Jackie Smith

Woo and Weiser out as candidates; poll gives Marchand lead

Local Journalism Initiative / / / , , , , , , , , , ,

Woo and Weiser out as candidates; poll gives Marchand lead

Peter Black, Local Journalism Initiative reporter

peterblack@qctonline.com

Week two of the Quebec City campaign featured the exit of prominent candidates for two of the main parties running for City Hall, an encouraging poll for Mayor Bruno Marchand, and an original “fourth link” idea from a mayoral candidate.

David Weiser, a prize catch for Marchand’s Québec Forte et Fière (QFF) party when the tech pioneer, nonprofit founder and interfaith relations advocate joined his administration, was removed from the QFF slate over a broken “bond of trust.”

Marchand opted to remove Weiser from his re-election bid in the Plateau district following a report in the Journal de Québec that Revenu Québec had registered a legal hypothec (a form of legal mortgage) on his residence over a tax dispute covering the years 2012 to 2015.

The Journal also reported Weiser had declared personal bankruptcy that was registered in 2021, the year he became a city councillor.

In a statement, Marchand said, “I had a discussion with David … at the end of which I decided to withdraw his candidacy for QFF in the Plateau district. His explanation of the facts brought to my attention has broken our bond of trust.”

Weiser told Radio-Canada he had explained his situation to Marie-Josée Savard, the leader of the party he ran for in the 2021 election, but acknowledged that he did not disclose it to Marchand or his party after he crossed the floor in February 2022.

“I think I was treated unfairly,” he said. “There is an outstanding debt to Revenu Québec, but the legal hypothec is still in effect.”

Weiser said, as is required of elected officials, he submitted his notices of tax assessment to the party every year. Weiser had not responded to the QCT’s request for an interview by press time. QFF has until Oct. 3 to find a replacement candidate in the district.

Sam Hamad’s Leadership Québec had to scramble to find a last-minute candidate as a result of the withdrawal from the race of Napoléon Woo, the party’s purported star candidate in Saint-Roch– Saint-Sauveur. Shortly before this newspaper went to press, on Sept. 29, Radio-Canada reported that Hamad had selected social worker Pascale Houle, who does not live in the district, to represent the party there.

Woo, owner of a local restaurant, exited the team following controversial remarks he made at his candidacy announcement about homelessness in Saint-Roch.

Québec d’Abord, meanwhile, continues to face a challenge in finding candidates for all 21 seats on council with the Oct. 3 deadline looming. As of this writing, the party that evolved from former mayor Régis Labeaume’s organization is still short six candidates. Leader Claude Villeneuve is running for mayor but also for re-election in his Maizerets-Lairet district.

A lack of candidates is not Villeneuve’s only challenge. A Léger poll for the Journal de Québec placed the Opposition leader a distant fourth in the race for mayor, at seven per cent, slightly behind Stéphane Lachance of the upstart right-wing Respect Citoyens party.

The poll found Marchand with a significant but not commanding lead over Hamad, a former provincial Liberal cabinet minister and MNA for Louis-Hébert. Marchand polled 27 per cent in the field of seven candidates, with Hamad at 20 per cent, followed by Lachance and Villeneuve. Transition Québec Leader Jackie Smith had three per cent, and former city councillor and Opposition leader Anne Guérette had one per cent.

The poll also identified the cost of housing as the most important issue in the election, at 38 per cent. The second greatest preoccupation of potential voters was homelessness at 29 per cent. Just behind were public transit at 28 per cent, traffic congestion at 27 per cent, and infrastructure projects like the “third link” at 24 per cent.

On that latter topic, Guérette, who came third in the race

for mayor in 2017 as leader of the now-defunct Démocratie Québec party, has proposed a plan for a “fourth link” between Quebec City and Lévis.

Guérette, an architect and former councillor for Cap-aux-Diamants, is proposing a bridge be built exclusively for public transit in addition to one for car and truck traffic.

In a slick video on her campaign Facebook page, Guérette, a radio commentator and opponent of the tramway in its current configuration, said the public transit bridge, situated to complete a transit loop with a third link, should be built first. She said it could be built with efficient and inexpensive technology for $2.2 billion within four years.

Guérette and her running mate Frédéric Imbeault are seeking election in the Cap-Rouge–Laurentien district under the Parti du Monde banner. As of this writing, the party has not announced any other city council candidates.

