women in politics

Youngest councillor, St. Pat’s grad Alicia Despins leaving City Hall

Local Journalism Initiative / The Quebec Chronicle Telegraph / May 13, 2025 / 2025 Municipal Elections, Alicia Despins, Peter Black, Quebec City, women in politics

Youngest councillor, St. Pat’s grad Alicia Despins leaving City Hall

Peter Black, Local Journalism Initiative reporter

peterblack@qctonline.com

Stories abound of people leaving municipal politics for negative reasons. Then there’s the rare departure motivated by something positive. It’s what might be called an intermunicipal love story.

Coun. Alicia Despins (Vanier-Duberger) dropped a bombshell last week, announcing her decision to not seek a second term under the banner of Québec d’abord, the remnants of former mayor Régis Labeaume’s party.

Despins made the announcement via a news release on May 8, saying she “will not be seeking a third term, in order to begin a transition to a new chapter in my life focused on my studies and family projects.”

Despins, first elected in 2017 at age 23, was the youngest person ever elected to Quebec City council. On top of that distinction, Labeaume promptly named her to the executive committee with the culture portfolio.

In 2022, the Union of Quebec Municipalities awarded her the emerging leader award for her efforts in providing a role model for young people.

Despins is a graduate of St. Patrick’s High School, and also attended Holland School and St. Vincent School; her English education eligibility is courtesy of her father, a native of Ontario.

Although she had previously said she planned to run again in November, she recently made the decision to quit politics – at least temporarily. She plans to move in with her boyfriend, who lives in Val-d’Or, and start a family with him.

The boyfriend is Benjamin Turcotte, a first-term city councillor in Val-d’Or who also teaches literature at Cégep de l’Abitibi-Témiscamingue. The two met a year ago at the Union of Quebec Municipalities convention in Montreal. Since then, Despins said, they’ve been discussing ways to move forward with their long- distance relationship.

Then, she said, sparked by Turcotte’s opportunity to acquire a house near his parents in Val-d’Or, she came to the decision.

Speaking to the QCT while driving to Val-d’Or, Despins said, “A series of coincidences and other things all of a sudden made it clear that that’s what we have to do. We have to buy the house and move in together and start a family and [I’ll] finish my PhD. And it all happened very quickly. So I’m still kind of processing everything.”

She said, “I think it’s the right decision for me right now. I’ve been in elected politics for eight years now, and I also feel the need to maybe have a less stressful life.”

While she’s been a councillor for nearly two terms – she plans to finish out her second mandate – Despins has been involved in politics since her teens. While a student at CEGEP, she took part in the 2012 student protests against tuition hikes. She later formed a municipal political party with fellow students called Alternative Québec.

After working in the of- fice of former Quebec Liberal education minister Sébastien Proulx, she made the leap into municipal politics in 2017 with Équipe Labeaume in the Vanier-Duberger district, winning the seat with 57 per cent of the vote, the highest margin of the 21 winning councillors.

Despins said her proudest moment of her time at City Hall was being named to the culture portfolio. “I did not expect that in 2017, at 23 [years of age]. That was the proudest moment and then everything that hap- pened from then on.”

In Labeaume’s recently re- leased memoir, Le Code Labeaume (see review in this edition), Despins recalled, “When Régis met with me to announce it, he explained that he wanted to make room for young people, that he thought it was important to have women in politics and that he wanted to entrust me with real responsibilities. He also told me, ‘You’re going to have to deliver.’ It wasn’t complacent at all. It was an exceptional opportunity he of- fered me, but it wasn’t handed to me on a silver platter.”

Asked whether she thought she had met her mentor’s expectations, Despins said, “I think I did – and also he told me I did – so that was important for me.”

Once established in Val-d’Or, Despins plans to complete her PhD thesis on the international relationships of cities, a topic she says has heightened relevance currently with the American tariff war.

As she completes her term at City Hall, Despins said, “I’m going to enjoy every day because I don’t know if it will ever come again; being proud of representing people. I see the end coming with lots of feelings mixed together.”

With the departure of Despins, Québec d’abord, the official opposition party at City Hall, now has only three incumbent candidates running again, besides leader and mayoral candidate Claude Villeneuve.

In a news release, Villeneuve said of Despins, “While her departure saddens me, I respect and understand her decision. Politics is an intense profession. Alicia has always done her job well, and I learned a tremendous amount from working with her. It has been a privilege to work with her over the past few years.”

Municipal elections will be held Nov. 2.

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Jackie Smith enters mayoral race for Transition Québec

Local Journalism Initiative / The Quebec Chronicle Telegraph / May 13, 2025 / 2025 Municipal Elections, Jackie Smith, Quebec City, Ruby Pratka, Transition Québec, women in politics

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.

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