From Haiti to Quebec, from Abitibi to Montreal, from writing to politics: contrasts have forged Dominique Ollivier, who is presented as the future number two of the City of Montreal if Valérie Plante wins the elections of November 7 .
“After 12 years of making recommendations based on the public interest, it was an opportunity or never to bring these concerns into a decision-making space”, begins Dominique Ollivier, seated in front of a café au lait at La Cloche à Fromage. , near Angus Shops. Dressed soberly, with a clear gaze behind her glasses, the one who was president of the Office de consultation publique de Montréal (OCPM) for seven years and commissioner for nearly six years imposes by her calm.
The 57-year-old woman is a candidate for municipal councilor for the Vieux-Rosemont district. If Projet Montréal wins the electoral race, she will be president of the executive committee at town hall, becoming the fourth woman to hold this position, and the first black woman.
Its priorities: ensure sound management of the budget, resources and manpower for the ecological transition, promote diversity and the fight against inequalities and re-establish bridges between the metropolis of Quebec and the regions.
“Irrevocably Quebecoise”
It is because Quebec, Dominique Ollivier knows it in its different forms. She arrived in Abitibi at the age of two and a half, and the warm welcome that her family received facilitated her integration. “I have lots of beautiful memories, games in the snow, local festivals,” she recalls.
She is the daughter of renowned writer Émile Ollivier, who fled Haiti and the Duvalier regime in the mid-1960s.
His two parents teach in Abitibi, at the Amos seminary and at the secondary school. A few years later, the family moved to Montreal.
Exile leaves a powerful mark. “I come from a militant family, who had come [au Québec] to “protect himself from the rain” and who was always working on an unlikely return [en Haïti] », She remembers. However, Dominique Ollivier, as she grows up, no longer wishes this departure. “I feel irremediably Quebecer, anchored in Quebec soil”, she slices.
Losing the right to exist
The feeling of belonging does not prevent him from facing difficult experiences. While at the age of 6, Dominique Ollivier tells whoever wants to hear her that she wishes to become “mayor” of Montreal, at 16, she hopes to disappear. “I wanted to be the most normal and ordinary person possible, because I felt like I had no right to exist,” she recalls.
An observation that will lead him to pursue his graduate studies in engineering at the École polytechnique de Montréal, rather than in communication.
“There was no one in the media who looked like me,” she laments. I have had a few rather unfortunate experiences that kind of killed the desire to emerge in me. ”
The young woman ended up becoming a specialist in cultural diversity by founding an intercultural magazine called Pictures, which she directed from 1990 to 1995. She then began a career with the Government of Quebec, occupying various positions at the Ministry of Citizen Relations and Immigration. In 2003, she completed a master’s degree in public administration in Montreal.
At the turn of the 2000s, she became political advisor for Gilles Duceppe, overseeing a project to reflect on Quebec identity for the Bloc Québécois. In 2004, she was also a nomination contestant for the Parti Québécois in Gouin.
I spent a decade with the Government of Quebec, the Bloc Québécois and the Parti Québécois to facilitate the fact that everyone has a voice, and that we end up having public institutions that resemble the social fabric of society.
Dominique Ollivier
Pioneer and model
Dominique Ollivier has come to be a model on which other young women can rely.
“I was in my kitchen and I screamed very, very loud [quand j’ai su que Mme Ollivier se présentait pour Projet Montréal] », Laughs Ericka Alneus, candidate in the Étienne-Desmarteau district, in Rosemont – La Petite-Patrie.
Dominique Ollivier affirms that the leadership of Valérie Plante encouraged her to make the leap into municipal politics. “For me, this is the person who does everything that is impossible,” she emphasizes. Among these impossibilities, representing the diversity of Montreal.
The other day, in a park, we were nine black women discussing the future of Montreal. I’ve waited all my life for this!
Dominique Ollivier
Dominique Ollivier has intellectual stature and the ability to conduct debates on sensitive subjects while defusing tensions, believes Pierre Guillot-Hurtubise, a former colleague of the Bloc Québécois. “She has great respect for each other’s point of view and, because of her time at the OCPM, she has a great knowledge of the main municipal issues,” he adds.
As she walks down rue William-Tremblay to talk to residents about her candidacy, under the October sun, Dominique Ollivier smiles with simplicity.
“There are people like that who are like fine wine,” believes Ericka Alneus. As they age, they acquire flexibility and delicacy. “