Volunteers and candidates from various municipal parties are hard at work this weekend to encourage Montreal voters to go and vote and try to convince the remaining undecided. Foray into Verdun, one of the city’s boroughs where the candidates are fighting a particularly close fight.
This year, Montreal voters can go to the polls on Saturday and Sunday, from 9:30 a.m. to 8 p.m. However, they were few in number when the To have to in Verdun polling stations on Saturday morning.
“We’ve been living here for a long time and we want to be represented with our values and our way of seeing things,” says Laura Payeur Le Blanc, a resident of the neighborhood met after having filled out her five ballots for as many positions. fill in this arrondissement.
“It is certain that being a mother of young children, there is everything to do with parks and access to different activities. […] These are the issues that interest me, ”emphasizes mother Audrey D’amours, when asked what motivated her to travel on a Saturday morning to vote in Verdun.
A tight race
During the last two municipal elections, Denis Coderre’s team succeeded in cutting head of the Verdun borough, which nevertheless had a few Projet Montréal candidates elected in 2017. The decision of outgoing mayor Jean- François Parenteau to sit as an independent in November 2017 in order to join the City’s executive committee, however, came to confuse the issue in this borough.
Since then, Mr. Parenteau has announced that he will not be running for a new term, while Ensemble Montréal advisor Véronique Tremblay joined Projet Montréal this summer. The announced departure of Pierre L’Heureux, elected in 2013 to Denis Coderre’s team, forced Ensemble Montréal to start afresh with a brand new team in this borough. The training relies in particular on the candidacies of manager Nadine Gelly, host and designer Jean Airoldi and real estate broker Antoine Richard.
“To date, we have a lot of love, that’s what’s really great. As much door to door as in the meetings we made and all that, it’s super positive […] That’s what’s the coolest thing about this campaign, ”says Ms. Gelly, met in the morning in the party’s campaign office on Wellington Street.
Around the candidate, who is running for the post of city councilor in Champlain-L’Île-des-Soeurs, the volunteers were busy defining the game plan for the day to encourage voters to vote. “We want to bring out the vote,” sums up Jean Airoldi, who expects very tight results in the district.
Phone calls, door to door, unexpected meetings in the streets of the arrondissement, all means are good to try to convince the undecided, who are also particularly numerous this year, according to the candidate for mayor of Verdun Antoine Richard.
“We can consider that as a big machine to exit the vote,” he says in an interview, referring to the hundred or so volunteers deployed this weekend in Verdun by his party.
The candidate’s enthusiasm fades, however, when asked if he fears that the high media coverage of the paying real estate flips he made in 2019 and 2020 will have the effect of harming his election, after two local debates. in Verdun where this controversy attracted attention.
After a moment of silence, the real estate broker argues that he has so far carried out some 330 transactions without ever being “convicted” for anything. “So on the issue of transparency and respectability, I am a thousand percent quiet,” argues Mr. Richard, who believes he has “no problem of credibility on the issue of real estate.”
Montreal project “on a war footing”
A few meters further on, Projet Montréal volunteers were also very active during the passage of the To have to Saturday morning at their local campaign office, also located on Wellington Street. In addition to betting on the candidacy of councilor Marie-Andrée Mauger to run for mayor of this district, which has always been run by men, the party hopes to win votes this year thanks to its various commitments in housing, at a time when Verdun fell prey to real estate speculation and rapid gentrification. But will that be enough to convince voters?
“Our candidates are on a war footing,” says volunteer Sean English, who stresses the importance of “meeting the last undecided” to try to gain their support.
Long-time activist for Projet Montréal, Sophie Deleuil-Millette, however, notes that the recruitment of volunteers has been more difficult than usual this year in the context of the pandemic.
“I think people are interested, people are still just as passionate, but the idea of knocking on doors in times of pandemic is not an idea that appeals to many people”, recalls- she. The party was still able to count “at different times” in this campaign on “a hundred” volunteers, says Sean English.
“We are the volunteers”
The formation of Balarama Holness, Mouvement Montreal, did not have the same luck. “We are the volunteers”, laughs the aspiring mayoress of Verdun Jayoti Nanda, met in front of the Verdun metro station in the company of two other candidates from the training in this district, Nathe Perrone and Jonathan Reinglas.
“We were happy to see that people were open to talking to us, so in my opinion, I’m happy with our performance,” says Ms. Nanda.
Regarding the party’s controversial position in favor of a bilingual status for the City of Montreal, Ms. Nanda also notes the importance, according to her, of having an “inclusive” approach.
“We want to say, as a team, that we value the French language. We know it’s in decline right now. But we want to have inclusion, we want to have empathy towards the people, the newcomers who come here to learn the language. […] We want inclusion for everyone, ”she argues.
Plant in advance
Across the city, after being neck and neck for several weeks, voting intentions are beginning to give Valérie Plante a significant advantage. Saturday, a Léger poll conducted on behalf of Journal of Montreal confirmed this advance by granting 40% of the voting intentions to Ms. Plante, against 35% for her main opponent, Denis Coderre.
Balarama Holness, for its part, collects 23% of the voting intentions among Anglophones and 3% among Francophones, for an average of 13% of all voters, according to this probe.
In 2017, Valérie Plante won the municipal election with 51% of the vote, against nearly 46% for Denis Coderre.