PHOTO PHILIPPE BOIVIN, SPECIAL COLLABORATION
Balarama Holness, head of Mouvement Montréal
Between Denis Coderre and Valérie Plante, there was room for a third way in the municipal electoral campaign in Montreal.
The polls show it well: a few days before the elections, barely more than one in two voters say they trust either Valérie Plante or Denis Coderre (without distribution of the undecided). In fact, if the “I don’t know” option were represented by a real person, she would (narrowly) win the mayoralty of the largest city in Quebec.
Balarama Holness? He could have embodied this third way. But let’s be honest: his party’s platform contains an element so clearly divisive that it has imposed itself as a drag for Mouvement Montreal.
This ball is obviously this absurd referendum on the status of a bilingual city that Mr. Holness insists on promising if he is elected. And the voters, obviously, reject it.
This is not the only problem. In editorial interview with Press, the former Alouettes player gave the impression that many of his actions and measures were improvised. That’s a shame. Because the man also arrives with an interesting course and new sensibilities. In fact, we say to ourselves that Mr. Holness could have established himself as the true candidate of “living together”, an expression so dear to Denis Coderre.
Son of a French-speaking Quebec mother and an English-speaking Jamaican father, Balarama Holness was born in Montreal. But when he was 1 year old, his family moved to the United States. She returned to the Quebec metropolis nine years later.
“I lived as an immigrant in Montreal in a reception class,” says one who considers himself a “child of Bill 101”.
This experience tints his approach. The mayoral candidate talks a lot about the socio-economic disparities between the different neighborhoods of Montreal. He is right to be concerned about it. Recent figures have shown that between the very privileged and very disadvantaged neighborhoods of Montreal, the death rate linked to COVID-19 varies from single to double. Another proof that inequalities kill.
PHOTO PHILIPPE BOIVIN, SPECIAL COLLABORATION
Balarama Holness, head of Mouvement Montréal
Balarama Holness denounces the lack of green spaces and sports centers in neighborhoods like Saint-Michel, Rivière-des-Prairies or Saint-Léonard. He insists on the importance of regional planning to better integrate new arrivals. He pleads for a better representativeness of minorities in Quebec culture.
It all makes sense.
What is much less so is this famous referendum that Mr. Holness evokes on the bilingual status of Montreal – a proposal that came out of nowhere. The mayoral candidate himself admits that this is not a demand from the English and allophone communities, but rather a personal reaction to Bill 96 on the strengthening of Bill 101 of the Legault government.
Certain elements of this bill were certainly poorly received by some anglophones in Montreal. But Balarama Holness doesn’t seem to realize that he wants to play firefighter with a flamethrower.
When the provincial and federal governments have made the protection of French a priority, one can imagine the melodrama and heartbreak that would result from holding a referendum on the language in Quebec’s largest city.
Mr. Holness’s position is all the more incomprehensible as he asserts that the French language must remain “superior” and that there is no question of “equality” with English. What then does this bilingualism mean, and why make the metropolis a “city-state” completely at odds with the rest of Quebec?
We must salute the commitment of those who enter politics. This is all the more true in the case of Balarama Holness, who has faced heinous death threats during this campaign. But unfortunately, it is clear that his message divides. The proof is that he is unable to unify his own troops after the failed merger with the party of Marc-Antoine Desjardins.
Montreal is still looking for its third way.
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