This Bloc challenger lost by 12 votes last time. He's back to take on a Liberal star candidate

Patrick O'Hara might be one of the most motivated federal candidates in Canada.

"Either way it's going to go this year," the Bloc Québécois candidate told CBC Radio's The House, "I know what to expect, right?"

Last election night, in September 2021, O'Hara believed he'd won his seat by 286 votes. But everything changed two weeks later, when a recount concluded he had lost — by just 12 ballots.

"It was probably the worst experience I've had in my life."

O'Hara is back running in the renamed and redrawn riding of Châteauguay-Les Jardins-de-Napierville, a suburban-rural corner of southwestern Quebec that stretches from the South Shore of Montreal down to the U.S. border.

The agriculturally rich region — often referred to as the "garden" of Quebec — is surrounded by Bloc incumbents and likely would have flipped to the Bloc in 2021 if the new boundaries had been in place.

"It keeps you focused on, you know, how many more doors did I need to knock on?" O'Hara explained while visiting a local business in the riding.

"How many more phone calls did I need to do? How many people turned around in the [voting] lineup because it was too long, and said, 'Oh, Pat's got it?' That all comes back. And it's even more motivating now in 2025."

Liberal incumbent Brenda Shanahan announced late last year she would not be seeking re-election, opening the door for a fresh face to run against the returning O'Hara.

Nathalie Provost, a longtime gun control advocate and survivor of the 1989 École Polytechnique shooting, reached out to the Liberal Party and was formally unveiled as a candidate shortly after the election was called.

On day three of the campaign, Liberal Leader Mark Carney made headlines for flubbing her last name and confusing the shooting she survived with the one that happened at Concordia University years later.

"The fact that he named me 'Pronovost' instead of 'Provost' — for me, it's nothing," Provost said in an interview at her campaign office in Châteauguay.

"I understand that in 1989, Mr. Carney was living in England … so he didn't [feel] what many Canadians felt in December 1989," she said. "It's a major marker in my own life. So for me, it's very difficult to understand that somebody [doesn't] know. And I'm a bit sad.

"So, he made a mistake. But the major item there is not the mistake. It's the fact that he talked about me, he talked about my situation and the values I want to to protect."