et maintenant, de bonnes nouvelles / and now, some good news
November 6, 2017 5:30 PM   Subscribe

Valérie Plante a été élue maire de Montréal. Elle est la première femme à occuper cette fonction.
Valérie Plante has been elected as mayor of Montréal. She is the first woman to hold this office.

Plante is the leader of Project Montréal, a party formed in 2004 by environmental activists. They are described as centre-left, and advocates of sustainable urbanism. Among her key campaign promises was a vow to expand the metro.

This election marks the departure from office, and politics, of incumbent mayor Denis Coderre, who doesn't like pit bulls.

Val Plante is understandably jubilant.
posted by mrjohnmuller (15 comments total) 10 users marked this as a favorite
 
She's the right man for the job!

Congrats to Val and to Montréal. I'm jealous that they got (and elected) such a great candidate.
posted by thecjm at 6:20 PM on November 6, 2017 [1 favorite]


For the issue of breed specific legislation alone, I am thrilled to see Projet Montreal win.

They're good dogs, Danny.
posted by Kurichina at 6:36 PM on November 6, 2017


But, as The Beaverton quips, she's got no experience with corruption!
posted by scruss at 6:38 PM on November 6, 2017 [5 favorites]


Some French-speaking people on my Mastodon instance were really excited about this election this morning. Glad to see an explanation with a bunch of links. It wasn't on my radar at all.
posted by nangar at 7:07 PM on November 6, 2017 [1 favorite]


Félicitations!
posted by The Underpants Monster at 7:17 PM on November 6, 2017 [1 favorite]


My Montreal (and Quebec City) friends and I are ecstatic about this. Lots of all caps, exclamation points and “fuck yeah”s exchanged over text messaging yesterday. It feels like relief from a “everything is going to hell and nothing can be done about it” mood. The fact that it happened is also convincing at least one close friend to seriously consider running for municipal or provincial office.

Here’s a great funny short interview with our new mayor from a few weeks ago during the campaign (in French).
posted by vert canard at 7:22 PM on November 6, 2017 [2 favorites]


My old councilor, Marvin Rotrand, has been reelected! He's been on the council since 1982!
posted by Monday, stony Monday at 7:23 PM on November 6, 2017 [2 favorites]


Project Montreal has swept or almost swept most central districts (Plateau, Ville-Marie, Sud-Ouest, RoPePa) as well as Île-Bizard-Ste-Geneviève. Coderre carried Montréal-Nord, Rivière-des-Prairies/Pointe-aux-Trembles, St-Laurent and St-Léonard, while Anjou has been taken by "Équipe Anjou" and Lasalle by Manon Barbe's team.
posted by Monday, stony Monday at 7:35 PM on November 6, 2017 [2 favorites]


Wait wait -- I'm partway through the interview linked by vert canard and she's pointing to Toronto and it's one-day-real-soon-now Relief Line as an example of better transit planning? Are we really all that fucked? Or is the orange line so disastrous that we look good? (Or has my French comprehension faded that much?)

One tiny hint: you want a tramway? DON'T GET BOMBARDIER INVOLVED IN ANY WAY WHATSOEVER.
posted by maudlin at 7:37 PM on November 6, 2017 [2 favorites]


DON'T GET BOMBARDIER INVOLVED IN ANY WAY WHATSOEVER

It's Quebec, I don't think they even get the choice.

But more importantly, how does Val Plante feel about the Canadiens? Coderre wasn't shy about expressing opinions about the team.
posted by Ashwagandha at 7:44 PM on November 6, 2017 [1 favorite]


She seems delightful but she's made some reeeeallly ambitious and expensive promises. Holy cow. And she'll need to dismantle organized crime while she's at it. Go get'em Val!
posted by ThatCanadianGirl at 7:51 PM on November 6, 2017


Oh I can't wait for the next big city mayors' meeting, whatever they're called. Can you imagine Valerie Plante and Naheed Nenshi at the same breakfast meeting? That would be hilarious.
posted by ThatCanadianGirl at 7:55 PM on November 6, 2017 [1 favorite]


Not just Valérie Plante but 7 of 18 borough mayors in Montreal (including my new borough mayor) are women. I couldn’t be happier with Projet Montréal doing so well and I’m thrilled to see more women in positions of power.
posted by Cuke at 8:09 PM on November 6, 2017 [5 favorites]


Oh I can't wait for the next big city mayors' meeting, whatever they're called. Can you imagine Valerie Plante and Naheed Nenshi at the same breakfast meeting?

The Rebel Media would have a field day with that. I can already hear the spin machine kicking into high gear. Something something pipeline something Muslim something something environmentalist something transfer payments.
posted by jonnay at 10:01 AM on November 7, 2017 [1 favorite]


This was real life turtle and the hare, incumbent mayor was so sure of its reelection he didn't bother to campaign until the very end.

I'm still not sure they actually expected to be elected until the end, hence the optimistic engagements. It looked more like stating "we want things to go this way".

But whatever engagements they manage to fulfill it's much better than pumping money into a stadium for a baseball team or giving freebies to our insanely profitable hockey team.
posted by WaterAndPixels at 4:44 PM on November 7, 2017


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