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Trudeau credits Liberal economic agenda for upset win in Quebec byelection

OTTAWA — A triumphant Justin Trudeau contends the Liberals’ stunning byelection victory in Quebec’s nationalist heartland is a vote of confidence in his government’s economic agenda.
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File photo by THE CANADIAN PRESS Richard Hebert, Liberal candidate for the byelection in the Lac-Saint-Jean riding, right, cheers with Prime Minister Justin Trudeau during a Liberal party rally in Dolbeau-Mistassini, Que.

OTTAWA — A triumphant Justin Trudeau contends the Liberals’ stunning byelection victory in Quebec’s nationalist heartland is a vote of confidence in his government’s economic agenda.

Implicit in the prime minister’s assertion is that it’s also a vote of confidence in the man who’s presided over that economic agenda, embattled Finance Minister Bill Morneau.

Opposition parties counter that Monday’s upset Liberal win in Lac-Saint-Jean was more the product of a well-known local candidate — Richard Hebert, the outgoing mayor of Dolbeau-Mistassini — and voters’ belief that their region stands to benefit by siding with the party in power.

But they’re also conceding the result shows their newly minted leaders — Conservative Andrew Scheer, New Democrat Jagmeet Singh and Bloquiste Martine Ouellet — have a lot of work to do to become competitive in the province most likely to determine the outcome of the next federal election in 2019.

The Liberal win in Lac-Saint-Jean couldn’t have come at a better time for the government, on the eve of a crowd-pleasing economic update which it hopes will turn the page on weeks of controversy over Morneau’s proposed small business tax reforms and his own personal finances and ethics.

Speaking shortly before Morneau tabled the update Tuesday, Trudeau argued the victory demonstrates that voters are happy with the Liberal government’s efforts to boost economic growth.

“It’s a real pleasure to be able to see that in rural Quebec, but across the country, Canadians are responding extremely positively to the economic message we’ve put forward and the hard work we’ve done, as we’ll see this afternoon with the fiscal statement,” he said.

“The promise we made to Canadians to put money in the pockets of the middle class, to grow the economy through investing in our communities is actually delivering.”

He boasted that Canada has the fastest growing economy among G7 countries and that his government has created 400,000 new jobs.

In the House of Commons, Trudeau repeatedly referenced the Lac-Saint-Jean result to deflect continued opposition charges that Morneau put himself in a conflict of interest by failing to put his shares in his family’s pension management and human resources company into a blind trust.

“Last night we got an opportunity to hear from Quebecers and people across the country about how we were doing as a country and how we are doing in terms of growing the economy,” he said.

“The priorities that Canadians showed actually demonstrated that we are on the right track.”