Catherine Fournier won her bet: by acceding to the town hall of Longueuil on Sunday evening, she became the youngest mayoress in recent history of the five largest municipalities in Quebec. The 29-year-old will therefore leave the provincial scene, which risks causing a by-election in the riding of Marie-Victorin in the coming months.
“Well done, well done, well done! », Chanted jubilant activists at the stroke of 8:30 pm, while the victory of the young woman was announced on the giant screen, barely 30 minutes after the closing of the polling stations.
The new mayoress, who is due to address the crowd during the evening, quickly thanked voters on her Twitter account. “What an honor. What a privilege. What a responsibility. Thank you, thank you to each of you. I promise you one thing: I will do anything to live up to the confidence you have shown in me today. Let’s write the rest together, ”she wrote.
It is at the Théâtre de la Providence of the College Notre-Dame-de-Lourdes that the troops of Catherine Fournier held their election evening on Sunday.
From the start, expectations were very high. Busy “to get out the vote” until the closing of the polling stations at 8 pm, the team of the young woman confided in the early evening that the objective is “to obtain a majority at the hotel of city ”.
Catherine Fournier’s lead in the polls in recent weeks seemed almost insurmountable. According to a Mainstreet poll commissioned by his own party in October, Mr.me Fournier collected 46% of the votes. On October 21, a CROP-Radio-Canada poll gave him 33% of the votes, against 10% for Josée Latendresse, 6% for Jean-Marc Léveillé and 4% for Jacques Létourneau.
PHOTO MARTIN CHAMBERLAND, THE PRESS
Supporters of Catherine Fournier
In Longueuil, the municipal campaign mainly focused on three main themes, namely public transportation and the arrival of the Réseau express métropolitain (REM), the affordable housing crisis and the environment.
An election that announces another
About 33.08% of voters exercised their right to vote in Longueuil, according to a provisional report established by Elections Longueuil shortly after 8 p.m. Sunday evening.
This is 13% of voters who had voted in advance last weekend, which was almost double the meager 7.65% of voters who had expressed their vote in advance in 2017. That year, the overall turnout in municipal elections was 33.1%. Everything therefore indicates that the participation rate will be very similar again this year.
The election of Catherine Fournier as mayor means that a provincial by-election should soon be held in Longueuil, in the riding of Marie-Victorin, which the young woman has represented so far.
Recall that Mme Fournier was narrowly re-elected in Marie-Victorin, under the PQ banner, in 2018. In March 2019, however, she slammed the door of the Parti Québécois (PQ), saying that it “is useless to want desperately to save the trunk or branches of a withering tree ”. At that moment, she had also hammered that the PQ was no longer the right vehicle to achieve independence. Since then, it has sat as an independent.