Plante obtains a resounding victory and a solid second term

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Valérie Plante is back for a second term as mayor of Montreal after a campaign that ended up being more about character than about issues like the housing crisis and post-pandemic recovery.

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Plante, who was 17 points behind Denis Coderre in the polls last March, beat the odds of beating his opponent by 14 points, with 52 percent of the mayoral vote versus 38 percent for the Ensemble Montréal leader. . Newcomer Balarama Holness was a distant third with seven percent.

Plante also won a majority on the 65-member city council, where his Projet Montréal party led in 37 races, while Ensemble Montréal was ahead in 23. Équipe LaSalle advanced by three seats, while Equipe Anjou led in two.

“The election of Projet Montréal in 2017 was not an accident. It was the beginning of a new era! “Plante declared to an euphoric crowd of more than 650 people chanting” Valérie, Valérie! “At the Théâtre Olympia on Sunday night.

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In a reprimand to Coderre, who scolded her for smiling during a televised debate, Plante said her victory shows: “Yes, you can run Montreal with a smile.”

“We want a city that is the envy of the whole world for its quality of life,” he added.

With Dominique Ollivier, former president of the Montreal Office of Public Consultation (OWHC) as chair of the executive committee, Plante promised that the city would advance even further under her second term “because Montreal will be run by two women.”

Holness’s Movement Montreal was unable to select any of its 68 candidates.

Polls had shown Plante and Coderre in a tie from mid-September until the last week of the campaign, when she moved decisively amid growing controversy over Coderre’s refusal to disclose her contracts with private sector employers.

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It finally revealed earnings of $ 458,263 in 2020 from companies such as real estate giant Cogir, the Fédération Internationale de l’Automobile, which organizes the Formula One race, and publisher Transcontinental, which hopes to defeat Montreal’s proposal to limit the distribution of brochures. by Publisac.

Plante was also affected by controversy in the final days of the campaign, when Projet Montréal candidate Craig Sauvé withdrew from the party on an allegation of sexual abuse dating back to 2012.

The crushing defeat wiped out Coderre’s hopes for a political comeback after his loss to Plante in 2017.

The mood was moody in the Plaza Center-Ville banquet hall when a stoic Coderre admitted defeat, denouncing the low turnout.

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Only 31.7 percent of Montreal’s 1.1 million eligible voters had cast their vote at 4 p.m., a sharp decline since 2017, when 42.5 percent exercised their democratic right.

For Plante, 47, it was yet another example of his ability to exceed expectations. In 2017, she came from behind as an unknown councilwoman to overthrow 58-year-old Coderre, a former federal cabinet minister with more than 35 years of political experience, to become the city’s first mayor.

This time, Plante campaigned for his record at the helm of Canada’s second-largest city, noting his efforts in social housing, road-sharing measures like the REV bike path, the founding of the Grand parc de l’Ouest and his international. profile in the fight against climate change, including the approach of the United Nations Climate Action Summit in 2019.

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But he faced anger over lost parking spots and the traffic jam caused by endless construction, as well as a cranky population contemplating its third pandemic winter.

Coderre put gun crime and public safety at the center of his campaign, promising to hire 250 more police officers, a promise Plante kept this week. He also vowed to get the city’s finances in order, saying spending was out of control under Plante’s administration and warning that Montreal’s credit rating was about to be cut.

Coderre’s biggest problem was convincing Montréal’s that he had changed since 2017, when Montréal’s shut him out amid criticism for his unpopular Formula E car race, colorful 375th anniversary celebrations, and banning. pit bull.

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In Plateau-Mont-Royal, incumbent mayor Luc Rabouin of Projet Montréal won by a crushing 77%, while party stalwart François Limoges led in Rosemont-La Petite-Patrie with 68%, with two-thirds of the votes counted. .

At Mercier – Hochelaga-Maisonneuve, Karine Boivin-Roy, a pillar of Ensemble Montreal, was three points behind Projet Montreal challenger Pierre Lessard-Blais.

Ensemble Montréal held on to its strongholds of St-Laurent, where incumbent mayor Alan DeSousa headed for re-election with 70 percent of the vote, and Pierrefonds-Roxboro, where Dimitrios (Jim) Beis dominated with 59 percent. . In St-Léonard, it was a piece of cake for incumbent Michel Bissonnet, with 64 percent.

In Rivière-des-Prairies – Pointe-aux-Trembles, incumbent Caroline Bourgeois, Plante’s key person on public safety in the last administration, held a three-point advantage over Ensemble Montreal challenger Lyne Laperrière, who had a long career in the construction industry. .

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In 2017, Chantal Rouleau, now Quebec’s junior transport minister and minister responsible for the Montreal region, won the municipal mayoralty for Coderre’s team. Bourgeois was elected in a 2018 joint election.

In Côte-des-Neiges – Notre-Dame-de-Grâce, Ensemble Montreal’s acting leader Lionel Perez defeated Project Montreal candidate, Gracia Kasoki Katahwa. Incumbent Mayor Sue Montgomery, who ran for re-election under the banner of her own party, Courage – Team Sue Montgomery, fell behind with nine percent.

In Villeray – Saint-Michel – Parc-Extension, the incumbent district mayor, Giuliana Fumagalli, was also defeated at the head of her own party, Quartiers Montréal. Laurence Lavigne Lalonde of Projet Montréal, who was responsible for the environmental transition in the last Plante administration, defended himself against the challenger Guillaume Lavoie of Ensemble Montréal.

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The language issue arose in the municipal campaign against the backdrop of Prime Minister François Legault’s Bill 96, which renews the province’s French-language status.

Holness promised, if elected, to seek city-state status for Montreal and guarantee bilingual services. The position condemned the short-lived merger of his Movement Montreal party with the Ralliement pour Montréal, which had called for recognition of Montreal’s “essentially Francophone character”.

Holness was the only mayoral candidate to oppose Bill 96, which would restrict access to some services in English to “historical Anglophones,” that is, those who attended an English school in Canada.

Polls showed Holness’s position was gaining support from both Anglophones and allophones.

Coderre changed Bill 96 in the last week of the campaign by telling the Montreal Gazette’s editorial board that it would require changes to the law and keep city services like the 311 hotline bilingual.