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Harper woos Montreal's West Island

Hundreds of people showed up at a Conservative rally on the West Island Wednesday.

Hundreds of Conservative supporters showed up at a rally on Montreal's West Island Wednesday in a Tory bid to gain electoral ground in a city that has eluded them.

Pro-Conservative voters lined up outside a school in Dollard-des-Ormeaux, where leader Stephen Harper and star candidate Larry Smith joined other West Island contenders hoping to make a breakthrough in the May 2 vote.

Thundersticks and chants echoed in the gym festooned with large Canadian flags and Tory-blue banners. Supporters included outspoken victims of convicted fraudster Earl Jones, who have lobbied for tougher white-collar crime laws.

Ginny Nelles said she acknowledged the Conservatives' role in shepherding stricter sentencing and parole rules through Bills C-21 and C-59.

"I think all the parties had something to do with it," said Nelles, whose family lost $1 million in the Jones Ponzi scam. "But the Conservatives made it into a law, and passed it, and we're happy with that."

Victims spokesman Joey Davis calls those bills "momentous" and suggested they will affect scores of West Islanders.

"Many voters in the West Island will perhaps favour the Conservatives for passing these two laws that affect us. So I'm hoping their support will come out on election day and support Larry Smith."

Smith, the former senator and president of the Montreal Alouettes of the Canadian Football League, is running in Lac-Saint-Louis on the West Island.

The Conservatives' Quebec seats are concentrated around the greater Quebec City region, Gatineau and more rural regions.

It was the largest Conservative rally in Montreal in recent memory, but didn't escape campaign controversy. For the second day in a row, Harper's team was put on the spot over a campaign volunteer.

Montreal campaign director Giulio Maturi was abruptly dropped from the Quebec election team. Until Wednesday, Maturi had been running the campaign in Pierrefonds-Dollard for Conservative candidate Agop Evereklian .

Harper team had to face questions about Maturi's role in the Conservative campaign, given his past involvement with a disgraced former municipal politician.

Maturi used to work for one-time Montreal mayoral candidate Benoît Labonté.

Labonté, the former municipal opposition leader, was forced to drop out of the 2009 mayoral race two weeks before voting day over allegations he accepted kickbacks from Tony Accurso, a prominent construction entrepreneur.

Labonté admitted he took money from Accurso, who was at the centre of Montreal's water-metre scandal.

Labonté also made allegations about Maturi and kickbacks. However, Maturi was never accused of any wrongdoing.