Unveils green, senior-friendly platform
By Robert Frank
www.thesuburban.com
Taxes, transit and seniors are among the cornerstones of Parti au Service du citoyen’s (PSC) platform for Laval’s November municipal election.
Mayoral candidate Robert Bordeleau took the wraps off an ambitious, two-term policy guide, during a news conference, Aug. 21. The plan, entitled Toward a sustainable future, covers the city’s development through 2021.
“It’s a new way of thinking,” Bordeleau enthused afterward, in an interview with The Suburban. “Politics all over Quebec has to change. We have to be visionaries and that is why we intend to implement an eight-year plan. Even if I’m not reelected in four years, most of my team will be, and they will continue to pursue it.”
Bordeleau took it as a compliment that city hall has already adopted many of his previous proposals over the years.
“Even if a few parties create opposition for us in Laval, they will have to follow the guide, because we are citizen-oriented,” he said.
PSC is also advocating term-limits for elected representatives, joining Nouveau Parti des lavallois’ mayoral opponent Guy Landry in calling for measures that would help to keep politicians from becoming entrenched.
Green development
It has mapped out a network of 11 electricity-propelled tramway lines that would crisscross Île Jésus and link Laval with Montreal, the North Shore and the South Shore.
PSC also wants to turn about an eighth of the island’s territory into wetland and nature preserves. The green plan would entail buying three small, adjacent islands: St. Pierre, St. Joseph and Île aux Vaches.
Bordeleau said that the city’s surplus ought to give him room to trim taxes by five percent.
In addition, Chomedey district candidate Patricia Lagopatis told The Suburban that PSC will earmark three percent of the remaining property taxes to support organizations that help the needy, including Laval’s growing ranks of senior citizens.
Like all Laval’s political parties, PSC is calling for more transparency at city council and within day-to-day municipal administration.
PSC candidates put on a tight show of solidarity, after opponents dredged up a two-year-old tax dispute in which Bordeleau was the victim.
“It was probably a gimmick to divert attention from our great platform,” he quipped, after the accusations resurfaced in the news, a few hours before the news conference.
PSC will be looking for a new contender in Laval des Rapides district, after its candidate there Barek Kaddouri bailed out the following day.
The tax dispute was evidently not the reason that Kaddouri pulled the plug, as the Maroccan-born teacher—together with all other PSC city council candidates—signed a letter of support for Bordeleau right after the accusations began to fly, two weeks ago.
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