Defeated on Monday night, Richard Langlais won't throw in the towel

When he arrived at the Wellington Street offices, Langlais went straight to the computers to watch the results coming in. When Henri-Francois Gautrin was announced as the winner, Langlais congratulated his opponent. "There is no animosity between us," he stated to The Messager. Langlais believes he ran a fair and honest campaign that was respectful of his opponents.

An optimist by nature and a very competitive man, Langlais intends to continue to exercise his leadership in Verdun's PQ association, as well as prepare for the next election.

Langlais does not regret his decision to enter the race and wants to thank everyone who helped him during the campaign, particularly his wife and children. Langlais made the decision to run a little late in the campaign and this left him little time to truly get organized. With regards to the final results, Langlais told the Messager: "It's L'Ile-des-Soeurs that lost the race for us, as well as many people from Verdun's mainland opting not to vote."

The final results indicate that Liberal candidate Henri-Francois Gautrin obtained 12,204 votes (40.94%), a majority of 3,516 votes on his PQ rival, Richard Langlais, who obtained 8,688 votes (29.14%). Both Liberals and PQ parties saw their percentages decrease, because in 2003 Gautrin had obtained 50.52% of the votes and the PQ candidate, 30.38%. Richard Langlais admitted that he hadn't seen ADQ candidate Sylvie Tremblay, but it's certain that she took away votes from both the Liberals and the PQ candidates, on March 26.