Projet Montréal pulls off upset

Coderre ally seems headed for defeat

While most of Montreal’s east-end boroughs seemed to be sticking with incumbents, Projet Montréal appeared to be pulling off a major upset in Mercier—Hochelaga–Maisonneuve, early results showed.

In that borough, Projet’s Pierre Lessard-Blais was on his way to ousting Réal Ménard, one of Team Coderre’s executive committee members, and Projet candidates were ahead in all but one of the council seats up for grabs there.

Reached as early results showed him pulling ahead of Ménard, Lessard-Blais said he knew during the campaign that the party’s platform and its leader had really struck a responsive chord in his borough.

“I found very strong support for Projet Montréal and very strong support for Valérie,” said LessardBlais, who owns a microbrewery and joined Projet Montréal in 2011.

“Valérie really connected with people in the east of Montreal. They feel they were taken for granted for too long by Mr. Ménard and Mr. Coderre, and they feel like she is sensitive to what they are living every day.”

He said his party’s emphasis on transportation issues and on improving economic and social diversity appealed to voters across his borough.

Lessard-Blais narrowly lost to Ménard for borough mayor in the last municipal election. Ménard had run with Coalition Montreal that time, and Lessard-Blais said people in the district were disappointed when Ménard joined Coderre’s team last March.

Ménard, a former Bloc Québécois MP, was elected borough mayor in 2009 when he ran with Vision Montréal. Soon after the 2013 election, Coderre invited Ménard to join the city’s executive committee.

Anjou: Incumbent borough mayor Luis Miranda of Team Anjou had a comfortable lead over his two opponents, Team Coderre’s Angela Mancini and Projet Montréal’s Rémy Tondreau.

The local borough party Miranda formed back in 2009 has worked well for him in the past and with partial results in, the party seemed poised to sweep all positions in that borough again.

Miranda was first elected Anjou mayor back in 1997 when it was its own city, and has been elected borough mayor in every election since Anjou merged with Montreal in 2001. In 2013, he was re-elected with 56 per cent of the vote, and his team swept the borough. Rivière–des–Prairies—Pointe– aux–Trembles: Another of Team Coderre’s incumbent executive committee members, Chantal Rouleau, was battling it out with Pietro Mercuri of Projet Montréal for the borough mayor’s seat. Rouleau was in the lead, with the council seats split between Coderre and Projet.

A longtime environmental activist in the borough, Rouleau became mayor in June of 2010 in a municipal byelection. She was with Vision Montreal until May 2013, when she joined Team Coderre.

Saint–Léonard: Incumbent borough mayor Michel Bissonnet of Team Coderre had a comfortable lead over Projet Montréal’s Julie Caron, with Coderre’s party sweeping the borough’s seats.

Bissonnet has a long political history, serving as mayor of Saint-Léonard between 1978 and 1981, when it was its own city and then entering provincial politics. He served as a Liberal member of the National Assembly from 1981 to 2008. He was elected borough mayor of SaintLéonard in a 2008 byelection, and re-elected with Team Coderre in 2013.