As part of our coverage of the federal election, Investment Executive is profiling candidates who are working or who have worked in the financial services industry.

Here we look at Conservative candidate Georges-Alexandre Bastien:

Georges-Alexandre Bastien has been cast in the role of giant slayer in the federal election and the weapon he’s trying to wield is public outrage over Liberal scandals.

Bastien, who has spent 28 years as a life insurance and investment adviser, is the Conservative candidate vying to topple Prime Minister Paul Martin in his Montreal riding of LaSalle-Émard.

Drawing on his experience in the financial services industry, Bastien says he sees a lot of opportunity to use the tax system to improve people’s lives and the performance of the economy. For example, he points to Tory proposals to cut the GST to 5% over five years and give parents $100 a month per child under six to spend as they choose for child care whether it be for daycare, a babysitter or helping a parent stay at home.

“The current government is covering its eyes and putting Band-Aids here and there,” he says. “They’re treating symptoms but not the underlying problems.”

Bastien also wants to attack the so-called fiscal imbalance between the federal and provincial governments. The fiscal imbalance — a hot-button issue in Quebec — refers to a perceived inequity between the taxation powers of Ottawa and the provinces given the respective responsibilities of each level of government.

“The idea of the fiscal imbalance is not only important for Quebec but for other provinces,” Bastien says. “We can share our collective wealth and ensure that it’s fair for everyone.”

Like a lot of advisers in Quebec, Bastien is deeply concerned by a string of investment scandals that hit Quebec in 2005. He wants to strengthen regulation of the investment industry and favours the creation of a national securities commission.

He says his business is prosperous enough to afford him the opportunity to run for the Conservative Party against Martin.

“I’m not doing it for money. I have over 2,000 clients and [the business] is very stable,” says Bastien, 52. “I see politics as a way to help people by finding solutions to problems.”

Bastien got his start in the insurance business in 1977 as a sales representative for the Metropolitan Life Insurance Co. He quickly moved up to a position of sales manager before striking out on his own as an independent adviser in 1982. Today, he represents more than 30 insurance companies and financial institutions, offering clients life and disability insurance as well as investment funds.

He sees his involvement in politics as an extension of his long commitment to community service through organizations such as the Optimists Club and the Boy Scouts. Among his other volunteer activities, he was a driving force behind the founding of a youth centre in Montreal’s Rosemont district in 1999 when he was president of the Optimists Club in the area.

Bastien has a big job to dislodge a sitting prime minister from his seat in LaSalle-Émard, a riding in southwest Montreal won handily by Martin in 2004 by almost 12,000 votes over his closest rival — the Bloc Quebecois candidate. Bastien said he could have run in a riding close his home in northeast Montreal but choose instead to battle with Martin.

“I said to myself I’d rather battle a giant and win this election,” he said. “Because Jan. 23, the people are going to vote and tell the Liberals they’re dissatisfied.”