Canadian municipal elections 2009

[Hatman 🍁]

Not just any PQuiste, but a wingnut as well. Though, she is trying to moderate herself. LOL btw @ her anglo numbers.

Louise Harel is not a wingnut and I ready to fight to the death to say that!

Ok, fair enough. I think she is. But whatever.

[Hatman 🍁]

The mayoral election in Paradise had a recount, and the result was a tie. They then randomly selected the mayor as the winner, who was down by 3 votes in the preliminary count. His challenger will be appealing.

[Linus Van Pelt]

Montreal now neck-and-neck according to the latest La Presse poll: Harel 37 Tremblay 36 Bergeron 23 O'Sullivan 2. La Presse didn't link to the crosstabs as far as I can see, so not sure about any linguistic breakdown. Harel's had a bad week; one of the main council candidates on her team was alleged to have taken money from the mafia.

[Hash]

Well, every politician in Montreal takes money from the mafia anyways.

[Linus Van Pelt]

Richard Bergeron surge!

Angus Reid/La Presse (taken Oct 28/29): Harel 34, Bergeron 32, Tremblay 30, O'Sullivan 4.

Total free-for-all with two days to go.

On transportation, the contrast with even "progressive" Anglo cities is remarkable. Tremblay's approach is basically like that of David Miller or Alex Munter - expand bike lanes, build new tramways, and discourage cars from the downtown - yet in Ontario such views face a howl of opposition and all kinds of b.s. about "war on cars", while in Montreal there's now a serious chance that the mainstream candidates will lose to an even more hard-core environmentalist, and the only really pro-auto person in the race gets 4%.

[Hash]

I kind of saw this coming when Benoit Labonté, Louise Harel and VM's former power-hungry asshole said that both VM and UM were corrupt shells, therefore allowing Bergeron to creep up through the middle as the least-worst candidate or as a protest vote. I hope Bergeron wins, and it will also be a very fun race. Anyways, Tremblay is screwed.

Other races in the province:

Laval: 22-year incumbent Gilles Vaillancourt faces two major opponents: Robert Bordeleau (Running for the ghetto-named 'Party to serve the citizen') and Lydia Aboulian. Both are little known, hate each other but still put up a lot of signs. But all lawn signs are for Vaillancourt and his cronies. Vaillancourt will be re-elected.

Longueuil: Former BQ MP Caroline St-Hilaire faces incumbent entrenched Mayor Jacques Goyette and his municipal party machine.

Quebec: Régis Labeaume is wildly popular and his only major opponent is a retarded ultra-conservative radio host, Jeff Fillion. Quebec City is known for its retarded conservative radio hosts who often tend to be backwards racists. Eg, Andre Arthur.

Sherbrooke: Apparently an open race with 3 major candidates.

Saguenay: Everybody's favourite Mayor, the Bible-thumping Jean Lala Tremblay faces a populist, Michel Potvin. Lala Tremblay will win,

Gatineau: The mayoral race has 3 major players: the incumbent Marc Bureau, Aurèle Desjardins and Tony Cannavino who looks like a crook. I suspect Earl will want to look at Hull–Val-Tétreau District where incumbent councillor Denise Laferrière takes on NDPer
Pierre Ducasse. I will also look at Lucerne District, where one of the candidates is Barbara Charlebois, who led an English-only campaign and got threats from separatists nuts. She leads some sort of English people's defense club of some sort.

[Хahar 🤔]

My god. How many talk radio stations does Quebec City have?

[Hatman 🍁]

What I find ironic about Charlebois is her name is pretty French.

Hashemite is right though, I'm mostly going to be looking for the race in Hull-Val Tetreau. Go Ducasse!  He seems to be winning the sign war. I was in Hull last night for an excursion, and I saw some Ducasse signs. Other than that, I have very little knowledge of the politics of Gatineau, unfortunately.

Also, I really hope Bergeron wins in Montreal

In other news, Saskatchewan just had their municipal elections. Not much news to announce, except a current pro football player was elected to Regina City Council (try balancing playing football and politics!) and an NDPer was elected mayor of Moose Jaw

[Хahar 🤔]

In other news, Saskatchewan just had their municipal elections. Not much news to announce, except a current pro football player was elected to Regina City Council (try balancing playing football and politics!) and an NDPer was elected mayor of Moose Jaw

Chris Szarka is awesome.

[Hatman 🍁]

I wish I could get the results of the Regina city council race, but for some reason their site wont work for me. Anyone else have this problem?

[Linus Van Pelt]

It is worth noting that while Richard Bergeron seems to have sane views on things that actually have to do with Montreal politics and is the only candidate who is neither hopelessly corrupt nor an old-style linguistic nationalist, he has also claimed (a) that smoking is good for your health, and (b) that he is at least somewhat sympathetic to the view that 9/11 was a US government conspiracy.

[Hash]

It is worth noting that while Richard Bergeron seems to have sane views on things that actually have to do with Montreal politics and is the only candidate who is neither hopelessly corrupt nor an old-style linguistic nationalist, he has also claimed (a) that smoking is good for your health, and (b) that he is at least somewhat sympathetic to the view that 9/11 was a US government conspiracy.

