Marinacci cleared by Municipal Commission

Normand Marinacci, Projet borough mayor of Île-Bizard-Sainte-Geneviève, has been cleared of committing an ethical breach by the Municipal Commission. Marinacci had intervened in a question of dismissing an employee, a story with echoes in both CDN-NDG and VSPME boroughs, where both borough mayors were thrown out of Projet for allegedly interfering in matters concerning the management of the borough.

This raises a couple of interesting points. Does the city have any kind of charter or guideline laying out the relative roles and powers of the elected mayor vs. the unelected officials? It’s revealing to read this in the Journal: “Normand Marinacci n’était pas contraire au code de déontologie des élus municipaux, puisqu’il a agi à la demande du directeur général de l’arrondissement, Daniel Le Pape.” In other words, the wishes of the director general, an unelected position, are of higher importance than those of the elected mayor.

The second point is more obvious. Sue Montgomery and Giuliana Fumagalli, both women, were summarily punted from Projet for similarly (it appears) trying to intervene in how aspects of their boroughs were managed. Clearly it was not felt to be within their legitimate powers to do so. But Marinacci fought back and has been allowed to continue as a Projet mayor.

I like Valérie Plante but it’s not unheard of for a woman in a position of power to expect other women “below them” to be more biddable than men. This may be a case of that, although of course the details of each case, if laid out in full, might tell stories with important differences.