Since Melanie Joly’s meteoric run for the mayoralty in the 2013 municipal elections, Montrealers have been wondering who will fill the “third way” position − in French: “la 3e voie”.
(Disclaimer: I was elected in 2013 thanks to Joly’s magnetic pull, especially in the outer, mainly anglophone boroughs of Montreal.)
Each election is a whole new deck of cards – some of the players have been shuffled out, new ones have been shuffled in. The electorate too has undoubtedly changed, due to shifts in opinion; and after four years, there are new concerns and fresh issues to tackle. Whatever tactics may have worked the last time around are unlikely to work again.
When I announced in March of this year that Vrai Changement was folding, that left a gap for a new contender to step in. And there was plenty of jostling happening behind the scenes. By the time the clock ran out for tabling candidacies, it had produced an unlikely partnership between two men who have little in common ideologically: Marc-Antoine Desjardins, who in spite of his passion for cycling and greenery is decidedly on the right end of the political spectrum, and Balarama Holness, better known for his stance on rooting out systemic racism in the City. Their positions on policing were divergent, Desjardins calling for reinforcing policing and Holness calling for investing in social programs instead.
Perhaps even more blatantly, their contrasting positions on the language issue highlight their underlying ideological differences. When Holness stood in front of reporters last Tuesday to announce that under his administration, he would hold a public consultation with a view to establishing Montreal as a bilingual city, Desjardins, standing to his side, maintained his position that Montreal should retain its status as a French-language metropolis, a position he plans to campaign on.
Coherency within a party matters. It matters because an election is a referendum: it’s an opportunity for Montrealers to decide whose vision will prevail – who gets to run the city. If the vision being presented by a party is contradictory, the electorate does not know what they’re voting for. It’s a bit like getting the “roll again” card in Monopoly: you haven’t advanced any further than you were before rolling the dice.
“Neither French nor English, neither for funding nor de-funding the police, it’s an uncomfortable middle-ground that risks frustrating and alienating both sides.”
When Holness launched Mouvement Montreal, he established his party as a left-leaning, social justice movement promoting diversity in city representation. That’s a position that you can agree or disagree with; either way, it has the merit of being crystal clear. It would appear that his fusion with Desjardin’s Ralliement pour Montréal has provoked some internal roiling, leading to a public statement that is half one thing and fifty percent its opposite. Neither French nor English, neither for funding nor de-funding the police, it’s an uncomfortable middle-ground that risks frustrating and alienating both sides.
As this campaign wears on, it will become increasingly difficult to defend. When pressed, Holness loses patience and prefers to shift focus to more comfortable terrain – housing, economic development. But he will continue to be pressed, because we are in an election, and electors have a right to clarity from their candidates. Irritability does not bode well for a mayoral candidate – if Holness does become Mayor, he can expect far more pressure from the media than what he’s had to deal with to date.
By proposing a referendum on the linguistic status of our city, it appears that Holness has taken up once again the tired strategy of dividing the electorate into “us” and “them”, with the inevitable damage that comes with it, rather than rallying Montrealers around a common vision, one that is so badly needed as we pull together to get through this pandemic.
– Justine McIntyre is a former Montreal City Councillor and former party leader of Vrai Changement Montreal. Currently completing a Masters in Management and Sustainability, she provides municipal political commentary for ICI-Premiere and for CJAD800.
Afterword Since writing this opinion piece, it has come to my attention that Mr. Holness has become a target for hateful, racist comments and threats from what I can only hope to be a small fraction of the population. While I fully support vigorously pressing candidates on their public positions, I strongly condemn personal attacks of this nature. Those who make them should be reported to public authorities and subjected to laws relating to hate crime.