Denis Coderre leaves the ship. He will not be the one who fights Valérie Plante as leader of the opposition over the next four years.
He did not have a choice.
With the disappointing results of November 7, I do not see how this lion of politics could have played this role.
Where would he find the enthusiasm and the desire? We saw clearly during the press briefing which followed his meeting with the members of the Ensemble Montréal caucus that he does not have this flame either. Eyes reddened by the tears he had shed just before, his voice hoarse at times, we understood that this defeat shattered him.
He leaves the ship. But it also leaves the port. He will no longer be in politics. It added to the emotion on his face.
Like it or not, Denis Coderre has still devoted 40 years of his life to politics. He remains an important figure in this landscape. He is one of those we qualify as “characters”.
He left municipal politics, we can feel it, possessed by a certain resentment. When the victor has quit the arms, the vanquished has the duty to quit his hatred, advocates a maxim. Denis Coderre did not have the strength to follow her on Friday.
He could not help but shoot a few arrows at the media, which he accuses of having given him unfair treatment. He referred to this “mood journalism” which he considers today too present.
Have the commentators been harsher and more critical with him than with his opponent? The question arises indeed.
Because he was the one who came back as a conqueror, who had accustomed journalists to sometimes brittle verbal jousting, who always released the image of the battler and because his rival inspired a “coolness” easier to display, and he, a more embarrassing “mononquitude” to defend, perhaps, in fact, that the media have been harsher on him.
This is a great subject for students of political science or sociology.
Denis Coderre finds that we have spent too much time analyzing his personality and not enough time analyzing his ideas. On this point, I must say that he is the architect of this phenomenon: he announced himself as a new man. It is normal that this is a field of interest for observers.
I watched him on Friday, during his press briefing, I listened to his tone, the words he had chosen, I saw the looks he extended to his colleagues by making declarations of love to them and I told myself that , finally, Denis Coderre had to live a trying defeat to finally show who he would like to be.
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With 31 elected out of 103, Ensemble Montréal does not weigh any more heavily. Only 23 district mayors and municipal councilors of the party will be able to sit on the municipal council made up of 65 elected officials.
What will Ensemble Montréal do now? The party said Friday that “the modalities for the election of a new leader will be transmitted in a few weeks.” We give ourselves a little time.
Important actors of the party could have taken over: Karine Boivin Roy, Guillaume Lavoie and Hadrien Parizeau. But they were not elected last Sunday.
There are no longer many choices within the party. Christine Black, handily elected in Montreal-North, seems to me the best option. But the one who had no trouble knocking down. Does Will Prosper want to take on this role when she needs the collaboration of the city-center to help it face the various challenges of its borough?
We could turn to newcomers. I am thinking of Serge Sasseville, councilor in Ville-Marie. The former vice-president of Quebecor took his first steps in municipal politics, but his long experience in the field of communications would make him a good critic.
But the big question remains: who wants to take up this challenge? It is not easy to revive a weakened and damaged party. Ensemble Montréal will have a hard time recovering from this setback.
In this context, the Plante administration has free rein.
Who else will play watchdog in the metropolis? Surely not the two “mysteries of Montreal”, the boroughs of Anjou and LaSalle, which have for years succeeded in creating mini-governments within the city.
These boroughs only want one thing: to have peace and be able to do things their way. For this, they are ready to make any kind of compromise to enjoy their autonomy.
The only resistance could come from Saint-Laurent, Saint-Léonard and Montreal-Nord, held mainly by Ensemble Montreal.
Valérie Plante can rest easy. She will not have to face the sharp eyes and murderous sentences of Denis Coderre.
His administration will not have to brave the wind. At least for a long time.
As for the citizens, they will discover the reality of a metropolis whose municipal council knows little plurality.
Several elected officials sanctioned re-elected
About thirty elected officials who have been sanctioned by the Commission municipale du Québec (CMQ) or other bodies in recent years have had the audacity to stand for election on November 7.
Will you be surprised if I tell you that almost half have been re-elected?
Some did not even have to lift a finger since they were re-elected without opposition.
This is the case of Monique Drouin and Henriette Rivard Desbiens, two counselors from Batiscan who, in 2016, were reimbursed for unjustified expenses during a convention in Quebec. The Ministry of Municipal Affairs and Housing (MAMH) asked them to reimburse these costs.
On the other hand, several elected officials who had been slapped on the fingers and who had found themselves in reports from Quebecor and the show Investigation shortly before the elections failed to convince voters.
Pierre Lafond, councilor in Sainte-Adèle, who received 150 days of suspension for lack of respect and harassment, was told to leave by his citizens.
The same goes for Alain Laplante, former mayor of Saint-Jean-sur-Richelieu. Voters told him they had had enough of his multiple legal proceedings and the unhealthy climate that prevailed at City Hall.
In Montreal, the voters of Côte-des-Neiges – Notre-Dame-de-Grâce clearly indicated the door to Mayor Sue Montgomery. However, she leaves the taxpayers with a note of $ 600,000 generated by the many legal procedures related to her file.
For his part, Jean-Marc Corbeil, councilor for the borough of Outremont, failed to get re-elected. In 2019, he interfered in cases concerning a restaurant that was suing him. The CMQ then imposed a 45-day suspension.
Why do sanctioned candidates succeed in passing between the drops and others, not? It all depends on the size of the drops. And the umbrella of our indifference.