By Tracey Arial
In his first speech as mayor-elect, Denis Coderre spoke about his plans to fight for any Montrealer who needs him.
“I will be the mayor of all Montrealers, all Montrealers. I’m going to make sure that I will be their leader. I’m going to make sure that in any occasion, I’m going to stand for any Montrealer who needs services, who faces injustices or who faces discrimination…I’m going to be there for you.”
He also spoke about his plans to clean up city hall, in part by encouraging city employees to speak out about injustices.
“I’m going to make sure that we do all that we can do to make sure that this city will works again, and I feel that the employees will be part of that solution, so I’m sending a message, I’m going to be there for you too.”
Wearing a red poppy on his lapel to signify his support for veterans just ahead of Remembrance Day next week, Montreal’s mayor-elect also spoke about his pact to defend all Montrealers, whether they voted for him or not.
“We are going to forget all personal attacks…we’re going to work with ideas today…even adversaries won’t be adversaries for me, today…we are all Montrealers.”
With a minority of seats on city council, Coderre will need support of other councillors, whether from Projet Montreal or the Vrai changement pour Montréal.
The final count wasn’t yet completed when I posted this, but with 4,358 out of 4,539 polls reporting, Coderre received 32% of the vote. Mélanie Joly got 26.5% and Richard Bergeron got 25.7%.
Even with a clear four-way race, municipal politics still failed to engage most Montrealers. Only 41.33% of the people who had the right to vote chose to do so. There were 455,496 votes cast and 11,855 ballots were rejected.
Sources:
To see the version of the speech I saw, check out:
My source for the ballot information is http://www.resultats-election-montreal.ca/index.en.html, which I verified at 9:30, Nov. 4. I suspect that they’ll update it with all the polls as the day progresses.
Coderre’s election website was also updated at 10:40 a.m. with:
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