Federal Liberal Candidates Stepping Forward Early

Jeff Green | Apr 03, 2014

The Federal Liberals are just getting the riding association up and running for the new Lanark Frontenac riding, which was created after last year's federal riding redistribution process. It will be contested for the first time in the fall of October 2015 when the next federal election is scheduled.

The new riding includes all of Frontenac and Lanark Counties (with the exception of Frontenac Islands) as well as rural Kingston north of Hwy. 401. It will have two population centres, the largest being Lanark County, and a secondary centre in the South Frontenac/North Kingston area.

Even though the date of a nomination meeting has not been set, two candidates have already emerged, both South Frontenac residents, Phil Somers and Philippe Archambault. Although both candidates come from different parts of the country, Archambault from Montreal and Somers from PEI, they have both settled locally. Phil Somers moved to the Kingston area as a student at RMC and remained in the region after retiring from the military in 1994. Philippe Archambault moved to Kingston four years ago, and to Inverary 18 months ago. He has lived in the United Kingdom as well as his native Quebec, and when he moved back to Canada with his Welsh wife, they decided to live in Kingston so she could speak English and they could still be close to Quebec. The couple have three young children, and Philippe, who has a background in business consulting, is currently working as a performance analyst at SLH Transport in Kingston.

The two men will present contrasting styles to the riding association membership. They agree on one thing, however. Like all good Liberal party members they do not like the direction in which Conservative Prime Minister Stephen Harper has taken the country.

Carleton Place-based Scott Reid, who represents the soon to be forgotten Lanark-Frontenac-Lennox and Addington riding and has been a sitting MP for 15 years, representing both the Canadian Alliance and Conservative parties, has not announced if he will be running for re-election. Reid was instrumental in the design of the new riding, which re-unites his home county into one riding. In the 2011 election, he received 57% of the votes, his highest percentage to date.