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Dave MacLean
Telegraph-Journal

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EDMUNDSTON - Jean-Claude D'Amours has earned a third vote of confidence from voters in the Madawaska-Restigouche riding.

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Kâté LeBlanc/Telegraph-Journal

Liberal incumbent Jean-Claude D'Amours arrives at his campaign headquarters with his wife, Helene Theriault, to celebrate his win for the Madawaska-Restigouche riding.

D'Amours, the Liberal incumbent, outpolled Conservative challenger Jean-Pierre Ouellet by a wide margin in a race that turned out to be not as close as had been predicted by observers expecting a hotly-contested battle.

"It feels great," D'Amours said moments after receiving a hero's welcome at his campaign headquarters in the Brunswick Shopping Centre.

About two hours after the polls closed D'Amours was leading by about 3,500 votes.

"I feel like the voters of this riding wanted to reward me for the work I've done on their behalf over the last four years," he said. "I've worked so hard and I think the voters recognized that."

D'Amours was able to fend of a Conservative onslaught that cost the Liberals two incumbents - Paul Zed in Saint John and Charlie Hubbard in Miramichi. The Tories also captured the Fredericton seat formerly held by the retired Andy Scott for a net gain of three seats.

Yvon Godin held on to the Acadie-Bathurst seat for the NDP.

D'Amours was disappointed to lose a pair of colleagues and said it means the Liberals will have to get to work to regain the trust of the electorate.

"We saw that we were able to gain some ground in Newfoundland and Labrador and now we will have to work harder to get the support back from the voters that we are the best party to represent them."

D'Amours was also pleased to have weathered a storm in what turned out to be a nasty battle between two political heavyweights in the northwest part of the province.

"The provincial (Tory) MLAs were attacking me personally, but I stayed focused on my platform and the things I wanted to do for the riding," he said. "I think we learned that the voters in this riding don't like the negative campaigns."

D'Amours entered the campaign as the two-time defending seatholder after victories in the elections of 2004 and 2006.

Ouellet made things interesting when he came within 900 votes in 2006. Ouellet was a three-term member of the provincial legislature for the Tories and had served as New Brunswick's minister of youth from 1974 to 1982 and as education minister from 1985 to 1987. He was defeated in the historic 58-0 whitewash of Hatfield's Tories by Frank McKenna.

The hotly-contested race included the threat of legal action when Ouellet took exception to campaign literature distributed by D'Amours accusing the Tory of describing people in the region as 'defeatists' in a 2007 article in the French-language Le Madawaska.

The D'Amours flyer also made reference to a 2002 comment by Harper that noted Atlantic Canadians suffered from a "culture of defeat."

Ouellet, who pointed out it was the reporter, not him, who had used the term 'defeatist', demanded a public apology for what he saw as an attempt by his opponent to put controversial words in his mouth.

D'Amours was first elected to Parliament in a romp in the 2004 general election, easily outdistancing NDP candidate Rodolphe Martin. D'Amours picked up 14,144 votes, while Martin was more than 5,400 votes behind with 8,737 and Conservative Benoit Violette finished third with 7,605.

Ouellet made things close in the 2006 election, picking up more than 5,000 extra Tory votes to finish with 12,849, less than 900 behind D'Amours, who was re-elected with 13,734. The NDP's Martin was third with 8,322.

Physician Jeannot Castonguay held the seat for the Liberals before D'Amours was elected.