In 2004 the riding of Jonquiere-Alma was taken by the Bloq. A few days left to go and a liberal concedes.  The polls in the riding indicated about a five percent support for Liberal candidate Gilles Savard.

A Liberal candidate in Quebec is conceding defeat and urging his supporters to vote for the Conservative party.

Gilles Savard, the Liberal candidate for the riding of Jonquiere-Alma, is throwing his support behind the Tories to stave off a Bloc Quebecois victory.

Savard pulled out because polls showed he only had five per cent support in the riding in a province that has seen a recent swell of support for the Tories.

The Conservative candidate in the riding, Jean-Pierre Blackburn, was an MP under former prime minister Brian Mulroney.

A spokeswoman for the Quebec branch of the federal Liberal party says she doesn’t know what Savard’s intentions are.

According to CTV:

Gilles Savard, the Liberal candidate running in the Jonquière-Alma riding, will remain on the ballot and is still asking his own supporters to vote for him.

Initial reports claimed Savard had pulled out and asked his supporters to back the Tories, with local polls predicting he would only receive five per cent of the vote.

The Tory MP in the riding, Jean Pierre Blackburn, was an MP in Brian Mulroney’s government and appears to have a better chance of defeating the current Bloc Quebecois MP.

So a liberal who knows he is not going to win or place well in his riding is asking undecided voters to vote Conservative, not BQ.