Quebec City’s Suburbs Enigma
Voters in the suburbs of Quebec City have recently supported right wing parties and candidates more than elsewhere in Quebec. A number of explanations have been advanced to account for this behaviour. Here, we explore geographical factors at the neighbourhood scale. We first ask whether residential location may have an influence on voting behaviour, independent of the social attributes of the residents. We then explore this hypothesis by mapping the federal conservative vote of 2006, the provincial ADQ vote of 2003 and the municipal vote for Andrée Boucher, an independent candidate elected mayor in 2005. The three votes show a strong tendency for right wing support to increase from the center towards the periphery. Multivariate models are then proposed in order to account for the spatial variation of these votes. In the models, the location of neighbourhood units and aspects of their modes of living, such as owning single family houses or using public transit, are measured. Our results support findings in other urban agglomerations where it has been found that suburban living exerts a considerable influence on the propensity to vote on the right.