Mayoral hopeful Denis Coderre releases 'Montreal for all' platform ahead of fall election
Montreal mayoral hopeful Denis Coderre released his platform Monday ahead of the fall election, with wide-ranging promises on issues from housing and the environment, to public safety.
Speaking on the 31st floor of Montreal’s famous rotating restaurant, Portus 360, Coderre outlined his vision for the city over the next 25 years, if voters choose him as mayor.
“We’re not for the next election only. We’re running to make sure that we are planning for the next generation,” Coderre said with a panoramic view of the island behind him.
He said he’s running again because there is a lack of leadership at city hall and the current administration has neglected Montreal’s “sense of metropolis” that he said he will bring back to the city.
Part of the plan is to lure more people to live and work downtown, that has seen a dramatic drop in foot traffic in the last 18 months of the pandemic and businesses closing their doors for good.
He also promises to create a “quality commitment charter” to make sure public transit is punctual, clean, and safe for users and to submit timelines to a monitoring committee for large-scale transit projects, such as the Blue line expansion project.
His Ensemble Montreal team spoke Monday about the importance of fighting climate change and vowed to plant a tree on every street and to transform the city’s east end into a “green Silicon Valley” in Quebec “with green businesses, eco-responsible housing and development focused on the social and circular economy.”
The Coderre administration also said it would seek UNESCO designation for Mount Royal.
Coderre also pledged to hold landlords more accountable by creating a lease registry and to require owners to do an independent inspection of unsanitary conditions in buildings that are more than 20 years old.
“We can't wait for the people most in need to know the process of the city to report to us an absolutely terrifying problem,” said Guillaume Lavoie, co-chair of the Ensemble Montreal electoral platform.
Coderre's biggest opponent, incumbent mayor Valerie Plante, also released her campaign pledge on the housing file Monday, promising to create a landlord certificate to put an end to so-called renovictions and to keep rental prices down. The Projet Montreal party stated the certification would be required for landlords who have buildings with eight or more units, which translates to roughly 216,000 units across the city.
Where Plante and Coderre are on the same page is body cameras for police officers. Coderre has been a longtime defender of police body cameras since he believes they can rebuild trust between officers and the community they serve.
If elected, Montreal police patrol officers would wear body cameras within the first year of Coderre's mandate, said Guillaume Lavoie, a Ensemble Montreal mayoral candidate for Villeray-Saint-Michel-Parc-Extension.
Coderre was asked why so much of his platform touched on Montreal’s image as a bustling metropolis rather than things like homelessness and accessibility. He said he will devote more time later in the campaign to speak about those specific issues, but did suggest that making Montreal a more international city helps to fund other core social services.
“I think that we can think global and act local. It’s not one against each other. It’s one because of the other,” he said.
“If you want to distribute wealth, you have to create it … If you want to be relevant again and create that wealth you need to have an international strategy because Montreal is an international city.”
He’s hoping to take his “Montreal for all” message to voters as they prepare to head back to the polls on Nov. 7.
CTVNews.ca Top Stories
DEVELOPING Slovakia's populist prime minister shot in assassination attempt, shocking Europe before elections
The Slovak defence minister says doctors are fighting for the life of the country's prime minister, who was shot multiple times after a political event Wednesday afternoon.
Transport Canada's UFO 'lead' planned to meet with U.S. intel officials, called info requests a 'wild goose chase'
Canada's transportation department had a UFO 'lead' who tried to 'quell' media interest and planned to meet with U.S. intelligence officials.
'Very expensive lunch': Sask. driver handed a cell phone ticket for using points app in McDonald's drive-thru
A warning from a Saskatoon driver about using your fast-food app while in the drive-thru line — a trip to get some free lunch cost him a lot more than he bargained for.
'The Fly' has become notorious in France after a brazen escape. What's his criminal history?
A prisoner nicknamed “The Fly” has become notorious in France overnight after a daring and bloody escape from a prison convoy in Normandy that left two guards dead.
BREAKING Ontario's 'crypto king' Aiden Pleterski arrested
Aiden Pleterski, the self-proclaimed 'crypto king' from Whitby, Ont., has been arrested in Durham Region after allegedly running a Ponzi scheme worth more than $40 million.
BREAKING Barge hits a bridge in Texas, damaging the structure and causing an oil spill
A barge slammed into a bridge pillar in Galveston, Texas, on Wednesday, spilling oil into surrounding waters and closing the only road to a smaller and separate island that is home to a university, officials said. There were no immediate reports of injuries.
Person responsible for 1996 drugging of 'Titanic' crew likely not a local: Halifax police
Halifax Regional Police believe a non-resident could be responsible for the infamous drugging of numerous crew members of the 'Titanic' movie with a hallucinogenic in 1996.
Latest updates on the biggest wildfires burning in Canada
Thousands of people in Western Canada remain displaced from their homes as wildfires threaten their communities, triggering evacuation orders and alerts.
OPINION If you think you can’t focus for long, you’re right: Sandee LaMotte
Regaining your focus requires you to be mindful of how you are using technology -- a daunting task if you consider the average American spends at least 10 hours a day on screens.