Ste. Geneviève byelection independent candidate Éric Dugas has sent a complaint letter to the Directeur Général des Élections (DGE) to protest borough mayor Richard Bélanger’s public appraisal of Union Montréal candidate Philippe Voisard at the Robert Sauvé Park inauguration on Sunday, Aug. 22.
After having praised Voisard’s work in the development of Robert Sauvé Park, Bélanger expressed the hope that residents would allow him to start working for them again as councillor after the election at the inauguration party last week. Notary Dugas who got to the event shortly after the mayor’s speech was told by attendees what had been said. He decided to file an official complaint to the DGE.
“The mayor took advantage of this event to promote the candidacy of Philippe Voisard, who is of the same party (Union Montréal). That’s when things went bad. You cannot use an apolitical event, which is paid for by the borough, to promote a candidate in an election. If you do, this has got to be counted as an electoral expense,” said Dugas.
Mayor Bélanger was not impressed by Dugas’ complaint. He says he was in his right to make that declaration.
“I see no problem with what I did. It’s certain that when you are in the opposition you see problems everywhere but it’s clear that my candidate is Philippe Voisard. I was certainly not going to tell the people to vote against him,” he said.
Asked by the Chronicle if he would do the same thing again if he had the chance, Bélanger answered his declaration at Robert Sauvé Park was a combination of circumstances.
“In that affair (Robert Sauvé Park inauguration) the person in charge was Philippe Voisard. If I go to another event that has nothing to do with Philippe Voisard, I don’t need to talk about him. In this affair however, he was the one that worked hard to revamp this park and I would have regretted not to have said anything about his excellent work,” he said.
The DGE has confirmed that it has received Dugas’ complaint letter and is currently studying the case to see what measures could be taken.