Woo and Weiser out as candidates; poll gives Marchand lead Read More »

And they’re off! City Hall campaign begins with feud between Hamad and Villeneuve

Local Journalism Initiative / / / , , , , , , , ,

And they’re off! City Hall campaign begins with feud between Hamad and Villeneuve

Peter Black, Local Journalism Initiative reporter

peterblack@qctonline.com

The signs are going up, candidates are filing their papers and voters are being asked to reflect and choose who they want to run their towns and cities.

Quebec City, along with some 1,100 other municipalities in the province, is now engaged in an election campaign that will culminate with the election of new civic representatives on Nov. 2.

So far six candidates have declared themselves in the running for mayor: incumbent Bruno Marchand of Québec Forte et Fière; Claude Villeneuve, leader of Québec d’Abord and councillor for Maizerets-Lairet; Jackie Smith, leader of Transition Québec and councillor for Limoilou; Sam Hamad, leader of Leadership Quebec and a former provincial Liberal cabinet minister and MNA for Louis-Hébert; Stéphane Lachance, entrepreneur and leader of Respect Citoyens; and Anne Guérette, an architect, former city councillor and past mayoral candidate, who is running as an independent although she has registered a party name, Parti du monde.

Even before the 45-day campaign began officially on Sept. 19, two candidates were engaged in a skirmish of personal attacks. Villeneuve accused Hamad of intimidation for allegedly saying to him at an event in April, “Be careful with your criticism of me, because you have two beautiful little girls.”

Villeneuve said Hamad repeated the comment at another event. There were no witnesses at either occasion to corroborate Villeneuve’s claim. Hamad asked Villeneuve to withdraw the accusation, which he said amounted to defamation.

It was not the only accusation of intimidation aimed at Hamad last week. Karine Gagnon, the veteran Journal de Québec reporter and municipal affairs columnist, wrote a piece in which she said Hamad “has taken the liberty, during and outside of his press briefings, of attacking my integrity and my reputation, as well as those of the Journal de Québec.”

In another incident in a rocky start to his campaign, Hamad’s candidate in the Saint-Roch–Saint-Sauveur district, restaurant owner Napoléon Woo, went on a rant against the problem of home- lessness in the district.

“Homelessness should be a period of transition, not a culture where you eat for free, you get free housing, you get free clothes … No one died of cold or hunger,” Woo said, as Hamad listened uneasily and then intervened. (Editors’ note: Napoléon Woo is no longer the party’s candidate in Saint-Roch-Saint-Sauveur. On the afternoon of Sept. 22, as this newspaper went to press, Hamad announced that the party had “put an end to” his candidacy.)

On a more positive note for Leadership Québec, the party now has city council candidates in 20 of the 21 districts. A last-minute change saw Patrick Paquet, most recently the non-elected leader of the now-defunct Équipe Priorité Québec (EPQ) party, become the party’s candidate in the Les Saules- Les-Méandres district after Lydie Pincemin withdrew for health reasons. As of this writing, the party has a full slate of candidates, except for Woo’s recently vacated district of Saint-Roch-Saint-Sauveur.

The only other established party not to have a full slate is Villeneuve’s Québec d’Abord, which, as of this writing, was still short six candidates.

Respect Citoyens, meanwhile, has a full slate for its first run at City Hall, including Eric Ralph Mercier, former ÉPQ councillor, former Liberal MNA for Charlesbourg and son of longtime Charlesbourg mayor Ralph Mercier. He’s running in the Des Monts district.

Another notable recruit for the party is Anne-Laurence Harvey in the Loretteville– Les-Châtels district. Harvey is the daughter of Luc Harvey, the former Conservative MP for Louis-Hébert. She has a claim to fame in being the first girl to score a touchdown as a quarterback when she played for the St. Patrick’s High School Fighting Irish football team.

With the election campaign just underway, a poll in Le Soleil had some good and some worrisome news for Marchand and his bid for a second term. The survey by the SOM firm found 51 per cent of respondents were satisfied with his work as mayor, the highest level in two years and a major uptick since a low of 36 per cent two years ago.

However, in a somewhat counterintuitive finding, 50 per cent of those polled felt it was time for a change at City Hall. The poll also found Marchand’s approval rating is less positive in the suburbs, particularly in Charlesbourg, Beauport and La Haute-Saint-Charles.

In the 2021 election, QFF won four of its six seats in downtown districts.

It was not by coincidence, then, that Marchand officially launched his campaign Sept. 19 at a historic site in Charlesbourg.

