Municipal elected officials are increasingly filling the benches of the National Assembly. After the October 3 election, more than 20% of the caucus of the Coalition avenir Québec has experience at city hall. Does this trend herald a greater sensitivity to municipal issues or the partisan politicization of the municipal order?
During the last campaign, 13 elected municipal officials were in the running for a seat in the National Assembly. Only 3 managed to enter the Blue Room: Yves Montigny, mayor of Baie-Comeau, Daniel Bernard, councilor of Rouyn-Noranda, and Isabelle Poulet, councilor of Sainte-Julie. The duty requested an interview with Mr. Montigny for this report. The CAQ says it prefers to wait for its swearing in before making it available to the media.
The caquiste caucus, now made up of 90 deputies, has at least 19 who have, at some point in their career, held elected office within a municipality. Several were councillors, some were mayors, two even chaired the Union of Quebec Municipalities (UMQ). Their number within the team of François Legault is unprecedented in recent history: the government of Philippe Couillard had only 5 former elected municipal officials. The Liberals, during the nine years of the Charest era, accumulated 17.
“For Quebec, this is a relatively new phenomenon,” observes Caroline Patsias, professor in the Department of Political Science at UQAM. In countries like France, it is usual since the municipal serves as a stepping stone to the higher echelons. »
In France, the town hall is often the first springboard for a springboard that can propel to the top of the state. Valéry Giscard d’Estaing, François Mitterrand, Jacques Chirac, Nicolas Sarkozy and François Hollande all passed through the town hall on their way up to the Élysée. In Quebec, this route is more of an exception: you have to go back to the turn of the 20e century and to Simon-Napoléon Parent to find a mayor who became prime minister. In this particular case, the elected representative of Quebec even wore both hats simultaneously.
Popular candidates
The political parties see in the elected municipal candidates the ideal candidates to run for the constituencies. “Mayors are local elected officials, underlines Caroline Patsias. They are in the field, they already have a network and they enjoy a certain notoriety. »
The appetite of parties to attract candidates from the municipal world to their ranks can be fierce. Jonathan Lapierre, the former mayor of the Îles-de-la-Madeleine, explains that he received offers from the Liberal Party of Quebec (PLQ) and the Parti Québécois (PQ) in 2018. Premier François Legault asked him this year , and it was finally to him that Jonathan Lapierre decided to rally. However, he bit the dust on October 3, defeated by PQ MP Joël Arseneau – himself a former mayor of the Magdalen Islands.
“It was a bereavement,” said Mr. Lapierre on the phone. I am 43 years old, and the last 18 years of my life have been 100% devoted to public service. Most people here knew my cell number, knew where I lived, could reach me on social media, where I answered at any time of the day or night. »
The Madelinots should therefore go to the polls for the fourth time in less than three years, this time to fill the position of mayor, now vacant.
“I had announced to the population that, if I ever lost the elections, I would not return to the town hall, explains Jonathan Lapierre, who was at the head of the municipality for a third term. The riding of Les Îles is unique in that the same electors will elect the MNA and the mayor. My defeat greatly weakened the political power of the town hall, and a return became very complicated politically. »
Other mayors decided to return to City Hall instead, despite losing on October 3. This is the case of Olivier Dumais, mayor of Saint-Lambert-de-Lauzon and defeated candidate of the Conservative Party in Beauce-Nord. “I make municipal poutine, but apart from development projects, it’s less my cup of tea,” he explains. “What excites me is more the big picture. »
Mr. Dumais does not believe that the electorate will hold it against him to return to the slippers of the town hall after having dipped his toe in the provincial basin. His record, he believes, will be enough to rally the skeptics. “We are really doing a good job, he says. I am convinced that there are people who voted against me [au provincial], but still want to keep me as mayor. His return, he argues, will allow Saint-Lambert-de-Lauzon to save $45,000 by avoiding the organization of a partial.
“It is legal and, on the other hand, it is not amoral either that an elected representative tries to make the jump to another seat and, if that does not work, that he returns to his first function, says Daniel Côté, president of the UMQ. In the end, it is the voters of the city in question who will tell him if they disapprove of his affinities at the provincial level. »
Baie-Comeau, Sainte-Julie and Rouyn-Noranda, for their part, will have to organize elections to replace their mayors and their councilors who have left to sit in the National Assembly, less than a year after having sought and obtained a mandate in the city Hall.
“Ethically and financially, there may be a reflection to be had there, believes Caroline Patsias. If everyone starts doing that, it’s sure that there will be a problem at the municipal level, and it will end up being expensive. At the same time, democracy has a cost, and it is normal to pay. »
From national to local
The stretched bridge between the provincial and municipal orders allows circulation in both directions. Several deputies shunned by their electorate recycle themselves at city hall, like the former minister Pierre Corbeil, who became mayor of Val-d’Or, Mireille Jean, elected councilor of Chicoutimi, or Sylvain Légaré, who sat in Quebec City after its defeat in 2008.
Denis Coderre is the most notorious example of this back and forth: resigning member of the House of Commons, he continued his political career by becoming mayor of Montreal.
This is also the route taken by Catherine Fournier, a former MP who is now mayoress of Longueuil. She believes that her experience in the offices of the National Assembly helps her to govern her city.
“In the National Assembly, I have always been in the opposition. As mayoress, it is I who have the power, ”underlines the 30-year-old elected official. “I feel that I have a lot more influence on Longueuil issues than when I was a member of Parliament. »
She believes that the arrival of a cohort of elected municipal officials in Parliament will allow greater sensitivity to local realities. “When you know the challenges, when you have been there yourself [à siéger dans une municipalité], I think that, yes, it provides a greater knowledge of municipal issues, says the mayor. At the same time, the municipal world may also have high expectations of you. I think it’s a good thing for the municipal world, but for elected officials, it undoubtedly comes with greater pressure to meet expectations. »
Caroline Patsias also believes that elected municipal officials enrich political life by providing a better understanding of the reality of towns and villages. “At the same time, she nuances, there is a risk of political politics, of a purely electoral strategy, that is to say the risk that the municipal mandate only serves as a springboard. It’s not all black or all white: you have to assess each case, each context. »