Fate of Trois-Rivières, Brome-Missisquoi and other Quebec ridings still uncertain after Monday's election

Montreal -

Winners were still to be announced in a handful of the 338 federal ridings, a day after the 44th election resulted in the election of a Liberal minority government.

In Quebec, four ridings were awaiting final decisions as of Wednesday afternoon; three where the Bloc Québécois was leading and a fourth held by Minister Steven Guilbeault, who was in the lead, pending the completion of the vote count.

• Check the numbers: Scroll through CTV's riding-by-riding Quebec election map

The closest Quebec battles are in Brome-Missisquoi and Trois-Rivières.

These two ridings have another thing in common: they were abandoned by the outgoing MPs, the Bloc Louise Charbonneau in Trois-Rivières and the Liberal Lyne Bessette in Brome-Missisquoi. Both women elected in 2019 chose not to run in the 2021 election.

In Trois-Rivières, at the last available result, published mid-afternoon Tuesday, Bloc Québécois member René Villemure was ahead of Conservative and former mayor Yves Lévesque by 33 votes.

Liberal Martin Francoeur was in third place, with 660 votes less than the Conservative, as the counting was completed in all but one polling station.

In this riding, 3,397 kits were provided to voters who chose to vote by mail. Those votes have yet to be counted. 

The same situation exists in Brome-Missisquoi where 3,067 mail-in ballot kits were distributed.

There, the Bloc Québécois candidate Marilou Alarie had taken the lead once the votes were counted in 278 of the 279 offices. However, she had only 167 votes more than the Liberal Pascale St-Onge, according to the figures published at the end of the day Tuesday.

In Longueuil-Saint-Hubert, Châteauguay-Lacolle and Berthier-Maskinongé, the Bloc's leads were very comfortable, but the postal vote was too high to seal the fate of these three ridings before the count.

Since then, two of those ridings have officially gone Bloc.

On Tuesday, Berthier-Maskinongé officially went to the incumbent, defeating former NDP MP Ruth Ellen Brosseau, and on Wednesday afternoon, it was announced that Longueuil-Saint-Hubert will also be held by its incumbent, Bloc MP Denis Trudel.

The last close battle is in Laurier-Sainte-Marie, where Liberal Steven Guilbeault was 1,905 votes ahead of NDP candidate Nimâ Machouf this week, before the possible counting of 4,131 postal votes.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published in French on Sept. 21, 2021, with files from CTV Montreal.