“We’ve achieved a lot in four years, and there’s still a lot to do. There’s momentum in Quebec City, and we want it to continue. We’re not going to take anything for granted,” Marchand said.

In 2021, Marchand beat Marie-Josée Savard, the inheritor of former mayor Régis Labeaume’s party which later became Québec d’Abord, by 834 votes.

With files from QCT staff

And they’re off! City Hall campaign begins with feud between Hamad and Villeneuve Read More »

Smith unveils full slate, gets booted from council

Local Journalism Initiative / / / , , , ,

Smith unveils full slate, gets booted from council

Peter Black, Local Journalism Initiative reporter

peterblack@qctonline.com

A day after Transition Québec Leader and Limoilou Coun. Jackie Smith unveiled a full roster of candidates for City Hall, she was expelled from a city council meeting for breaching rules of conduct.

Nearly four years after her run for mayor as the head of an avowedly left-wing party, Smith’s feisty approach has earned her an eager following and, seemingly, the enmity of some fellow councillors.

On Aug. 25, Smith convened the media in Jardin Jean-Paul-L’Allier in Saint-Roch to announce her party had recruited candidates for all 21 districts, including many who decided to run for a second time under Smith’s leadership.

In introducing the candidates, she said, “We have assembled a strong, bold, dynamic team rooted in its community. The team has been on the ground for several weeks and the party’s funding is breaking a historic record. This demonstrates the enthusiasm for ideas that focus on fairness, solidarity and respect for the environment, and that respond to the challenges of our time.”

The next day, during a city council debate over the city administration’s public consultation program, council speaker Bianca Dussault ordered Smith to leave the chamber.

Smith had refused to withdraw an accusation that Cap- aux-Diamants Coun. Mélissa Coulombe-Leduc, member of the executive committee responsible for heritage, urban planning and tourism, was biased due to a job she had as a lobbyist prior to becoming a city councillor.

Coulombe-Leduc said, “I want her to withdraw the comments she just made, which have nothing to do with my role as a municipal councillor. If she wants me to dig into her past, I will do it.”

Dussault, describing Smith’s comments as “a rather personal attack,” ordered her to leave the meeting, which she did peaceably.

The council meeting was the second last before the official municipal election period starts on Sept. 17, leading to voting on Nov. 2. It’s an election Smith hopes will bring her, if not the mayor’s office, at least a larger contingent than her solo seat in Limoilou.

Smith said that “everything is different” from the last time around in 2021. “Recruitment is just so much easier. The fact that people know me, they know what we do … I’m a woman of action, and accessible, and people sort of feel close to me, feel like they can tell me their issues and I can help them.”

She said, “The four years of experience have been huge” and she’s learned “a lot more about how the system and the political dynamics work.” Plus, she said, the party has made “many gains” over that time in targeting issues and moving the administration forward on such matters as shelter for homeless people, protected bicycle paths and measures for parents at City Hall.

She said she has been effective despite being the lone Transition Québec councillor. “I have an idea and a lot of people say, well, no, it’s not possible. But in my four years, it almost always starts like that. I go in the media, I propose something publicly and then [Mayor] Bruno Marchand says immediately, ‘That’s impossible. You’re crazy.’ And then six months to a year later, it exists.”

In that vein, at the news conference to announce candidates, she denounced the Sept. 5 deadline for voters to change their address online. “The complexity of the process for changing addresses discourages young people from voting. It’s a structural obstacle that could be easily resolved.”

Smith is also calling for public transportation to be free on election day, as is the case in Lévis. “Voting should be simple and accessible for everyone. Free transportation on election day is a concrete measure to achieve this, and one that has already proven effective.”

As for her mayoral prospects in a field of at least four other credible candidates, Smith said she feels she has a “real chance” this time around; she finished fourth in 2021, with 12,000 votes, 6.6 per cent of the total.

She had initially been concerned about the impact of former provincial Liberal minister Sam Hamad, “because he’s a big name,” but said he has not lived up to billing, having failed to recruit a full slate of candidates only a couple of weeks before the campaign starts.

Smith, the mother of two young children, is a native of Hamilton, Ont., and has lived in Quebec City since 2006. She has several links to the English-speaking community, including with the Quebec Art Company and the Morrin Centre, where she is currently a member of the governing council.

Smith unveils full slate, gets booted from council Read More »

Hamad recruits two sitting councillors for City Hall team

Local Journalism Initiative / / / , , , , , , , , , , ,

Hamad recruits two sitting councillors for City Hall team

Peter Black, Local Journalism Initiative reporter

peterblack@qctonline.com

Mayoral candidate Sam Hamad now has two sitting municipal councillors on his own slate of candidates.

