QUEBEC — If some have complained therace for the mayor’s job in Montrealhas been a staid affair, the campaign in the provincial capital couldn’t be more different.
If you count the independents, there are a total of eight candidates seeking the top job, including the incumbent mayor, Bruno Marchand, a politician who stands out if only because of his flashy sneakers — he’s an avid runner — and commitment to build a $7.6-billion tramway in a city in love with its cars.
Elected almost by surprise in 2021 after Mayor Régis Labeaume retired, Marchand and his party, Québec Forte et Fière, hit the ground running in this campaign, boosted by one big factor: a scattered opposition with the two main contenders at war with each other.
With some saying Marchand’s win is assured as a result of the squabbling, the situation has gone from bad to worse with almost daily reports of allegedly dubious behaviour and tactics in the camp of those trying to oust him.
“It’s becoming a circus,” observed TVA political analyst and former party leader Mario Dumont.
Last week, one of the leading contenders to replace Marchand,former Liberal cabinet minister Sam Hamad, called on his closest competitor, Stéphane Lachance, who heads the Respect Citoyens party, to withdraw from the race for unethical tactics.
Hamad alleged Lachance offered him the position of city general manager (if he became mayor) in exchange for Hamad dropping out of the race, clearing the path for Lachance.
The offer was made Friday, Oct. 10, during a meeting between Lachance’s campaign manager, Marc Roussin, and a volunteer on Hamad’s team, Hamad said.
The offer came on the same day Lachance’s Respect Citoyens took the unprecedented move of proposing an alliance with Hamad’s party, Leadership Québec, an idea shot down by Hamad.
“They asked me to withdraw and they said I could be a director general at Quebec City Hall,” Hamad said. “That was the offer.”
Article 590 of Quebec’s electoral law covering municipal election bars anyone from offering any form of advantage or benefit to incite someone into leaving an election campaign. There was in fact a recent case. In August, the incumbentmayor of Saguenay, Julie Dufour, was found guilty of violating the clause.
Hamad said he has asked his lawyers to contact Quebec’s chief electoral officer to investigate the incident.
Lachance has denied the entire story and said he was not involved in any of the discussions. He has refused to step aside as has Hamad. Both are opponents of the city’s new tramway project, which Marchand backs.
But in the same breath, Hamad also had to deny allegations by Respect Citoyens his party had made similar offers to Lachance to get him out of the way.
The situation has caught the attention of Municipal Affairs Minister Geneviève Guilbault, who said in a statement she is “concerned” about the allegations, but is confident Quebec’s chief electoral officer will do the work.
By Friday, with no sign of the war of words abating, Lachance said he would be filing a complaint with the chief electoral office. At a news conference, his campaign manager Roussin said the party had been “lynched in the public space.”
Lachance’s party has not ruled out legal action against Hamad, who denounced his opponent’s tactics as “an attempt at diversion and intimidation.”
Marchand’s response has to been to steer clear of the mess.
“These are two campaigns experiencing problems,” Marchand said Thursday, refusing to take sides. “We need explanations.”
The dispute has overshadowed the last days of a campaign, one Marchand was already leading after starting off with more money in the bank, more volunteers and a solid slate of candidates.
While the campaign has focused on accessible housing, transit and bike paths, the big issue has been the future of the 19-kilometre tramway, which was originally launched by Labeaume in 2018. Lachance, founder of the Tramway non merci group, and Hamad both oppose the project
Marchand has countered thetramway will remove 12,500 cars from the roads of Quebec City. With contracts already signed and land purchases underway, Marchand says cancelling it would cost between $150 million to $300 million in penalties.
In November 2023, the Legault government, faced with rising costs, took the project away from the city, handing responsibility for building it toCDPQ Infra, the infrastructure arm of the the Caisse de dépôt (now called La Caisse), which also built Montreal’s REM.
Two of the other candidates in the mayoral race are in favour of the tramway project. They are Jackie Smith, the Hamilton-born leader of Transition Québec party, and Claude Villeneuve, a former speech writer for former Parti Québécois leader Pauline Marois, who leads the Québec d’abord party.
The other candidate is Anne Guérette, who heads Parti du Monde. A former city councillor, she was leader of the official opposition from 2016 to 2017. She is running without a slate of candidates. There are two independents.
The campaign was marked by other miscalculations that rendered it lively. At one point, the Hamad campaign, in its zeal to denounce traffic congestion in the capital, produced a campaign ad using footage ofcars backed up on the Decarie Expressway in Montreal.
Early polls had Marchand leading the pack. The last available poll,done by Léger for the Marchand camp, showed his lead increasing.
Conducted from Oct. 3-6, the poll of 500 people showed Marchand had the support of 29 per cent of voters (up six percentage points from a May Léger poll), while Hamad, who was initially seen as the main contender, saw his support slip four percentage points from May to 18 per cent.
Hamad’s support seemed to transfered to Lachance, who saw his support climb by five percentage points to 13 per cent.
Villeneuve’s support was pegged at five per cent, Guérette four per cent and Smith two per cent.
Roller-coaster municipal election campaigns in Quebec City seem to be the new normal. In the election in 2021, everyone believed Labeaume’s hand-picked successor, Marie-Josée Savard, would win and for a while it appeared she had.
Both Radio-Canada and TVA declared her elected based on partial results. Savard even delivered her victory speech.
Moments later, everything changed with support for Marchand creeping up. By the end of the election evening, Marchand had pulled off a surprise victory by a margin of 739 votes.
