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LOUISEVILLE, Que. – The first time Ruth Ellen Brosseau set foot in the federal riding of Berthier-Maskinongé in 2011, it was as if the circus had arrived, and she was the oddity everyone had to see.

She had just been elected without knocking on a single constituent’s door or putting up a single campaign poster, carried by the NDP wave that washed across Quebec. She was best known for flying off to Las Vegas mid-campaign to celebrate her birthday.

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“I was nervous — I’m not going to lie — the first time,” Brosseau said in an interview last week. “It was the unknown.” She left a meeting at Louiseville city hall to find a crowd of constituents gathered outside. There were no pitchforks, but still, she was wary.

“Are they going to be happy to see me? And they were. They just wanted to get to know me,” she recalled. “They said, ‘You know, we voted for change. You’re our change. Do us proud.’ ”

Four years later, Brosseau’s second campaign is in full swing, and the accidental MP has become well-liked in her riding northeast of Montreal.