OTTAWA — Meili Faille couldn’t believe her ears when she heard the news. Marc Garneau, the first Canadian to have visited space, was preparing to run against her in the 2006 election.

A few weeks later, she won. And Garneau never forgot it.

Twenty years ago, the Bloc Québécois MP at the time held sway in Vaudreuil—Soulanges. This riding, located on the west side of the island of Montreal, near the Ontario border, had elected Faille in 2004 following the sponsorship scandal.

In a riding where former NDP Jack Layton grew up, having a separatist represent a bilingual and multicultural community was an odd fit.

“We had an incredible team on the ground. We were dedicated to the community… Honestly, I didn’t even count the number of events I attended at the time, it was every single day,” Fa

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