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
Nissan warns owners of older vehicles not to drive them due to risk of exploding air bag inflators
Nissan is urging the owners of about 84,000 older vehicles to stop driving them because their Takata air bag inflators have an increased risk of exploding in a crash and hurling dangerous metal fragments.
Tessa Virtue reveals she's expecting her first child. Here's what Canadians had to say
Canadian figure-skating icon Tessa Virtue is expecting her first child, she revealed via social media Tuesday.
P.E.I. kiteboarder 'lucky to be alive' after shark attack in Turks and Caicos
A professional kiteboarder from P.E.I. says he has been seriously injured in a shark attack that occurred while he was snorkelling in the Turks and Caicos Islands last week.
'Scandals and secrets': On board the world's most exclusive private residential ship
It’s a floating city exclusively home to the 1 per cent, a playground for multimillionaires and billionaires that circumnavigates the world's oceans.
What weather experts say to expect this summer in Canada
Get ready to feel the heat, Canada. Weather experts are predicting more sunshine and warmer temperatures for the summer.
Canada announces $11B for military aircraft training
Canada has announced an $11.2-billion contract to improve training platforms for the military, including the purchase of 70 training aircraft for the Future Aircrew Training program.
CNN Exclusive: A federal grand jury may soon hear from Sean 'Diddy' Combs' accusers
Federal investigators are preparing to bring accusers of music mogul Sean "Diddy" Combs before a federal grand jury, two sources familiar with the probe tell CNN — signaling the U.S. Justice Department is moving toward potentially seeking an indictment of Combs.
In bizarre provocation, North Korea flies trash, manure balloons over the South
North Korea flew hundreds of balloons carrying trash and manure toward South Korea in one of its most bizarre provocations against its rival in years, prompting the South’s military to mobilize chemical and explosive response teams to recover objects and debris in different parts of the country.
Fire outside Fort McMurray now under control, says Alberta Wildfire
The fire that prompted the evacuation of several neighbourhoods in Fort McMurray earlier in May was classified as under control on Tuesday.