Liberals launch local election campaign

At a press conference last Friday during which all four local riding Liberal MNAs re-announced their candidacy, they tried to appear re-assuring about their relations with West Island municipal politicians.

"The four of us with the mayors all have good relations," Nelligan MNA and Immigration and Cultural Communities Minister Yolande James said.

In 2007, when provincial elections were held in March, it was to the surprise of many that some West Island mayors, including Ste. Anne de Bellevue's Bill Tierney and Baie d'Urfé's Maria Tutino, publicly supported the opposition Action Démocratique du Québec in order to voice their objections over what they perceived as unfair treatment of demerged cities by the Montreal agglomeration council.

However, the Liberal MNAs said they expected no such behaviour this time. "They were very angry at the time in 2007," said Marquette incumbent François Ouimet. "All four of us sat down at the table and worked very hard," he said. "We can understand that the mayors have to put pressure on us," he added.

Though provisions for Bill 22, a provincial piece of legislation revising the division of powers between the Montreal agglomeration council and demerged municipalities, were agreed upon by all parties last summer, some bones of contention still remain, such as double taxation for water for some municipalities.

Jacques Cartier MNA Geoffrey Kelley acknowledged the outstanding issue, stating he would like to see the city of Montreal adopt more modern water management principles.

Right now, the agglomeration divides water taxation equally among all municipal bodies in the island. Thus, even those towns that do not use water provided by Montreal, such as Pointe Claire, Baie d'Urfé, Beaconsfield, Kirkland and parts of Dollard des Ormeaux, all get billed by Montreal regardless.

Kelley said someone who lives alone and clearly uses much less water than an entire family household should not have to pay the same amount of water.

Much of the remaining conference focused on general issues rather than ones touching the West Island. When the much-bandied about issue of Liberals taking the anglophone vote for granted was brought up, Kelley responded by reminding the room they had done a great deal for English institutions such as John Abbott College or McGill University.

Ouimet focused on the economy. "What we are proposing to Quebec taxpayers is to increase the minimum wage by a dollar," he explained, before presenting four other economic measures promised by the Charest government, including a promise on giving young families who are buying their first homes an opportunity to use their RRSP funds for the purchase.

Robert Baldwin incumbent Pierre Marsan praised party leader Jean Charest as a man with both vision and the ability to implement action plans, necessary traits to lead the province through tough economic times. "Who else will be able to do it?" He asked, wondering what a province led by Mario Dumont or Pauline Marois would look like.

As of press time, very few candidates for other parties have been named in the four West Island ridings. The Parti Québecois announced on Monday their West Island candidates are Olivier Gendreau in Jacques Cartier, Catherine Major in Marquette, Anaïs Valiquette-L'Heureux in Nelligan, and Alexandre Pagé-Chassé in Robert Baldwin.

The ADQ has not filed any candidate names, and the Green Party's only local candidate so far is Ryan Young in Jacques Cartier, who had run most recently in the federal elections as a Green in Pierrefonds-Dollard.

Young presented one of the most pressing issues of the election as the collapsing infrastructure in municipalities. He said municipalities are greatly under-funded in the province, and this needs to change. He also criticized the ADQ's plan to privatize Hydro Quebec.