Acadie-Bathurst candidates vie to replace retiring Yvon Godin

For 18 years, Acadie-Bathurst has posed an intriguing question to many political watchers: Is the northeastern New Brunswick riding an Yvon Godin or a NDP seat.

That question will be answered on Monday night when voters head to the polls for the first time in about two decades without the popular NDP MP's name on the ballot.

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This time Jason Godin, the 22-year-old mayor of the tiny community of Maisonnette, is trying to hold the seat for the NDP, against Serge Cormier for the Liberals, Conservative candidate Riba Girouard-Riordon and Green candidate Dominique Breau.

Jason Godin has benefited from his predecessor's help in putting up campaign signs, but even he said he does not yet know whether the riding stayed with the NDP for nearly two decades because of the strength of the MP or because of the party's roots in the area.

"It's always a challenge when you have to fill the shoes of someone else. It is the same challenge that [NDP Leader]Thomas Mulcair had to replace [former leader] Jack Layton, everyone is going to compare you to the person you replaced," he said.

"The big thing that Yvon Godin did during his 18 years in politics here, is he promoted the party. Before 1997, the NDP didn't have a lot of seats in Ottawa and today we are the Official Opposition."

When Yvon Godin wrestled the seat away Liberal cabinet minister DougYoung in 1997, the northern riding had only elected a non-Liberal twice since 1900.

Godin earned nearly 70 per cent of the vote in 2011 and finished almost 25,000 votes ahead of the second-place finisher.

That is putting Jason Godin in a very comfortable position as he heads into the Oct. 19 election.

He said people in his area are committed to helping defeat Stephen Harper's Conservative government and they do not want to see a return to Liberal rule.

"Let's bring change to Ottawa after 150 years of red and blue, blue and red," he said.

"It's time for real change in Ottawa. Liberals and Conservatives are like an old couple that spend the whole day bickering and sleep in the same bed in the evening. I am a young man with a lot of energy."

Liberals seek to win back riding

The Liberal candidate, however, is quick to point to national and regional polls that show the Liberals trending upward, with the NDP in a distant third position.

Cormier said people in the area are eager to elect an MP, who will be able to deliver jobs to the economically-troubled area.

"The Acadie-Bathurst riding has been NDP for 18 years. On every door that I knock and everywhere I go, everybody I talk to does not want the Harper government there anymore," Cormier said.

"If you look at the polls and look at what is happening through Canada, I think people realize that if they do not want to be in the opposition anymore and they don'twant the Harper government anymore, they have to vote the Liberals."

Acadie-Bathurst and Beausejour were the only two of New Brunswick's 10 federal ridings to elect non-Conservatives in 2011.

The Tories suffered a mid-campaign setback when Louis Robichaud suddenly dropped out of the race.

Robichaud, who finished second in 2011, was replaced by Girouard-Riordon.

Tory looks to NDP for inspiration

Girouard-Riordon said she understands how difficult a job it will be to win the northeastern seat but she is looking to an interesting political role model.

"I keep thinking, in Alberta it was Conservative and after 40 years the Premier [Rachel] Notleyturned it into NDP," she said.

"Me, here it is a NDP and I want to change it to Conservative. It is worth the try and that would be quite something. If it is on the side of the government, Acadie-Bathurst has something to showcase."

Candidates across the province continue to say job creation and economic development are the top issues in their ridings.

In Acadie-Bathurst, where the unemployment level seems perpetually above 10 per cent and an area that is largely dependent on seasonal industries, the ideathat jobs are the biggest issue for candidates is easy to believe.

When Cormier travels around the northeastern riding, the Liberal candidate said he hears people constantly telling him that the next MP must deliver jobs to the region.

"That is what everybody has told me at the door, during my visits to businesses and at the Tims," he said.

"We have a good plan to have some jobs created in the region. We have a good infrastructure plan to put in place."

Cormier pointed to investments, such as the federal call centre in Miramichi, that have gone to other nearby ridings as proof that Acadie-Bathurst needs a stronger voice in the House of Commons.

Employment Insurance controversy

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While jobs may be the top issue in the minds of voters, a close second according to the candidates is the future of the Employment Insurance program.

Godin said people in his riding are eager to see the controversial changes to the Employment Insurance program scrappedwhen a new government is formed after Monday's election.

"When I do door to door, the number one thing that people say to me is Harper has to go. It's because of the reforms he proposed a few years ago and are hurting people here," he said.

The NDP and Liberals have both promised to undo the Harper government's changes to the EI program.

But the EI reform movement has also picked up another, perhaps more unlikely supporter: the local Conservative candidate.

Not only does Girouard-Riordon want to see the EI program altered, she wants to be the MP, who brings Harper to the region to show him the troubles of the program is causing some workers.

"I just tell [voters] that if I was to go in as a MP, I would try to bring Mr. Harper in this area, in the northeast, in my Acadie-Bathurst riding, and try to make him understand," she said.

"I said I wouldn't mind shaking him up, I'm a go-getter. I don't like to use the word fight, I would do anything in my power to make him understand in our region, we're the ones who feed the cities, whether it is fishing or our farming products."