#munipoli Matters SIDEPLATE - The municipal candidates of Quebec's election (PART 2)
The rest of the 'oppositions' (as they are called by Premier Francois Legault) and who from the municipal arena is running for them.
Welcome to another edition of #munipoil Matters, where we go all in on covering the often under-reported area of municipal politics and local government. September is election month in Quebec, as a provincial election has been called for October 3.
Four years ago in the 2018 election, the province witnessed a historical breakthrough as a third place party, the Coalition Avenir Quebec, won a massive landslide election, ousting the incumbent Liberal government and reducing the Parti Quebecois into a dismal third place.
In PART 1, I highlighted the municipal candidates who are running under the CAQ. Today, we take a look at those similar type of candidates running for everybody else.
Legault has labeled the four other main parties as ‘the oppositions’, which is quite a clever way of describing his competition in a way that isn’t that demeaning but crystalizes the alternatives in comparison to his stable, governing coalition.
Surprisingly, I did find a number of nominees from the municipal government arena running, even for the QS and Conservatives. Here they are (apologies if I missed anyone who ran municipally before and were not successful).
Quebec Liberal Party
Without the foil of the PQ as their main opposition, the party of Robert Bourassa and Jean Charest is struggling to stay relevant in a debate no longer dominated by the question of independence for Quebec from the rest of Canada.
The 2018 election essentially wiped the QLP from the map outside the Island of Montreal and a few spots in the Outaouais. Dominique Anglade, the first black woman to lead a provincial party in Quebec, is not having much luck reversing the Liberals’ fortunes this time around.
But the party’s brand remains relevant; they’re still a reliable second place although they are currently competing for that spot with the Conservatives. The OLP is also still attracting candidates with relevant experience, such as from the municipal government arena.
Abitibi-Est: Jean-Maurice Matte was the mayor of Senneterre for over 19 years and warden for the La Vallée-de-l’Or RCM, as well as having assumed various roles for the Union des Municipalités du Québec.
Abitibi-Ouest: Former Amos councillor Guy Bourgeois is the QLP candidate here. He previously served as MNA from 2014 to 2018.
Bertrand: André G. Nadeau has served as Executive Vice-President and Head of Strategic Management at CGI, a global Canadian information technology consulting firm. He was the mayor of Estérel from 2005 to 2009.
Fabre: Sonia Baudelot is a flight director for a major airline and was a local section vice-president of her union for flight staff. Baudelot is also a former federal Conservative Party candidate in Laval who ran for mayor under her own Avenir Laval municipal party in the 2017 election.
Gatineau: Caryl Green is the former mayor of Chelsea, Quebec from 2009 to 2021. She also served on the Board of Directors of the UMQ and Warden of the Collines-de-l’Outaouais Regional County Municipality.
Huntingdon: Jean-Claude Poissant is a former municipal councillor in Saint-Philippe from 2009 to 2015. He’s also a former Liberal MP for the La Prairie riding and served one term until 2019 when he lost his seat to the Bloc Quebecois.
Lotbinière-Frontenac: Normand Côté has been Mayor of Saint-Flavien since 2013, and as prefect of the Lotbinière Regional County Municipality since 2016.
Mille-Îles: Former Laval city councillor Virginie Dufour is running here as the Quebec Liberal candidate. Dufour is also a former member of Laval’s Executive Committee.
Orford: Vicki-May Hamm served as mayor of Magog from 2009 to 2021, and was a former President of the Federation of Canadian Municipalities (FCM).
Rouyn-Noranda-Témiscamingue: Arnaud Warolin previously practiced urban planning for 4 years before joining the Hydro-Quebec Corporation team as community relations manager. He served as Warden for the Témiscamingue RCM for 8 years.
Saint-François: Claude Charron is a current City Councillor in Sherbrooke and President of the Lennoxville Borough.
Sainte-Rose: Michel Trottier is a former Laval city councillor from 2013 to 2021, representing the Marc-Aurèle Fortin and Fabreville districts. During his time in municipal politics, Trottier also served as leader of the official opposition on Laval City Council.
Ungava: Tunu Napartuk is the former mayor of Kuujjuaq.
Vaudreuil: Marie-Claude Nichols has been the Liberal MNA since 2014 and is the party’s current Critic for Municipal Affairs and Housing. Nichols is the former mayor of Notre-Dame-de-l'Île-Perrot prior to her election to the Legislature.
Viau: Frantz Benjamin is the current MNA, first elected in 2018. He was formerly a city councillor in Montreal, representing the Saint-Michel district in the Villeray–Saint-Michel–Parc-Extension borough.
Parti Québécois
If the OLP looks like they’re treading water without a lifeline, the PQ look even worse. Current polling suggests that the sovereigntists are staring into the tunnels of political oblivion when the election concludes.
It’s possible that the party founded by Rene Levesque may end up with literally one seat. Nevertheless, the PQ still managed to find a few nominees to be their standard bearers from the municipal political arena.
Abitibi-Est: Jacline Rouleau is the current Mayor of the Parish of Senneterre, having been elected to that role since 2009.
Abitibi-Ouest: Samuel Doré is the former mayor of Poularies.
