by PATRICK LEJTENYI

Get ready for a month of sniping, bitching, mud slinging and baby-kissing, kiddies, because election fever is here! And not just in Montreal: voters in 1,100 municipalities across the province are heading to the polls—and that includes the 15 new (old) municipalities on our own island, after they gave the finger to Pierre Bourque’s “One Island, One City” diktat and chose via referenda to demerge come this Jan. 1. They are, from west to east: Ste-Anne-de-Bellevue, Senneville, Baie d’Urfé, Kirkland, Beaconsfield, Pointe Claire, DDO, Dorval, Dorval Island, Côte-St-Luc, Mo’ West, Hampstead, TMR, Westmount and Montreal East.

Which of these boroughs is not like the others? Yes, the last one—Montreal East. This predominantly francophone borough is the only former city where la langue de Molière predominates among the rebels. They join their unlikely allies, anglo suburbanites, who have expressed their displeasure at being lumped in with the unwashed masses, in choosing to go back to running their own show. Adieux, chers amis!

This will probably spare the two front-runners, incumbent Gérald Tremblay (Union Party—UCIM) and former mayor Pierre Bourque (Vision Montreal) some uncomfortable campaigning in places where neither of them are welcome.

• For those of us who still care about elections but can’t be bothered to read the reams of newspaper articles about them every day, TV will, as always, provide us with our fix. So far only two debates are scheduled: one in French, on Oct. 27 (7:30 p.m., RDI), the other in English on Oct. 30 (CFCF, 6:30 p.m.). Be warned: these things may be boring. Beer and/or pot may liven up your evening.

• Speaking of debates, one of the highlights of the 2001 campaign was the crashing of a Tremblay-Bourque debate organized by the West Island Chronicle by Michel Bédard, of the White Elephant Party. Furious that he hadn’t been invited, Bédard burst into the hotel ballroom where the conference was being held and was forcibly ejected by security goons, making headlines across the city. Bédard says his suit against the Chronicle will be heard in court on Oct. 26 and 27—just a week-and-a-half before this year’s election.

Meanwhile, Bédard is a busy man. On Tuesday morning, just prior to speaking to Election Notebook, he says he had just found someone to stand for a riding in Montreal North. He is still recruiting: he says he has 20 candidates lined up, but hopes to field 50 by November.

• Pierre Bourque has already lost two candidates, for supposed personal reasons. One is Bernard Tisseur, and if Tisseur’s name is familiar, and it shouldn’t be, it’s because in 1993 he was considering challenging then-Lachine mayor Guy Dicaire for the top job. But Tisseur quit the race, taking a $17-an-hour job as a blue-collar instead, which led Dicaire’s critics to claim the mayor got his rival the position. That spring, Tisseur’s fellow blue-collars, reportedly angry at the patronage position, beat him with a rake handle. Tisseur quit his job, and told the Gazette that he “should have run for mayor.”

• Let’s slam Bourque: A few weeks ago, UCIM veteran councillor “Marvellous” Marvin Rotrand called up Election Notebook to extol the virtues of his party’s progressive platform. While the Notebook was closed at the time, MR was gracious enough to grant a repeat interview along the same lines. From the horse’s mouth, here’s what Team Tremblay is, apparently, down with: housing (they met their target of 5,200 units of social/affordable housing in four years, compared to the 3,000 over seven years by the previous administration); the environment (Tremblay will be spending some $45-million on preserving greenspace, including the Île Bizard forest and Angel Wood in Beaconsfield, while Bourque did exactly “nothing, nada”); public transit (under the current regime, hours of service for certain bus and metro lines were increased, as was the share of the city’s funding, and extensive renovations to stations are underway. And thanks to the mayor’s efforts, the city got a massive cash injection by lobbying the feds); and water (according to Rotrand, Bourque said in 1994 that $25-million would be needed to bring our shoddy water pipes up to scratch. It was never spent. But the Tremblay administration commissioned a private study and found out, horror of horrors, some $10-billion—that’s with a “B”—was needed. A special $45-million-a-year fund’s been set up to cover the cost, and water meters are being installed in commerces and businesses).

Note: Election Notebook is not, at this point or perhaps ever, endorsing a candidate. Vision Montreal will respond to these assertions and with luck will sling mud of their own next week!