A day after Laval mayor Marc Demers was found guilty on a charge related to illegal party financing, the opposition leader, Michel Trottier, is calling for Demers' resignation, saying he's lost his legitimacy to run the city.
Demers was first elected in 2013, and was seen as someone who was willing to turn the page on the tenure of his predecessor, Gilles Vaillancourt, the longtime mayor who was sentenced to six years in prison in 2016 on corruption charges. He served nearly a year in a federal lock-up in eastern Laval before being released to a halfway house late last year.
Demers was found guilty of loaning his party, the Mouvement Lavallois, $28,000 in the runup to the 2013 election which brought him to power — almost three times the legal limit of $10,000. Before the courts, Demers tried to argue good faith, and ignorance of the law.
He'll be fined anywhere from $500 and $10,000. The exact amount will be determined at a court hearing scheduled for April 18.
Trottier, leader of the Parti Laval, says what Demers did is nothing short of trying to buy the election through accounting trickery, and is urging Demers to step down out of respect for the people of Laval.