July 20, 2011
Deep River bucks vote
trend
by Terry Myers
Loyal, principled, stubborn.
Call it what you will, Deep River voters continue to go their own way
when it comes to casting ballots in federal elections.
Poll by poll results released for the May 2 elections that saw MP
Cheryl Gallant returned with an overwhelming majority in
Renfrew-Nipissing-Pembroke show that Deep River continues to be a
Liberal island in a vast sea of Conservative blue.
Residents casting their ballots May 2 chose Liberal candidate Christine
Tabbert over Gallant by a margin of 603 to 507.
Independent candidate Hec Clouthier ran a relatively distant third in
Deep River, finishing with 363 votes, while New Democrat Eric Burton
had 292 ballots cast in his name.
Roseanne Van Schie of the Green Party trailed far behind with 19 votes.
Combined with the advance polls, local results showed Tabbert leading
with 812 votes, Gallant with 790, Clouthier with 489, Burton with 376
and Van Schie with 30.
What makes Deep River's results even more remarkable was Gallant's
complete dominance across the rest of the riding.
Gallant won the election with 27,462 of the total 51,564 ballots cast
in Renfrew-Nipissing-Pembroke, a clearcut majority of more than 53 per
cent.
Clouthier, who finished second, trailed by almost 18,000 votes at 9,611.
In fact, if you were to look for another area in the riding where
Gallant was challenged, you wouldn't find it.
Out of 221 polls reporting across the riding, Gallant won all but nine.
Six of those nine were in Deep River, with a seventh, poll number 13,
covering part of the Chalk River voting area.
Clouthier won poll 13 with 31 votes to 28 for Gallant and 26 for
Tabbert.
Clouthier also won two Pembroke polls and tied one in Petawawa.
There was no other single poll in the riding outside of Deep River
where Tabbert led the vote.
Clouthier was also the second choice of voters in the rest of the North
Renfrew area.
In Deux Rivieres and Stonecliffe, Gallant led the way with 59 ballots,
followed by Clouthier at 40, Burton at 25 and Tabbert at seven.
In Rolphton and Point Alexander, Gallant again led by a large margin,
earning 195 of the ballots cast, compared to 97 for Clouthier and 96
for Tabbert, followed by 55 for Burton.
In the Chalk River polls, Gallant was even more dominant, taking 369
votes to 176 for Clouthier, 123 for Tabbert and 85 for Burton.
Van Schie trailed far behind in all polls with only a handful of
ballots.
All together, the vote results for North Renfrew looked like this:
Gallant - 1,413
Tabbet - 1,038
Clouthier - 802
Burton - 541
Van Schie - 48
The poll by poll results for the May 2 vote are available on the
Elections Canada website, www.elections.ca, under the 2011 General
Election information.
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