Union Montreal loses six more members
Party heavyweight Michel Bissonnet ‘in period of reflection’ about future
The hemorrhaging of Union Montreal, which started in November and was staunched briefly over the holidays, flowed anew Thursday with the defection of six more members. It brings to seven the number of councillors who have left the party in the last two days, raising questions about the party’s survival.
Anjou borough mayor Luis Miranda announced Thursday he was leaving, along with all four of the borough’s councillors.
“It’s not our place any more,” he said Thursday evening as he left a Union Montreal caucus meeting.
Asked whether he would align himself with Marvin Rotrand, who left to sit as an independent in November and announced recently he is forming a new political party, Miranda laughed. He had the same reaction when asked whether he would join Liberal MP Denis Coderre, who has said he’s considering a run for mayor.
Later, other members emerged from the party’s Old Montreal office, including party leader Richard Deschamps, and said everything was normal, even though they’d lost seven councillors in two days.
“This was a normal caucus meeting and we’ll continue,” Deschamps said. “These are mature adults who make decisions and it’s their responsibility to explain those decisions.”
St-Laurent borough Mayor Alan DeSousa compared the situation to Life of Pi, the novel about a boy surviving alone on a raft crossing the ocean with a tiger.
“The moral of that story is that, despite all the problems, Pi survived, he succeeded.
“For sure, the waves might be big and between now and Nov. 3, there will be a lot of water running under the bridge and I’m not talking about the new Champlain Bridge,” he said. “When you’re in this situation, you have to fasten your seatbelt and be ready for the ride.”
Lachine borough Mayor Claude Dauphin said the coming weeks will include “days of reflection” and “exchanges.”
“For the moment, no one else is leaving (the party),” he said. “We’ll see in the next couple of weeks (if the party will survive). For now, it has survived.”
Earlier in the day, Mont- real North borough councillor Chantal Rossi said she was departing to sit as an independent, one day after the mayor of her borough, Gilles Déguire, announced he was leaving as well.
Since November, when Gérald Tremblay was forced to resign as mayor over corruption allegations that surfaced at the Charbonneau Commission, 34 Union Montreal city and borough councillors have defected to sit as independents, raising the question of how much longer the party that ruled Montreal politics for the past 11 years can hang on. Union Montreal elected 66 councillors out of 103 in 2009.
St-Léonard may or and party heavyweight Michel Bissonnet said he was “in a period of reflection” when asked at a news conference Thursday whether he was thinking of leaving the party, and perhaps politics altogether.
Bissonnet was elected mayor of St-Léonard in 1978, then served as a provincial MNA for 27 years before returning as mayor in a 2008 byelection. His borough was among six raided by UPAC anti-corruption squad officers Tuesday, who questioned him about bills and seized documents. He said he co-operated and let the police do his job. Bissonnet’s name arose in the Charbonneau Commission when engineering contractor Michel Lalonde said he had given him $2,000 as a political donation, a charge Bissonnet denied Thursday.
The departure of Déguire, whom Bissonnet said he respects immensely, and Rossi had shaken him, he said.
“I’m in a period of reflection and I will speak to my colleagues in my borough over the weekend. It’s 35 years I’ve been an elected official in St-Léonard. … I still love politics, but I have to say I’m finding this difficult.”