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Incumbent Montreal mayor Gérald Tremblay delivered a blistering attack on his challenger, Vision Montreal leader Louise Harel — calling her “anti-democratic” and a “weathervane” — during an election campaign kick-off on Aug. 31 for the Union Montreal party. Tremblay, who has been known since first being elected in 2001 for his usually thoughtful and self-effacing style, seemed more worked up at the podium than he has ever been.
Harel a ‘weathervane’
He reminded the more than 400 party members attending the congress at Collège Maisonneuve in Montreal’s east end of Harel’s decree in 2001, when she was the PQ’s municipal affairs minister, which greatly loosened the rules for municipalities to award contracts worth more than $100,000, without first having to submit them to the usual public bidding process.
“It’s incredible, it’s unbelievable that she was able do something as anti-democratic to bypass elected officials who have the responsibility to approve contracts,” he said. At one point, Tremblay used the word “girouette” (a weathervane) to describe Harel, whose positions on a number of issues — including the contracts decree — were inconsistent, he maintained.
Defending decentralization
Tremblay recalled a 2003 incident downtown when he was instrumental in foiling a mugging. He said others should follow that example and have the courage of their convictions. Park Extension city councillor Mary Deros, who attended the congress with a delegation of more than a dozen Union Montreal members from her district, agreed with Tremblay that Harel is “now criticizing the very same law that she put in place.
“She wants to centralize things again,” Deros said in an interview about the one of the Vision party’s central campaign themes. “But over the last eight years, decentralization has permitted the boroughs to be able to manage at close proximity with the citizens. With the local elected members we’re able to manage the local needs and we’re able to adjust their budgets according to those needs. If you go back to decentralization, you’re removing this close proximity from the citizens.”
Stability crucial: Deros
Indeed, centralization versus decentralization — a conflict unresolved since Pierre Bourque led Vision Montreal and was mayor — is shaping up to be the dominant issue in this election. Deros insists that “Montreal has to show stability also. When you keep restructuring all the time, too much time is being spent in the restructuration and the civil servants are left wondering which way they should go. Let’s at least show some continuity so that more time and energy is spent on developing and on providing services to citizens, as opposed to restructuring all over again and going backwards.”
Deros is heading into the election under the banner of a party she joined just two years ago after spending most of her political career with Vision Montreal when it was led by Bourque. “When Mr. Bourque was the leader, there was a different bonding,” she said of her decision to change sides. “He held the team together. When he left in 2006 the party fell apart and it wasn’t the same anymore. At the same time, we have to move forward.
‘Why go back?’
“For the last eight years, we have been working with a decentralized system where we the elected members locally have been managing our budgets and providing local services. All of a sudden they (Vision Montreal) want to undo that and go back to a centralized system. You can’t play yo-yo with city politics. We’re talking about citizens services here and we have to maintain them. Who best to be there at ground level with the citizens than the local city councillors and their local administrations? We’ve managed it, we have shown that it is working. It is a success story. Why go back?”