(Quebec) Bruno Marchand received blows in 2023. But the mayor of Quebec does not intend to throw in the towel.
The 51-year-old politician announces for the first time that he will run again in the 2025 municipal elections. He intends to devote the next two years of his mandate to the quality of life of citizens and hopes to talk less about the tramway, a “black hole” which seems to have sucked up the entirety of his brief political career.
“I never thought we would have enough of a mandate to do everything we needed to do,” explained Mr. Marchand in an interview with The Press Friday morning.
Several media outlets have reported in recent days the interest of former liberal Sam Hamad in entering the mayoral race in two years. The mayor assures that these rumors have nothing to do with the decision to announce his intentions.
I will be a candidate. I never doubted. Why I’m announcing it now is that I don’t want this issue to become a distraction.
Bruno Marchand, mayor of Quebec
Mayor Marchand has had a roller coaster political trajectory. He won the mayor’s office to everyone’s surprise in November 2021 by just 834 votes. Its satisfaction rate jumped to 67% in 2022, according to a Léger-The newspaperto fall drastically to 47% last November at mid-term.
Its destiny was in some way intertwined with that of the tramway project, inherited from Régis Labeaume. And the numerous setbacks in this highly publicized issue have certainly harmed the mayor’s support. Bruno Marchand also wants to reframe the message in 2024.
“In the last year, there have been nearly 40,000 mentions of the mayor of Quebec in the media,” he notes. Which is much more than before. And of these mentions, 40% were linked to the tram. »
“We can’t just persist with the government! “, he said. “I will continue to defend Quebec. I don’t lie flat on my stomach. But I want it to be positive. »
A tram in Montreal before Quebec?
Bruno Marchand has refused to comment on the tram project since November 8 and this decisive meeting with the Prime Minister of Quebec. Faced with the explosion of costs, François Legault put the project on hold and gave the mandate to the Caisse de dépôt to analyze the best structuring public transport system for the capital. The Fund’s conclusions are expected in June.
“The fall was tough,” concedes Mr. Marchand.
The 51-year-old man made the same speech on Friday: he refused to comment on the news of The Press according to which the Regional Metropolitan Transport Authority (ARTM) will recommend a tramway rather than an Eastern REM.
This tramway proposal, very comparable in terms of length and stations to that of Quebec, would cost 13 billion. Remember that the City of Quebec thought it could build its own for 8.4 billion.
I want us to move on. Quebec City is not just a tramway. I still believe in the tram. It’s not a rejection […] Now let the government respond, let the Fund respond, because I think that when we are a public authority we have a duty to respond to journalists, to the population.
Bruno Marchand, mayor of Quebec
Mr. Marchand assures that he will read the ARTM report as well as the government’s reactions. “But the other cards shouldn’t suffer from this anymore. Because the tram is a black hole, like the third link. It attracts everything. »
Get out of the gloom
Mid-term, with an election in his sights, the mayor therefore intends to reframe the message. He wants to get out of the gloom that seems to have settled over the capital. “I tell myself we’re finally going to talk about something else. We are going to talk about security, quality of life, economic development, sustainable development. »
At one point during the interview, he holds up a recent article he has just printed. “How the Old Capital became an economic tiger,” is the title of the article, published on January 10 by Pierre Fortin and Mario Polese. The two economists argue that Quebec has experienced the strongest economic growth among all major metropolitan regions in the country.
“Quebec City is an economic tiger in the eyes of renowned economists. This is not trivial, believes the mayor. It’s fundamental. »
“I want it to be positive. I want that when the gloom emerges we can say “be careful, things are going well in Quebec”, and things will continue to go well for 25, 30 years,” says the mayor.
“Courage” in active transportation
Change your tone. To do this, Bruno Marchand returns to the discourse that allowed him to get elected. He talks a lot about quality of life in the neighborhoods. Don’t wait for a flagship project like Régis Labeaume’s Videotron Center. “Will there be a single symbol across a single project? The answer is no. »
“Quality of life is the main thing. It combines security, housing, homelessness, proximity in neighborhoods, infrastructure development,” he lists.
But reframing the message does not mean changing course, assures Bruno Marchand. For example, he maintains his measures in favor of active transportation, assures that the cycle path on Chemin Sainte-Foy is here to stay and brushes aside those who speak of a “war on the car”.
“At the moment it is estimated that between 75 and 80% of public traffic space is dedicated to cars. It’s a little more than in Montreal. It is estimated that it is 1% for bicycles, and around 15% for pedestrians. »
“I’m not a cellar. I’m not going to hit the wall, he said. But there is a balance to be found, we have to make courageous decisions. Active mobility is a courageous decision. »