Projet Montréal easily maintains control of central districts

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Projet Montréal retained control of the city’s central districts Sunday night, recording convincing victories in party strongholds.

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The party managed to elect mayors from the Rosemont districts: La Petite-Patrie, Plateau-Mont-Royal and Sud-Ouest, in addition to being on the verge of sweeping all the seats in the districts.

Having been re-elected mayor of Montreal, party leader Valérie Plante will also retain her position as mayor of the city’s downtown district, Ville-Marie.

In Outremont, however, a closer race developed.

As of 1 a.m., no clear winner had emerged in the mayoral race, with Projet Montréal candidate and incumbent mayor Philippe Tomlinson and Ensemble Montréal’s Laurent Desbois only separated by less than 30 votes.

The four municipal council races were also divided between the two parties at the same time.

Heading into election night, Projet Montréal had to fend off challenges in keeping the city’s central districts under its banner, including the resignation of elected party members and late campaign controversies.

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But in an interview last week, François Limoges, the now-elected mayoral candidate for the municipality in Rosemont-La Petite-Patrie, said he believed he had made the necessary effort to win the trust of voters.

“I think Montréal likes what we have proposed,” Limoges said. “We have had exceptional responses going door to door – all of our candidates have really gotten going and reached out to the voters.”

Limoges was elected Sunday night with 70 percent of the vote, defeating Ensemble Montréal – Gilles Grondin of Équipe Denis Coderre.

He will take the place of Francois Croteau, the first district mayor elected in 2009 and with Projet Montréal since 2011, who had announced in May that he would not seek a fourth term.

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A city councilor since 2009, Limoges ran a campaign promising to get residents more involved in city decision-making and to continue the green transition it has experienced in recent years.

Given the positioning of the municipality, it also sought to take a leadership role in some of the larger projects for the eastern edge of the city, including REM, Blue Line, and Maisonneuve-Rosemont Hospital.

Throughout the campaign, Limoges and Grondin had shared opposing views on the much-discussed Réseau express vélo (REV) bike path on Bellechasse St. While Grondin argued that it should be reduced to a two-way bike path on only one side of the road. street, Limoges promised to protect it.

“It will continue to be a REV and we will improve it,” Limoges said this week. “Over time, we want it to be a permanent infrastructure, with trees, like in St-Denis St. We want it to be more pleasant and safer.”

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In the neighboring Plateau-Mont-Royal district, the city’s most densely populated district, Projet Montréal’s Luc Rabouin was re-elected as district mayor on Sunday evening.

Rabouin had achieved an easy election victory in 2019, capturing more than two-thirds of the votes at the time. The by-election had been called when the party’s Luc Ferrandez abruptly left municipal politics after serving as municipal mayor for a decade.

In the Sud-Ouest district, incumbent district mayor Benoit Dorais also appeared to have won a fourth term, holding a dominant lead at 1am.

Dorais had received more than 70 percent of the vote in 2017, but has had to overcome controversy ever since. In 2019, he fought resignation requests after it was revealed that he received a speeding ticket for driving 171 km / h in a 100 km / h zone.

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Most recently, he announced that he will step down as chairman of the Montreal executive committee, with the aim of focusing on his role as mayor of the municipality. The candidate that Plante has chosen as his replacement, Dominique Ollivier, was elected City Councilor for Rosemont – La Petite-Patrie Sunday.

Projet Montréal had also lost a candidate for councilor in the Sud-Ouest district at the end of the campaign. Last week, Craig Sauvé announced that he was withdrawing from the party following an allegation of sexual abuse in 2012.

Sauvé denies the accusation, but says he didn’t want to become a distraction for the party. Due to time, he remained on the ballot as a candidate for Projet Montréal. He was re-elected Sunday night and will sit as an independent.

In Ville-Marie, as mentioned, Plante will resume her role as mayor of the municipality after being re-elected as mayor of Montreal.

Projet Montréal also held two of the city council seats, with Serge Sasseville of Ensemble Montréal winning the Peter-McGill district.

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