{"id":158368,"date":"2026-08-06T18:17:17","date_gmt":"2026-08-06T18:17:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/158368\/"},"modified":"2026-08-06T18:17:17","modified_gmt":"2026-08-06T18:17:17","slug":"old-brewery-ceo-hughes-will-run-for-quebec-liberals-in-election","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/158368\/","title":{"rendered":"Old Brewery CEO Hughes will run for Quebec Liberals in election"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The president and CEO of the Old Brewery Mission, <a href=\"https:\/\/montrealgazette.com\/opinion\/opinion-montreal-lets-hear-more-yes-in-my-backyard-yimby\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener nofollow\">James Hughes<\/a>, will run for the Quebec Liberals in this fall\u2019s general election.<\/p>\n<p>Sources confirmed Wednesday evening that Hughes, a lawyer who has been president of the Old Brewery since September 2020, will run for the Liberals in the riding of Vaudreuil.<\/p>\n<p>The announcement is to be made Thursday by Liberal Leader Charles Milliard.<\/p>\n<p>The riding came open by surprise this week with the decision by the sitting Liberal MNA, Marie-Claude Nichols, to <a href=\"https:\/\/montrealgazette.com\/news\/provincial-news\/provincial-politics\/vaudreuil-mna-marie-claude-nichols-drops-out-quebec-election\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">not seek re-election for family reasons<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>Nichols won the riding, immediately west of the Island of Montreal, in 2022 by a mere 576 votes.<\/p>\n<p>It is Milliard\u2019s second big-name catch for the Liberal campaign in two days.<\/p>\n<p>On Wednesday, <a href=\"https:\/\/montrealgazette.com\/quebec-elections\/dont-be-fooled-by-caqs-pitch-for-federalist-votes-milliard-warns\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener nofollow\">Milliard confirmed Michel Leblanc<\/a>, the former head of the Chamber of Commerce of Metropolitan Montreal, will run in the southwest Montreal riding of Marguerite-Bourgeoys.<\/p>\n<p>But while Leblanc allows the Liberals to beef up their economic team, Hughes will be seen as more of a social justice candidate, which also goes to the roots of the Quebec Liberal Party.<\/p>\n<p>Born in Montreal, Hughes spent his early years in Verdun. He graduated in law from McGill in 1991.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"2400\" height=\"1599\" src=\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/mfc05-1121-misison02.jpg-1_93215595.jpg\" alt=\"James Hughes next to a sign for the Old Brewery Mission.\" class=\"wp-image-100259620\"  \/>Old Brewery Mission executive director James Hughes in 2005. Marie-France Coallier \/ Montreal Gazette files<\/p>\n<p>He was executive director of the Old Brewery from 2004 to 2008 before leaving to work for the government of New Brunswick.<\/p>\n<p>He returned as president and CEO in 2020 and is credited with having moved the Old Brewery \u2014 a respected 137-year-old institution caring for unhoused people in Montreal \u2014 onto a more modern footing.<\/p>\n<p>Bilingual, he has written three books on social services and is a regular media and academic commentator on issues of poverty and housing.<\/p>\n<p>In 2025 he was awarded the National Assembly medal of honour in \u201crecognition of an outstanding career dedicated to social commitment and supporting the underprivileged.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>This will be Hughes\u2019s second attempt to get himself elected. In the 2015 federal election, <a href=\"https:\/\/montrealgazette.com\/news\/election-results-garneau-defeats-hughes-in-notre-dame-de-grace-westmount\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener nofollow\">Hughes ran for the New Democratic Party<\/a> in the riding of N\u00f4tre-Dame-de-Grace Westmount.<\/p>\n<p>He was defeated by the Liberal candidate, the late former astronaut Marc Garneau.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The president and CEO of the Old Brewery Mission, James Hughes, will run for the Quebec Liberals in&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":158369,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[17,129,130],"class_list":["post-158368","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-canada","tag-canada","tag-quebec-elections","tag-quebec-liberal-party"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/158368","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=158368"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/158368\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/158369"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=158368"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=158368"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=158368"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}