Isabelle Roy, councillor for the Robert-Giffard district in Beauport, and Louis Martin, councillor for Cap-Rouge–Laurentien and former speaker of the city council, will run under Hamad’s Leadership Québec banner.

Both were councillors for the opposition Québec d’abord party, but in March leader Claude Villeneuve booted Roy from the caucus when reports surfaced she had talked to Hamad about joining his party. Martin, who had also had discussions with Hamad, quit the party on his own shortly afterwards.

As members of Québec d’abord, both councillors supported the tramway project, an initiative of the previous administration of Régis Labeaume. Hamad opposes the project in its current concept as a costly system citizens do not want.

Both councillors, when the QCT contacted them, offered explanations for the change of position. Roy said, “I don’t think I’ve been the biggest cheerleader for the tramway project in the last three years. The abandonment of the D’Estimauville branch of the tramway was the breaking point for my support.”

She said, “The citizens of Quebec deserve efficient mobility across the entire territory, and the project Mr. Hamad will be putting forward is a step in that very direction.”

Martin said, “I’ve always been in favour of improving public transit in the city. It does not matter what vehicle – tramway, subway, bus – we need more transit, quickly. I saw Mr. Hamad’s proposal and I am convinced that it’s the best project to improve public transit in the city, quickly, for all neighbourhoods, at a price we can afford.”

Martin said Hamad plans to unveil his alternative transit plan as early as this week.

As far as why she joined Hamad’s team, Roy said the former provincial Liberal MNA and minister “is an authentic leader, capable of bringing people together and moving major issues forward by rallying the right people around the table.”

The addition of Roy and Martin now gives Leadership Québec seven confirmed candidates so far for the 21 districts. Hamad does not plan to run for a council seat as some mayoral candidates have chosen to do.

Québec d’abord now has only two sitting councillors who plan to run again, Patricia Boudreault-Bruyère in Neufchâtel–Lebourgneuf and Véronique Dallaire in Saules–Les Méandres. Longtime councillor Anne Corriveau announced earlier this month she does not plan to run again in her Pointe- de-Sainte-Foy district.

Besides the two incumbents, the other Québec d’abord candidates are Rosie-Anne R. Vallières in Vanier-Duberger, a seat being vacated by Alicia Despins, and Sophie Gosselin in Lac-Saint-Charles–Saint-Émile. Villeneuve, who is running for mayor for the first time, is the councillor for Maizerets-Lairet.

The large field of mayoral candidates became even larger over the weekend when former City Hall opposition leader and mayoral candidate Anne Guérette announced she was running for mayor again under the banner of the newly created Parti du Monde – Équipe Anne Guérette. Since stepping down as leader of the now-defunct Démocratie Québec party in 2017, Guérette, an architect, has become a vocal opponent of the tramway project. She joins incumbent mayor Bruno Marchand, Villeneuve, Hamad, Transition Québec leader Jackie Smith and Respect Citoyens leader Stéphane Lachance on the lengthening list of candidates. Municipal elections will be held across Quebec on Nov. 2.

With files from Ruby Pratka, LJI reporter

Hamad recruits two sitting councillors for City Hall team Read More »

Jackie Smith enters mayoral race for Transition Québec

Local Journalism Initiative / / / , , , , ,

Jackie Smith enters mayoral race for Transition Québec

Ruby Pratka, Local Journalism Initiative reporter

editor@qctonline.com

Limoilou Coun. Jackie Smith and the Transition Québec party she leads have officially jumped into the mayoral race. The party held a launch event on May 10 at Le Bivouac in Limoilou, which was also broadcast on Facebook Live.

Speaking to an enthusiastic crowd, Smith said she planned to run for mayor in 2025 and keep pushing her party’s progressive platform.

She looked back on the 2021 election, where she came third in the mayoral race but won her Limoilou council seat. “I felt so proud and lucky – not only to be elected as the only woman to lead a party, and to represent Transition Québec, but my God, we worked hard … we proposed bold ideas and bold citizens pushed us forward. These are shared victories.”

Among the “shared victories,” she counted the inauguration of Place Karim-Ouellet in Saint-Jean-Baptiste, a tax on abandoned buildings, a tax on motor vehicle registration to fund mass transit, two new bike paths and a subsidy program for eco-friendly menstrual products and diapers. “It makes women’s lives easier and it keeps waste from going to the incinerator – it’s a feminist, ecologist policy that clearly has the Transition Québec stamp on it, so thank you for that!

