan wins decisively in Robert-Baldwin

By Ian Howarth, September 5th, 2012

Robert-Baldwin Liberal incumbent Pierre Marsan was re-elected with a more than comfortable margin in Tuesday’s provincial election. This is Marsan’s sixth term as MNA for the West Island riding that takes in parts of Pierrefonds-Roxboro and DDO.
Marsan outdistanced his CAQ opponent Toni Rinow by almost 19,000 votes. With 75 percent of the vote Marsan, was declared the winner a half-hour after polls closed at 8 p.m.
The Liberals swept all four West Island ridings, but a PQ victory and QPL party leader Jean Charest losing his Sherbrooke seat to the PQ tempered celebrations. Marsan was happy for his fellow West Island Liberals, all of whom were retuned by healthy majorities.
“We’ve all worked hard for the West Island,” said Marsan, citing the McGill University Health Centre as an example. “I toured the riding during this election campaign. I went to mosques, synagogues and churches. With a team of over 100 staff and volunteers this was a team effort. I never sensed we had a problem.”
Marsan did admit this campaign was different given the CAQ as a third party option. Polls that have indicate that there was s substantial number of disgruntled anglo-West Islanders who might opt for the CAQ proved not to be true. “’I was wondering about the CAQ factor,” Marsan said. “It looked as if they were taking off.” The numbers, however, showed the Liberals solid West Island support to have plenty of depth. n