Napoléon Woo

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.