“There are people who say ‘Your policies are a bit nutty,’ but the number of times people have said it’s impossible and then it becomes possible … I don’t give up,” she said, referencing the transformation of disused city offices in Saint-Roch into the Répit Basse-Ville warming centre for homeless people, which the party championed.

Speaking over Mother’s Day weekend, in a crowded restaurant where laughing children and crying babies could be heard over the din, the mother of two young children said it was “very difficult” to balance raising children and being a politician. “There are very few women of childbearing age who are in politics … and at City Council, at public consultations, who do we hear from? From men, and sometimes from women who don’t have kids. They are the ones we listen to. But that doesn’t mean women [with children] have nothing to say. Speaking with moms at the park, those are the real public consultations – why has this bench been broken for three years? Where are our kids supposed to pee if there’s no washroom in the park?

“We’re facing a lot of challenges, and there is a whole transition that came with the pandemic that we are just now getting out of, questions about democracy, supply chains, and the climate that hasn’t stopped changing. But we will be equal to the challenge, because we know where we are, we know where we’re going and we’re resilient,” she said.

Transition Québec has announced three council candidates in the past week in addition to Smith – activist and Maizerets neighbourhood councillor Martial Van Neste in Maizerets–Lairet, Camille Lambert-Deubelbeiss in Robert-Giffard and Espérance Mfisimana as Smith’s running mate in Limoilou.

Mfisimana was born in Burundi and arrived in Quebec City as a refugee in 1993. She now works in human resources. Like Smith, she’s the mother of young children. She spoke about the importance of making working-class and racialized people feel more represented by the political system. As Smith’s running mate, Mfisimana would take her seat as councillor for Limoilou in the event Smith be- comes mayor. If this happens, she would be the first Black woman, and only the second Black person, to serve on city council. “I mistakenly believed for a long time that politics was something for the elite,” she said. “I think politicians do try hard to represent working- class and minority citizens, but we don’t see those citizens. I don’t see many people like me on city council, and even fewer racialized women in [decision-making] roles. I hope I can be an inspiration for women from minority groups to run for office,” she said.

Jackie Smith enters mayoral race for Transition Québec Read More »

Hamad to announce for mayor, Marchand loses councillors

Local Journalism Initiative / / / , , , ,

Hamad to announce for mayor, Marchand loses councillors 

Peter Black, Local Journalism Initiative reporter

peterblack@qctonline.com

The race for mayor of Quebec City in November is shaping up to feature at least four candidates, with former provincial Liberal minister Sam Hamad preparing to jump into the fray.

Several media outlets re- ported last week that Hamad, the former MNA for the suburban Louis-Hébert riding, has set April 6 as the date he will launch his campaign.

There are also reports Hamad has been in discussion with Équipe Priorité Québec (EPQ), the second Opposition at City Hall with two seats. The new interim leader of the party, Coun. Stevens Melançon, told reporters he would not be the party’s candidate for mayor. Former councillor Patrick Paquet had been party leader without a seat on council.

EPQ is the current name for the party that ran in the previous two elections as Québec 21, under the leadership of Coun. Jean-François Gosselin. Gosselin came a close third in the 2021 mayoral race, behind winner Bruno Marchand of Québec Forte et Fière and Marie-Josée Savard, running for what was the party of longtime mayor Régis Labeaume.

Gosselin joined the Marchand administration as executive committee member responsible for sports and recreation. He has decided to finish his term and not run again.

Hamad had been courting sitting councillors to join his team, including Louis Martin of Québec d’abord, who left the party two weeks ago and was voted out as council chair.

Another Hamad target was Isabelle Roy, councillor for the Robert-Giffard district;  Québec d’abord leader Claude Villeneuve kicked her out of the party caucus for having talks with Hamad.

A central plank of Hamad’s platform, according to his statements, will be opposition to the tramway project.

With this game of musical chairs underway, other councillors are joining Gosselin in departing City Hall. Pierre-Luc Lachance, the executive committee member responsible for finance and councillor for Saint-Roch–Saint-Sauveur, announced his departure several weeks ago.

Longtime councillor Steeve Verret of Lac-Saint-Charles–Saint-Émile has also let it be known he plans to leave city hall once his current term is up. He replaced Martin as chair of council following the latter’s ouster.

