Four years ago, a dark shadow hung over the city of Laval as voters there went to the polls. After the city's longtime Mayor Gilles Vallaincourt had been arrested the year prior, Laval had no incumbent Mayor running in a hectic open contest focussing on how to root out corruption from Quebec's third-largest city. Marc Demers led his Mouvement Lavallois to a near-twenty-point victory over his nearest opponent, former Liberal MNA Jean-Claude Gobé of Action Laval. Now, in 2017, the two are facing off again.
Mr. Demers says he thinks that corruption has been cleaned out of the city and is not likely to return; his focus is on getting money from Vallaincourt's kickback scheme back into the city's hands. "We've gotten money from Mr. Vallaincourt, and we're negotiating with his accomplices," he told CJAD 800 News from his office. He says he expects even more money to be recovered in the near future.
Without the immediate shadow of corruption hanging over the race for city hall, then, both Mr. Demers and Mr. Gobé are running on issues-focussed platforms. Yet despite the calmer backdrop compared to four years ago, the campaign rhetoric between Mayor Marc Demers and Opposition Leader Jean-Claude Gobé has gotten negative, and at times, nasty.
One major point of contention between the two is on taxes. Mr. Gobé has said that Laval residents are taxed more than in most other Quebec municipalities. Mr. Demers and his team called that suggestion "absolutely false", saying that of the biggest cities in the province, Lavalers are actually among the least-taxed. This, combined with a desire to keep the city's pristine credit rating, currently the best of any city in the province, has been part of the decision by the Mayor to raise taxes every year since 2013. Demers says that Gobé's plan to freeze them is irresponsible.
Another area where the two men clash is the urban development plan that Mr. Demers's administration has laid out, which will see a concentration of the city's businesses and other institutions in a "downtown". The Demers Administration says this is being done to preserve the unique identities of other more far-flung neighbourhoods in the city. In the new downtown, he says, "you will have the biggest CEGEP in Quebec, a new university, and where people will be able to work, study, play and live….that's all the ingredients that a city needs to develop its economy."
But Mr. Gobé countered that in a city like Laval, where he suggests many move precisely to avoid the bustling city life of Montreal, many people don't want the increased traffic and density that comes with a "downtown".
Attempting to cut through the negativity between those two candidates is Avenir Laval leader Sonia Baudelot. She says that Mr. Gobé has spent too much time criticizing the current administration, rather than pitching new ideas. Of the four major candidates in the race, Baudelot is the only woman and is also the youngest. She says that gives her a different perspective.
"I'm not retiring into [municipal] politics," the former flight attendant told CJAD 800 News from her campaign office in a shopping centre on Laval's west end. She also suggested that, if she were elected Laval's first woman Mayor, she would bring a fresh way of doing things to City Hall. "I'm going to do things differently, but I'm going to do things right." she said, suggesting she will be more cerebral in considering proposals for Laval than her opponents. "[Women] don't want to do things just to do things."
She also touted her party's nearly gender-equal and ethnically diverse candidates for city council. Her team "represents what Laval is - diversity", she said.
As somebody who speaks three languages fluently - English, French and Spanish - Baudelot added that language is another important part of her campaign platform. She says that a priority for her potential administration would be ensuring that the city's 3-1-1 service is offered in English, to serve the nearly 1 in 5 Lavalers who are Anglophone. Right now, 3-1-1 services are only available in French.
Ms. Baudelot is not the only candidate pitching herself to voters as an outsider taking on the establishment. Michel Trottier's Parti Laval is promising to put a stop to the centralization of the city. Trottier, a former school principal, says that he never envisioned getting into municipal politics. But he thinks that's a positive thing. For him, "[the Laval Mayoralty] isn't a consolation prize", he said in an interview with CJAD 800 News.
One of his major policy proposals is to make public transit fares free for students aged 17-25. He says it's been a big hit with CEGEP students in the city, but Mayor Demers says that he decided instead to introduce a reduced fare for all students, regardless of their age.
The only of the four major candidates to not have a campaign office, he spoke to CJAD 800 News over an espresso in a local coffee shop. He says his campaign has made use of its limited resources in a very efficient way, highlighting the visual presence of his party's signs. He claims to have just half the campaign signs of Mr. Gobé's and Mr. Demers's parties, but it is impossible to miss them on most of Laval's major streets, a feat he says is due to strategic placement by his candidates.
Voters in Laval and other Quebec municipalities go to the polls on the 5th of November.