François Legault and Justin Trudeau have been in poll free fall for several months and will long remember 2023. For the two prime ministers, it was undoubtedly their annus horribilis.
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We also have to add Valérie Plante to the list. For the mayor of Montreal, in the middle of her second term, last year felt like the end of the regime. According to the latest Léger personality barometer, 53% of respondents even said they had a bad opinion of Ms. Plante.
All major cities have their problems, but the metropolis of Quebec seems to be suffering greatly.
The rise in homelessness there is shocking. Poverty and food insecurity are also spreading among the middle class.
The housing crisis, which is not unrelated to homelessness, is worse than ever. This week, the mayor vowed that she had been worried about this before anyone else since 2017.
Yet even in 2019, Valérie Plante, like the CAQ minister of municipal affairs, still denied the existence of a housing crisis in Montreal. Hence the long period of inaction on this sensitive front.
In 2023, the scandal over unbridled spending broke out in the Office de Consultation Publique de Montréal. We learned that some of the mayor's relatives were nesting there, including the very influential Dominique Ollivier.
Ms. Plante actually protected her for ten long days while the scandal continued unabated. All this showed that a mayor was incapable of distinguishing the preservation of a friendship from the proper management of public resources.
decadence
We see the city is dirty. Not everywhere, but more and more. As it happens – 2024 is a year before the election – the mayor has also just realized that the annual saga of unicy sidewalks and hundreds of falls by Montrealers requires her intervention.
The advanced state of decay in the Latin Quarter, home to a major French-speaking university, is shameful. The high concentration of human misery, violence and extreme filth that his government has allowed to exist there instead of reducing it is a veritable humanitarian crisis.
Among the heartbroken traders closing shop there, the owner of the restaurant Le Passé Composé has put his finger on the problem. The conclusion is devastating: the neighborhood is crumbling under “unprecedented decadence.” I repeat: “unprecedented decadence.”
Which saint should we dedicate ourselves to?
Mayor Plante no longer knows which path to take to get back on track and starts poorly built projects. While the Latin Quarter is dying, she announces a billion dollars over 10 years to “revitalize” downtown Montreal.
However, the devil is in the details. In a so-called French-speaking city, the idea of renaming the ruined Latin Quarter the “Francophonie Quarter” is absurd.
The same goes for the stunning project to create an area open 24 hours a day. As if there wasn't already enough violence and dirt there day and night.
In short, the entire work of Valérie Plante and her government is increasingly disappointing. So why should we be surprised when there are some possible names floating around for the 2025 mayoral race?
At the moment we mostly hear this from Dominique Anglade, the former leader of the Liberal Party of Quebec. It might not be the idea of the century to contrast a business-oriented vision with that of a mayor whose progressivism is all too often just a façade.
One thing is certain. If Ms. Plante fails to regain the trust of increasingly disappointed Montrealers in the coming months, other names will emerge sometime between now and 2025.