Beauce-Sud: Jean François Major is a current municipal councillor in Saint-Évariste-de-Forsyth.
Deux-Montagnes: Guillaume Lalonde worked as a constituency assistant for Bloc Québécois MP Luc Desilets. In the 2021 municipal elections, Lalonde contested a municipal council seat in Saint-Eustache under Mayor Pierre Charron’s team in the de la Seigneurie district, coming in second.
Joliette: The PQ nominated Véronique Venne, the current Mayor of Sainte-Marie-Salomé, as their candidate in one of the few ridings they held at dissolution of the National Assembly when the election was called.
Laval-des-Rapides: Andréanne Fiola, 22, is an environmental professional for Mascouche. In the 2021 municipal elections, she ran for a city council seat in Laval in the Laval-des-Rapides district under Bernard Trottier’s party banner, losing by 62 votes.
Masson: Stéphane Handfield is an immigration lawyer who also served as a city councillor for Mascouche from 2013 to 2021.
Mirabel: Carole Savoie has been an early childhood educator who opened her own childcare centre in 2004. She ran for a city council seat in Saint-Jérôme in the 2021 municipal elections.
Roberval: Patrice Bouchard was a municipal councillor for the City of Dolbeau-Mistassini.
Quebec Solidaire
A party that is basically the provincial version of the NDP in all but name does have a smattering of candidates with prior municipal experience that could prove useful in filling out their ranks, should the QS add to their current rank of 10 seats they won in 2018.
Îles-de-la-Madeleine: Jean-Philippe Déraspe was a municipal councillor from 2017 to 2021 for the L'Étang-du-Nord district in the Magdalen Islands. Déraspe also was the acting mayor in 2018 and 2021.
Rouyn-Noranda–Témiscamingue: Current MNA Émilise Lessard-Therrien, first elected in 2018, is a former councillor from Duhamel-Ouest.
Saint-Jérôme: Marc-Olivier Neveu, 22, ran for mayor of Saint-Jérôme in the 2021 municipal elections under the Mouvement Jérômien banner.
Ungava: Maïtée Labrecque-Saganash is a Cree woman living in Waswanipi. She is an Information Officer in communications, an elected commissioner at the Cree School Board, an activist and a writer. Labrecque-Saganash’s name may sound a bit familiar; her father is former federal NDP MP Romeo Saganash.
Viau: Renée-Chantal Belinga served as the borough councillor in the Ovide-Clermont district of the Montréal-Nord borough from 2017 to 2021.
Quebec Conservative Party
Although this party has been around since the 2014 provincial election, the Conservatives in Quebec has only picked up attention for this year due to their leader being former radio shock jock Éric Duhaime.
The CAQ is likely on their way to a second majority, but if there is any dent in their armor, it’s likely going to come from the CPQ, perhaps near the Quebec City region and environs.
Jean-Lesage: Denise Peter was elected President of the CPQ in 2021. In 2017, she ran for Quebec City municipal council under the Québec 21 (Équipe JF Gosselin) slate in the Maizerets-Lairet district, garnering 24% of the vote.
Nicolet-Bécancour: Mario Lyonnais has been Mayor of Sainte-Françoise-de-Lotbinière for the past 25 years and warden of the Bécancour RCM for close to a decade. Since 1984 Lyonnais has also been running his family business.
Bellechasse: Former St-Henri councillor Michel Tardif is running as the Conservative candidate.
Chutes-de-la-Chaudière: Mario Fortier was elected as a Levis City Councillor in 2009 and also served on Mayor Gilles Lehouillier’s Executive Committee from 2013 to 2017.
Côte-du-Sud: Frédéric Poulin served as the mayor of St-Antoine-de-l'Isle-aux-Grues from 2009 to 2013.
Labelle: Claude Paquin previously ran as a councillor in the 2013 municipal elections in Mascouche. He’s been a Montreal General Hospital employee for over thirty years.
Laviolette-Saint-Maurice: Pierre-David Tremblay was a police officer from 1987 to 2013. After his retirement, Tremblay served on La Bostonnais municipal council as councillor and mayor from 2015 to 2017 and was mayor of La Tuque from 2017 to 2021.
Huntingdon: François Gagnon wasn’t an elected councillor but did work in the municipal government field. Between 2012 to 2020 he served as Chief Administrative Officer and Secretary-Treasurer of the Municipality of Franklin, then Acting CAO of the Town of Ormstown from 2020 to 2021.
Papineau: Marc Carrière was a former Gatineau city councillor from 2013 to 2021, representing the Masson-Angers district.
Roberval: Samuel Gaudreault is a health and safety advisor on construction sites and is also a firefighter for the Service Sécurité Incendie Roberval. In 2013, Gaudreault ran for mayor of Lac-Bouchette and then was planning to run for the CAQ in 2018 before withdrawing for family reasons.
In addition, former CFL football player Balarama Holness, who ran a strong third place in Montreal’s 2021 mayoral election, has formed a party called Bloc Montreal for this provincial campaign, running candidates only on the Island of Montreal. The party supports the idea of Montreal being a bilingual city state.
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Cover photo credit: Globalnews.ca