Hawkesbury councillor Gilles Roch Greffe wants to be Federal candidate

Roch Greffe will be running against L'Orignal assistant crown attorney Julie Bourgeois for the post of Liberal candidate in the federal riding.

On June 16, Roch Greffe says he's confident that the Liberals can win the next election against incumbent Pierre Lemieux and the Conservative party.

Roch Greffe argued the Harper government has mismanaged Employment Insurance during an economic crisis, and was not doing enough to help local workers get benefits quickly.

Roch Greffe also disagreed with Lemieux's view that nominees to the Supreme Court should not be required to be bilingual. (Lemieux has said that experience and judgment, and not necessarily bilingualism, should be the top factors for a supreme court judge, while Roch Greffe says bilingualism should be mandatory.)

Roch Greffe has worked at Ivaco Steel Mills for 34 years and has a high school education.

He has been involved with Liberal politics for nine years and described himself as someone who would speak strongly for Glengarry-Prescott-Russell.

"I know what workers need. They need some support right now. The industry needs some support from the government, they don't need [the government] to wait until something happens. In November the Conservatives were saying there was no crisis going on, but we were affected here by layoffs.

The Conservatives didn't want to listen to the opposition so they prorogued the chamber to come back in January. When you're in crisis it's not time to stop the parliament, you have to work," he said.

It is currently unknown if candidate Dan Boudria will campaign to be the nominee. Boudria is still the nominee according to party rules, but works in the public sector and has made no official statements as candidate since the election in October 2008.