La Presse’s Mario Girard wrote an op-ed on the weekend tersely headlined La lutte s’organise about wheeling and dealing going on well in advance of the November 2021 municipal election with the intention to destroy Projet Montréal.
I have to say, a lot of people really hate Valérie Plante. She’s getting blamed for things that are not within her purview as mayor, of course, but there are many people for whom she can do nothing right. A lot of the most vituperative commenters are women, so sisterhood is not exactly coming to her aid.
I’m curious to know what paragons of mayoralty these folks are comparing her to. Coderre’s showboating, Tremblay’s lack of grip, the forgettable era of Pierre Bourque, none of these people collected the constant shrill grievances that I see directed at Plante. So much so that I’ve wondered whether Ensemble hasn’t devoted some of its budget to some offshore service of the sort that have undermined other forms of democracy in our time.
walkerp 05:56 on 2020-07-28 Permalink
Hard to say how much of this anger is exaggerated by the internet effect. She does fall into two groups that tend to create disproportionate hate, working against the car lobby and being a woman in power. On top of that is the general attack on cities from conservative forces, which is particularly pronounced in Quebec. I would like to see a decent poll on her popularity from among the actual citizens of Montreal.
Ian 07:59 on 2020-07-28 Permalink
Well to be fair she can’t expect much solidarity from women given how she threw Sue Montgomery under the bus… and hey, as Luc Ferrandez constantly pointed out, PM isn’t anti-car, they are pro-urban planning… just a very distinct version that makes it more complicated to have a car.
Regardless of how you look at it, this is the first mayoralty in like, forever, that hasn’t been clearly on the take and only interested in business. The first progressives in power. With that comes the burden of being the first progressives in power in that they need o quickly learn to compromise and recognize their limitations as well as their opportunities – which I think Plante has done well. I’m not convinced that a lot of city functionaries aren’t still on the take, but I don’t think Plante is one of them.
@Kate on your list of our stellar past mayors you forgot Applebaum, who has the distinction of being the first anglo mayor of Montreal in a century or so and also the first to be prosecuted for abuse of power while actually still in office.
Bill Binns 08:45 on 2020-07-28 Permalink
I gave her the benefit of the doubt early on and 5 minutes later she announced every city council meeting would begin with a “land acknowledgement” and I was out. Five minutes after that pretty much every single person I know in the city despised her and her party for the Mount Royal access road disaster.
She has also traveled the world as mayor (as her predecessors did) which I see as expensive and unnecessary. I really wish the media would do a better job of tracking the travels of politicians. I jumped off the Coderre train when he airlifted half of the city’s bureaucrats to Haiti to…….. What did they do exactly?
Maxim Baru 10:00 on 2020-07-28 Permalink
There’s a lot of Plante animosity I can’t speak to and know nothing about. But if it would be interesting context: from the corner of the organized activist scene, for lack of a better word, (housing, immigration, urban dev, organized labour, etc) there’s quite a lot of animosity now. Leading up to her election Plante went around to a lot of these groups (directly or through delegates) and made a lot of promises. There was nothing her and her people were not already aware of regarding what was and was was ‘not within her purview as mayor,’ including the things which might have been formally in her purview but were likely outside of it as a consequence of informal power relationships. Without going into detail in the context of this blog comment, the manner and speed in which she reneged on some of her most high valued commitments signalled to many that not only was she not capable of delivering the goods, but also that she had not intended to do so. While this sector of society may seem narrow, it would be misleading to dismiss them because while only a few personalities raise to mass prominence, the base of these communities is rather broad, and when it comes to elections, forms a critical pool of free labour and mobilization come election time for progressive candidates. Without them, it’s unlikely progressive candidates can win elections.
Marco 10:57 on 2020-07-28 Permalink
I like Plante. She was elected on promises to improve public transit, reduce rush hour traffic and make areas closer to downtown more family friendly. All of those boxes have check marks beside them. Of course, she’s a left-of-center politician which means the right wing hates her and the left wing will always be disappointed. Against a backdrop of years of corrupt and wasteful administrations, we haven’t seen headlines like “Mafia connections”, “water meter contracts”,”Formula-E”, or “granite ‘stumps’ on Mount Royal” in the news lately either. If her greatest sin is that she tried putting a stop light at the top of Camillien Houde then she’s in for a second term for sure.
Su 11:00 on 2020-07-28 Permalink
I have come to the conclusion that what most people want is a Mayor like Mayor Demers in Laval.
A strong suited deceptive gentleman willing to ignore science in order to please his businessmen developer handlers. There is nothing we can do about it. Most people love cars and condo developments more than peaceful natural spaces…so that is what they vote for.
Su 11:19 on 2020-07-28 Permalink
“offshore service of the sort that have undermined other forms of democracy in our time.”
That would be dreadful. But surely we can feel secure that our authorities would never allow such incursions. I mean it’s not like we are Moscow or Ukraine for heaven’s sake!
EmilyG 17:10 on 2020-07-28 Permalink
It seems to me a lot of West Islanders don’t like her. I think they see her as anti-car, and/or get mad whenever she does something they think is harmful to the suburbs, or something that they just don’t like.
I think part of the West Island animosity is that there are places there which were formerly cities but then became part of Montreal (and weren’t successful at de-merging, so are still technically Montreal) and they don’t want to have to always play by the City of Montreal’s rules.
Some of those people even go so far as to want to bring back Denny…. wow. (mostly the people griping about anti-car things.)
david292 20:44 on 2020-07-28 Permalink
I’m a bit disappointed that Valerie Plante has given in to some of the kook anti-growth element in the party, when the party was literally founded and led through its first city-wide elections by a pro-growth urbanist. She’s moved to impose inclusionary housing mandates that sound good but that really mean zero growth. She’s let the neighborhoods reign on zoning, which sounds good until you realize that their anti-growth policies dump housing demand onto other areas and lead to massive gentrification.
I wish too that she were more politically powerful in Quebec, and that she were more ambitious, but come on.
Overall, it’s unquestionable that she’s the best mayor we’ve had in my lifetime.
JaneyB 10:35 on 2020-07-29 Permalink
Big fan of Plante here. Not perfect but not at all corrupt. She’s the best mayor we’ve had in my lifetime as well. Due to the anger from the Right and the disappointment on the Left, I am make a note to donate to PM and work on Plante’s next campaign. I don’t know who the Left think they will be able to support if not Plante and if the Right thinks it will find a non-corrupt candidate to back, I’ll eat my hat.