Chantal Rouleau new mayor of Rivière-des-Prairies-Pointe-aux-Trembles

Vision Montréal leader Louise Harel with victorious RDP-PAT mayoral candidate Chantal Rouleau (photo: Vision Montréal).

Rivière-des-Prairies–Pointe-aux-Trembles now has a new borough mayor with Chantal Rouleau’s victory in last week’s by-election. With this gain, Vision Montreal now commands both the local mayorship and a majority of seats on the local borough council. The election results are as follows:

Chantal Rouleau (Vision) ——- 4,885 (40.7%)
Barbara Pisani (Union) ———- 4,167 (34.7%)
Colette Paul (Projet) ————- 2,100 (17.5%)
André Bélisle (Ind.) ————— 843 (7.03%)

The most notable aspect of the results was the abysmal turnout: 15.8% of eligible voters. Voter participation in municipal by-elections is notoriously low but generally it is above at least 20%.

When the results are broken down to the neighbourhood level there are wide discrepancies in the candidats’ scores, which has traditionally been the case in the borough. Rouleau won comfortably in la Pointe-aux-Prairies and won a near-landslide in Pointe-aux-Trembles, gaining 54% of the vote and beating Pisani into 4th place. Pisani scored 66.5% in Rivière des Prairies but this wasn’t enough to counter balance her dismal scores elsewhere in the borough. As for Paul, her best showing was in in Pointe-aux-Trembles where she came in second with 23.2% of the vote.

So what does this say about the current state of the parties?  It’s always dangerous to put too much significance on by-election results, but some observations can be made. Most importantly, the low turnout shows continued disinterest and/or cynicism in municipal politics. No party was able to mobilise the electorate and there was little interest in the campaign. Montreal’s newest borough mayor will be entering office with the support of 6.4% of eligible voters, which does not bode well.

This defeat of Barabara Pisani also shows that Mayor Tremblay and Union Montreal are slipping. Given low turnouts, the main goal candidates have in by-elections is to get as many of their normal supporters out on polling day. Historically Union has been the party with the most well-oiled electoral machine and they also came into this race with the most money in the bank. Even with a significant organisational advantage they just were not able to get their supporters out.

Rouleau’s victory makes it seem that Vision Montreal might still have some life left in it. The party came out of the last election heavily in debt and having performed poorly outside of PQ-leaning parts of the city. Since the last election the party hasn’t had a clear direction, and has often been overshadowed in opposition by Projet Montréal. This by-election was occurring in territory where they had a reasonable chance of winning, so Vision’s victory should not be interpreted as a a major gain. Nevertheless, the fact that they were able to pull it off shows that they are at least holding on to the support they won in the last election even if they aren’t progressing.

As for Projet Montreal, they maintained their score from the general election which is respectable given that this suburban borough is very much not their natural territory. For them, the next election will play in the central neighbourhoods and they don’t necessarily need to win in places like RDP-PAT to win in a general election.