MONTREAL -- Denis Coderre's return to the media spotlight continued with a walk to City Hall in the company of his new recruit, Hadrien Parizeau.
The city councilor resigned from Valerie Plante's executive committee Tuesday to re-join the man who first launched his career four years ago.
Though the new recruit isn't diminishing his work with the Plante administration, he made it clear he was never a Plante ally
"Projet Montreal is the party," Parizeau said. “I contribute to the administration. Not Projet Montreal."
Coderre said Plante’s party has failed Montreal economically.
"We have a duty, we have a role to play Canadian-wide, Quebec-wide, and at the international level also," he said.
Projet Montreal, Coderre adds, ignored the public will and local concerns with ideology-driven policies.
He said he will bring pragmatism to City Hall and prepare it for a post-pandemic recovery, but his team said it won't necessarily mean undoing what Plante has done.
For example, the controversial bike path on St-Denis will remain.
"It's public money, we have responsibilities, every administration has its responsibilities," said Karine Boivin-Roy, a city councilor who will run for mayor of Hochelaga under Coderre’s team. "But if projects keep dissatisfying people, you have to provide change."
One key Coderre promise, however, is that he will not follow on Plante's suggestion to disarm some police officers. It’s a position advanced by many supporters of the Black Lives Matter movement in response to repeated incidents of shootings involving citizens, particularly visible minorities.
"There's no way we'll disarm police. No way," Coderre said.
Coderre said today's announcement will be followed by more of what he described as surprises and that will be part of his platform to retake City Hall.
For now, though, he's keeping his cards close to him.
