Projet cruises to easy win in borough mayor byelection
Projet Montréal hopeful Luc Rabouin — who pledged to rally differing views about the future of the Plateau Mont-Royal — cruised to an easy byelection win Sunday to become mayor of the city’s most densely populated borough.
Rabouin, a longtime community organizer, captured more than two-thirds of the vote, beating challengers Jean-Pierre Szaraz of Ensemble Montréal and Marc-Antoine Desjardins of Vrai changement pour Montréal, who garnered 17 per cent and almost 16 per cent, respectively.
“It’s our ideas and our vision of the city that won once again,” Rabouin told more than 200 cheering supporters at the Brasserie Boswell on Mont-Royal Ave. E.
“Our legitimacy to act is there,” Rabouin added, alluding to his commanding victory. “In the Plateau, we are advancing, not going backward.”
Turnout in the byelection — the only one taking place Sunday, and in the middle of a federal election campaign — was 24.5 per cent. Still, that percentage is considered high for most municipal byelections.
The byelection was called after Luc Ferrandez quit municipal politics abruptly in May after serving as borough mayor for a decade. Ferrandez cited as a reason for stepping aside his unhappiness with what he perceived was the slow pace of his party’s actions to fight climate change.
Mayor Valérie Plante, who was on hand to congratulate Rabouin, joked that he now has some big shoes to fill, referring to Ferrandez.
During his tenure, Ferrandez earned a reputation as a polarizing figure as he transformed the borough into a bike- and pedestrian-friendly oasis, despite the heavy traffic of delivery trucks and SUVs.
Although he was criticized for being anti-car, some of his initiatives — like the addition of bike paths, reducing parking and creating pedestrian public spaces — have since been adopted by other boroughs.
Rabouin, the 51-year-old manager of the Caisse d’économie soidaire de Desjardins, vowed to continue what Ferrandez started, but he adopted a more conciliatory tone. “I’m much more of a rassembleur,” he said in an interview during the campaign, alluding to the French word for uniter.
Specifically, Rabouin pledged to make the Plateau even greener, reduce traffic further and increase the number of bike paths — but not at the expense of hurting small businesses.
He repeated that message Sunday night, as did Plante.
“We want to take our ideas even further,” Plante said, adding she wants neighbourhoods to be
“more resilient, more adaptable, safer and more beautiful.”
Szaraz, of Ensemble Montréal, promised to “bring back to democracy” to the borough — a dig at Ferrandez’s perceived autocratic style. Szaraz, 61, also vowed a tax break for small businesses and to re-establish the much-missed north baseball diamond in JeanneMance Park.
Desjardins, a lawyer by profession, campaigned to end divisions between pedestrians, cyclists and motorists. Vrai changement pour Montréal, founded by Mélanie Joly for the 2013 municipal election, has no elected representatives on city or borough councils.
Rabouin’s win maintains Projet Montréal’s unanimous hold on the Plateau borough council — all three city councillors and all three borough councillors are also of that party, and all received at least 60 per cent of the vote in the 2017 election.
Historically, residents of the Plateau have tended to vote for leftof-centre municipal parties that later won power at city hall — from the Montreal Citizens’ Movement in early 1970s and 1980s to Projet Montréal today.