Montreal elects Valerie Plante as city's first female mayor

Plante, 43, defeated Denis Coderre, who became Montreal's mayor in 2013 after being elected six times as a federal Liberal MP.

Thestar.com
Nov. 5, 2017
By Allan Woods

Voters picked Valerie Plante as the first female to be elected mayor of Montreal, opting for a relative newcomer with big-ticket promises over an incumbent who has been one of the city's best-known and longest-serving politicians.

Plante, 43, defeated Denis Coderre, who became Montreal's mayor in 2013 after being elected six times as a federal Liberal MP and serving briefly in 2002 as immigration minister under prime minister Jean Chretien.

"We have written a new page in the history books of Montreal. Three hundred and seventy-five years after Jeanne Mance, Montreal finally has its first female mayor," Plante told supporters at her victory party Sunday, referring to the female French settler and co-founder of Montreal

Plante is a native of Rouyn-Noranda in western Quebec and lived briefly in North Bay, Ont., as a teenager. She has a degree in anthropology and a master's degree in museum studies. She worked as a community organizer and activist before being elected as a Montreal city councillor in 2013.

She was elected leader of her left-leaning municipal political party, Projet Montréal, in 2016 and headed into this election campaign with little public name recognition among voters.

But she kicked off her campaign in mid-August with the unveiling of a cheeky slogan that declared her "the man for the job" and got people talking about the ambitious underdog seeking to unseat the political veteran.

She managed to build support with election promises to oversee the construction of 12,000 new low-income housing units, better manage the city's construction-induced traffic woes and build a new subway line.

Plante proposed in one interview that the subway stations on the new route would be named after women and notable members of Montreal's cultural communities.

Despite Plante's strong campaign skills, the race was still widely thought to be Coderre's election to lose.

He did just that, first by refusing to criticize or even react to his opponents' announcements and telling reporters that he was "not the opposition of the opposition."

But as Plante's support grew, Coderre, appearing in his 11th election campaign, was forced to engage. He criticized her election pledges as being unaffordable and unachievable but failed to put forward any big-ticket promises of his own.

Instead, he ran on his record over four years in office, stressing that he had been elected in 2013 to clean up city hall, put Montreal's affairs in good order and restore a sense of pride in Quebec's largest city following years of corruption scandals.

Ex-Montreal mayor Gerald Tremblay resigned in one such scandal undermined his administration. He was briefly replaced by deputy mayor Jane Cowell-Poitras, who became the first woman to occupy the post of mayor over 11 days in November of that year.

Cowell-Poitras stood in again as the city's mayor for seven days in June 2013 after Tremblay's council-elected replacement, Michael Applebaum, was arrested on corruption charges.

Luc Ferrandez, who preceded Plante as Projet Montréal leader, predicted in an interview with Radio-Canada that she would take immediate steps to reassure the corporate sector who may fear the party's left-wing platform.

"All of them, from the smallest shop owners to startups to the big investors and the Bombardiers of the world," he said. "And also giving Montrealers a city that corresponds with Projet Montréal: more green, more human, more family-focused."

Plante also addressed Montreal's English-speaking community, saying that she wants to work with them and that francophones and anglophones have more similarities than differences.

She said she would also be looking to the Quebec government and Prime Minister Justin Trudeau's Liberal government in Ottawa to contribute the social housing and public transport promises she made throughout the campaign.

"I invite you to recognize the strong message that Montrealers are sending you today," Plante said.

In his own speech Sunday night, Coderre said that he was quitting city politics with his head held high.

"Montreal is an exceptional city," he said. "We have rediscovered our integrity, we have rediscovered the joie de vivre, the pride."

Throughout his term as mayor, Coderre was omnipresent at public events and on social media, but tended toward micromanagement.

He won points for taking a jackhammer to a Canada Post community mailbox during the debate over the door-to-door mail delivery and for suiting up and descending into city sewers when the city was forced to dump billions of litres of raw sewage into the St. Lawrence River.

But he was chastised for the times that he crossed the line from confidence into cockiness.

Last summer, a public inquiry heard that Coderre had warned a police officer who issued him a traffic ticket before he became mayor in 2012 that he would be her "future boss."

This summer he also ordered a lighting ceremony on the city's iconic Jacques Cartier bridge - a project celebrating Montreal's 375th anniversary - to be held a second time because the first ceremony was interrupted by protesting members of the city's police union.

It was a public event that should have worked in the incumbent Coderre's favour - a summer car race through the streets of downtown Montreal - that may have sealed his political fate.

Last July's Formula E electric car race was met with opposition from local business and residents who charged that the city was proceeding despite concerns about access to transit and lost customers. But the debacle followed Coderre into the re-election race when he refused to demonstrate the success of the event by revealing figures on ticket sales.

He relented only in the final week of the campaign and organizers said that of the 45,000 people who attended the race, 20,000 had received free ticket. The figure undercut Coderre's claim of sound economic management, particularly after Montreal invested $24 million to host the car race.

"It was a mistake and I regret it. I take the blame," he told reporters.