Elected to the Perth-Andover village council in 1989, he represented the village on the
Grand Falls Regional Economic Development Commission before resigning in 1991, when he moved to Fredericton to work for the
Research and Productivity Council. In
2000, Savoy ran for
Parliament in the
conservative-minded
riding Tobique—Mactaquac for the
Liberal Party. Savoy defeated the
incumbent-
Member of Parliament (MP),
Progressive Conservative Gilles Bernier by only 150 votes. His share of the vote was only 34%, compared to 33% for Bernier and 29% for
Canadian Alliance candidate
Adam Richardson—the smallest
plurality of any successful candidate in that election. After his first election, he became the first MP from
Atlantic Canada to be elected chair of the Rural
Caucus of the Liberal Party. On February 4, 2004, he was elected
chair of the National Liberal Caucus, the first Atlantic Canadian to hold the post since
Brian Tobin in the 1980s. Despite his success in his first term in office, pundits suggested that Savoy faced a tough battle for
re-election especially with the creation of the new
Conservative Party of Canada out of the old Progressive Conservative and Canadian Alliance parties whose combined vote in 2000 was 63%. This was not the case as Savoy was re-elected by a margin of 3,008 votes, beating the Conservative candidate
Mike Allen 48% to 39%. However, in the
2006 election his luck did not continue, his party lost the election nationally and he too was defeated by Allen by a margin of 254 votes. He supported
Bob Rae's bid for the
Liberal leadership in 2006. ==References==