The other confirmed departure from Marchand’s team is Maude Mercier Larouche, the first-term councillor for Sainte-Foy–Sillery-Cap-Rouge and member of the executive committee responsible for the Réseau de Transport de la Capitale (RTC), as well as large projects.

She told reporters she is taking a break from politics to spend more time with her family and to take care of her mother.

Meanwhile, Québec d’abord has officially confirmed the party’s four remaining councillors will be running for re-election. They are Patricia Boudreault-Bruyère in Neufchâtel–Lebourgneuf, Anne Corriveau in Pointe-de-Sainte-Foy, Véronique Dallaire in Les Saules–Les-Méandres and Alicia Despins in Vanier-Duberger.

Despins, a St. Patrick’s High School graduate, told the QCT “it’ll surely be a few weeks” before the party announces new candidates for the open seats on council. She said the party recently held its general assembly and “we voted on the overarching political orientations.”

The party now called Québec d’abord elected 10 councillors in the 2021 election, with Marchand’s QFF winning seven seats and Québec 21 four.

Limoilou Coun. Jackie Smith ran unsuccessfully for mayor as leader of Transition Québec, but won her council seat. She is running again for mayor. The only other declared mayoral candidate as of this writing is Stéphane Lachance of the newly created Parti Respect Citoyens.

Hamad to announce for mayor, Marchand loses councillors Read More »

Smith moves vote to oust council chair Martin

Local Journalism Initiative / / / , , , ,

Smith moves vote that ousts city council chair Martin

Peter Black, Local Journalism Initiative reporter

peterblack@qctonline.com

There was a bit of drama to start off the regular Quebec City council meeting on March 18.

Jackie Smith, the councillor for Limoilou and leader of Transition Québec, proposed a vote to remove Louis Martin, the councillor for Cap-Rouge–Laurentien, as the chair of council sessions.

Martin had recently left the opposition Québec d’abord caucus over unspecified differences, and had been courted by potential mayoral candidate Sam Hamad.

Another Québec d’abord councillor, Isabelle Roy, who represents Robert-Giffard district, also now sits as an independent after being booted from the party caucus for having discussed her political future with Hamad.

The motion to remove Martin was approved, with three councillors, Roy and the two members from Équipe priorité Québec, voting against.

The vice-chair of the council, Steve Verret, the long-serving councillor for Lac-Saint- Charles–Saint-Émile, accepted the proposal to replace Martin. Verret was elected in 2021 under the banner of former mayor Régis Labeaume’s party, but defected to the ruling Québec Forte et Fière (QFF) party of Mayor Bruno Marchand. Verret has decided not to run again in the November election.

Contacted by the QCT, Martin said about his ouster, “I’m surprised and disappointed. A few months ago, Ms. Smith asked for my removal because I was ‘too partial.’ This time she mentioned it was because I am too independent. But it’s a decision made by the city council; I respect it.”

In explaining her move to remove Martin, Smith said, “It was not a question of competence” and that Martin had done “an excellent job as chair.” She said that it was “a question of the role of chair” of the council, and now that Martin has shifted allegiances, council needs to know where the chair stands on certain issues.

Smith said, “I was uncomfortable with some of the actions you took as chair, but at least we could see [where you stood]. With the political decisions you made, we’re not certain.”

Équipe priorité Québec Coun. Stevens Melançon, angered at the removal of “a neutral and rigorous chairperson,” took a shot at Smith, saying she is “ready to denounce the authorities in place and political manoeuvring, except when it suits her.”

Melançon said, “Our role is to defend a healthy municipal democracy, not to be extras in a theatre where everything is predetermined.”

Roy said, “It’s hard not to see reprisals in this gesture from Québec d’abord, Transition Québec and Québec Forte et Fière … I expected a little better from my colleagues on city council.”

Opposition and Québec d’abord leader Claude Villeneuve said, “To judge the chair’s neutrality, you have to know … at what point … there is a bias or not.”

Villeneuve said Martin’s change in political affiliation “leads us to have doubts about” meetings chaired “by someone whose intentions and point of view we do not know.”

No one from the ruling QFF party spoke to the motion to remove Martin.

Losing the position means Martin will have $10,000 less remuneration for council service.

When he left the chair after his ouster, Martin took the seat next to Smith and they exchanged a few polite words.

At many points during the meeting, councillors were drowned out by blaring truck horns from a group of protesting blue-collar workers outside City Hall.

Smith moves vote to oust council chair Martin Read More »

Scroll to Top