Well, I prefer a slightly kooky non-corrupt guy over a corrupt loser/corrupt linguonationalist.

[Hatman 🍁]

It is worth noting that while Richard Bergeron seems to have sane views on things that actually have to do with Montreal politics and is the only candidate who is neither hopelessly corrupt nor an old-style linguistic nationalist, he has also claimed (a) that smoking is good for your health, and (b) that he is at least somewhat sympathetic to the view that 9/11 was a US government conspiracy.

This is Montreal we're talking about. Everyone smokes.

[Hash]

Polls close at 8pm, RDI will have a special election night on the telly starting at 18h or so, though I assume the first two hours will be the typical useless blabber and re-stating for the 6,000th time what happened in the past two weeks or so. Of course, nobody will watch it since there's a music awards gala tonight at the same time.

[MaxQue]

Came back from voting. I suppose than turnout will be good in my town (Val-d'Or, around 30 000 inhabitants), since there was always at least 6 or 7 seven voters in the polling station when I was there, which is pretty good.

I voted for the incumbent mayor. A very arrogant, unlikeable person persuaded he is always right and ruling on the municipal council like a dictator and right-wing, but he is very competent.

Anyways, the other candidate for mayorship is awful. He is selling medication against swine flu and cancer, is implicated in pyramidal schemes, said than women should stay home to raise children and to stop stealing men jobs, than Jews are controlling the economy and are making wars to make more money and that gay are men with a woman head and lesbian women with a man head.

Incumbent should win with more 80% of votes.

I voted for councillor, too, but the race was two candidates with almost the same slogan, the same program and the same ideas. I voted for the one who tried harder, i.e. the only from you I received ads and who did door to door visits in my sector.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Anyways, the other candidate for mayorship is awful. He is selling medication against swine flu and cancer, is implicated in pyramidal schemes, said than women should stay home to raise children and to stop stealing men jobs, than Jews are controlling the economy and are making wars to make more money and that gay are men with a woman head and lesbian women with a man head.

Amazing.

[minionofmidas]

That's la France Profonde for you.

(Next thing MaxQue will tell us that he's a Muslim and/or Inuit, not a Quebecois, and I'll look stupid)

[MaxQue]

That's la France Profonde for you.

(Next thing MaxQue will tell us that he's a Muslim and/or Inuit, not a Quebecois, and I'll look stupid)

I'm a Catholic Quebecois. That kind of populist candidate would have been probably elected 30 and 40 years ago, because we elected all the time Social Credit MPs and MLAs in Abitibi. Rouyn-Noranda, one hour away from here was the hometown of Real Caouette. Well, in places like Rouyn-Noranda, municipal creditism still exist. One of the Réal Caouette son, Roger, was elected mayor of Rouyn-Noranda in 2005. He resigned since then for health reasons.

But populist is not very popular on other levels. Armand, who is Réal nephew, ran as a Liberal in the federal district covering Val-d'Or in 1997 as a PC and in 2006 as a Liberal and he finished 3rd as a PC and 2nd as a Liberal. ADQ and Conservative Party never won a Abitibi riding either.

[minionofmidas]

That's la France Profonde for you.

(Next thing MaxQue will tell us that he's a Muslim and/or Inuit, not a Quebecois, and I'll look stupid)

I'm a Catholic Quebecois.

I meant the candidate. (My sentence is ambiguous I admit, but oughtn't the context have given it away?)

[MaxQue]

That's la France Profonde for you.

(Next thing MaxQue will tell us that he's a Muslim and/or Inuit, not a Quebecois, and I'll look stupid)

I'm a Catholic Quebecois.

I meant the candidate. (My sentence is ambiguous I admit, but oughtn't the context have given it away?)

He is white and probably Catholic.

[Hash]

Also, another fun story is that the two opposition candidates in Laval use the same slogan: "Pour le changement".

[Хahar 🤔]

That's la France Profonde for you.

(Next thing MaxQue will tell us that he's a Muslim and/or Inuit, not a Quebecois, and I'll look stupid)

Val-d'Or doesn't seem like the sort of place that would have a lot of Muslims.

[Hash]

That's la France Profonde for you.

(Next thing MaxQue will tell us that he's a Muslim and/or Inuit, not a Quebecois, and I'll look stupid)

Val-d'Or doesn't seem like the sort of place that would have a lot of Muslims.

The census says there are a grand 15 Arabs in Val-d'Or. And 10 Muslims in 2001.

[Hatman 🍁]

Little Mosque in the tundra?

[MaxQue]

That's la France Profonde for you.

(Next thing MaxQue will tell us that he's a Muslim and/or Inuit, not a Quebecois, and I'll look stupid)

Val-d'Or doesn't seem like the sort of place that would have a lot of Muslims.

I know 4 Muslims in Val-d'Or from Algeria. And an Arab from Egypt, he is teaching me chemistry in college, don't know if he is Muslim and I don't care.
The census says there are a grand 15 Arabs in Val-d'Or. And 10 Muslims in 2001.