Montreal Mayor Valérie Plante says Anjou Mayor Luis Miranda needs to apologize to the 15-year-old boy he snubbed at city council last week, as well as to his parents . They are still waiting for an apology from him.
“I am extremely angry at Mr. Miranda’s comments,” she said Thursday morning on the sidelines of an announcement on gun violence prevention.
Hocine Ouendi went to the microphone on October 4 to tell the mayor of Anjou, Luis Miranda, of his disappointment with the ban, put in place without notice at the end of August, to practice free soccer on some fields. rounding synthetics.
The mayor explained the reasons behind his decision – repeated incivility on the grounds – but at the polite insistence of the youngster, he got angry, telling him that one of his parents should have spoken in her place and that if he had known her age, he would not have deigned to speak to her.
Thursday morning, Mayor Plante called the remarks “disrespectful” and “offensive”.
She believes that Mr. Miranda’s words risk having a wider impact and sending the wrong message to young people that they are not important and do not matter. And that, “it’s no,” she said.
During a telephone interview Thursday with TVA journalist Yves Poirier, borough mayor Miranda apologized for the way he responded to the teenager, while indicating that he was “not ready to take the blame on everything. »
The duty could not reach Mr. Miranda, who is outside the country according to his office.
When contacted, the teenager’s father, Smail Ouendi, said he is still awaiting an apology from Mr. Miranda.
“We received no call from Mayor Luis Miranda or the borough of Anjou,” he said Thursday afternoon, shortly after the broadcast of the exchange on TVA.
“I don’t see why the apologies aren’t directly to the people concerned,” Ouendi said.
Noting that the mayor had these words of apology after the mayor’s request, he believes that they do not come “from the bottom of my heart. »
He is still considering filing a complaint against Mr. Miranda. “We waited more than a week,” said the man who would have liked to receive a phone call from him.
A mayor in the hot seat
The mayor of Anjou, who has held this position for 25 years, is not at his first controversy.
He notably found himself in the hot seat after being targeted in 2018 by allegations of sexual assault by a former volunteer on his political team during election campaigns, Sandra Boursiquot. Mr Miranda filed a defamation lawsuit against her in 2019 and she countered with her own civil lawsuit. These appeals have not yet been the subject of final judgments.
Moreover, 13 years ago, in 2009, Mr. Miranda’s actions raised questions when The Press reported that the mayor had gone on vacation to Portugal – his native country – with business friends who were doing business with the borough at the time. The weekly The Torch of the East had also produced reports the same year in which experts questioned the mayor’s proximity to companies that had obtained contracts worth several million with the borough.