MONTREAL -- With strategies from meet-and-greets on city buses to ditching the tradition of putting up posters, Montreal's mayoral candidates are taking different approaches to campaigning.
Three times a week, for example, Marcel Coté is making the rounds on Montreal city buses.
“I've been to quite a few areas in Montreal and you meet people and they have time to talk to you, so I think it's a very good exercise,” he said, stressing that over and over, he's hearing the same things.
“Better streets, better transportation, no corruption at city hall,” he said.
His opponent Melanie Joly said his campaign style shows just how disconnected he is from the average Montrealer.
“We see he does a press conference to say he's going to take the bus and meet Montrealers. We take the subway every day and we're used to taking it, so we go and and we meet Montrealers and we don't need to do public relations about it,” she said.
Coté disagrees with her comments.
“Well, in politics sometimes you trash your opponents. I guess that's part of the game,” he said.
One thing Coté and Joly have in common: campaign posters. Projet Montreal's Richard Bergeron team of volunteers was very quick to blanket the city with signs.
Denis Coderre, however, is the only candidate who doesn't, defending that decision once again on Wednesday.
“It's environmentally wise, because signs don't vote, because we want to be connected directly to the people,” said Coderre as he presented his teams in Ile-Bizard - Ste-Genevieve and in Pierrefonds-Roxboro.
In reference to continuing criticism that Coderre's new team has a lot of old players from Union Montreal, his candidate in that borough, Dimitrios Jim Beis, said that’s untrue.
“I share the opinion of Mr. Coderre when I say we're not all the same,” he said.
Coderre fired back, saying Cote and Bergeron tried unsuccessfully to recruit those same people.
“The people I have in my group -- 24 out of 95 now -- are people that have all been called by my opponents,” said Coderre, adding that political experience matters, and an old party affiliation doesn't.
“I don't care about Union Montreal, to be honest. I don't give a damn about them. I didn't marry a party. I got great individuals and people who are grounded, and who can make a difference and who can be that actor of change,” he said.
