By Tracey Arial
www.thesuburban.com
Election fever is beginning to take over Verdun. Two days ago, Alain Tassé held the official launch of the Marcel Côté Coalition election team at a 5-à -7 at Benelux. Last Thursday, Denis Coderre finalized his Verdun team with the announcement of star candidate Sébastien Dhavernas and Mélanie Joly announced five of her candidates the same day. Projet Montreal finalized their team a week ago yesterday, when Dolores Durbau was elected during the opening of their campaign office at 4354 Verdun.
The two other candidates for mayor, Andrée Champoux and Richard Langlois, are still waiting for their parties to be authorized by the Directeur général des élections du Québec.
Champoux has announced that her team will include pharmacist Jacques Gendron, Carole Anctil and Béatrice Guay Pepper, the CEO of l’Ordre des chiropraticiens du Québec. Langlois hasn’t yet announced what he’ll do now that Tassé’s team has managed to work out a deal with the local Vision Montreal team.
In fact, at his official launch, Alain Tassé confirmed that his team will include two prominent Vision candidates. André Julien, the local president of Vision Montreal, will run as city councillor in the Champlain–Nuns’ Island district. Francoise Gloutnay, who used to be a local organizer for Projet Montreal but quit that party to join Vision Montreal, plans to run for city councillor in Desmarchais Crawford. Other candidates include Paul Beaupré, who plans to run for re-election as borough councillor in Champlain Nuns’ Island and tennis pro Jean-Pierre Boivin who also plans to run for borough councillor in Champlain Nuns’ Island. Monique Trudel, the founder of Bouger Wellington, a gym for disabled people and the woman appointed Grand Verdunoise in 2012 and illustrator Rielle Lesvesque both plan to run for borough council seats in Desmarchais Crawford.
They’ll all have a challenging race now. Last Thursday, Denis Coderre announced that actor comedian director Sébastien Dhavernas will run as a star candidate in the district of Desmarchais-Crawford. Dhavernas last participated in politics in 2008, when he ran for the Federal Liberals in Outremont.
Dhavernas joins several other candidates to complete the Coderre team in Verdun. Running for mayor is Jean-François Parenteau, a real-estate agent in LaSalle plus a sports-store co-owner and former Vision Montreal candidate. Manon Gauthier, the former Segal Centre CEO, plans to run for city councillor in Champlain–Nuns’ Island, while Dawson College history teacher Pierre L’Heureux and Marie-Eve Brunet, cep of Action prévention Verdun, will run for borough councillors in the same area. Notary Michelle Tremblay and bookstore owner Philippe Sarrazin will run for borough councillors in Crawford-Desmarchais.
Mélanie Joly also announced five people on her Verdun team last week. Architect Mourad Bendjennet will be running for mayor, while Marie-Josée Parent, Mathieu Bélanger, Jacline Leroux and Stéphanie Raymond-Bougie will run as councillors.
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