Legality stunts megacity race

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by George Maddux

Although the first ever election in the megacity of Montreal is slated for Nov. 4, parties aren't allowed to campaign until two months after the election. That's because the new one-island city will be born Jan. 1, 2002 and Quebec law doesn't allow for political parties in areas that don't yet exist. But that hasn't stopped Mayor Bourque from gladhanding among the suburbs, much to the chagrin of the opposition.

"I'm not sure he has the right to campaign outside of the current Montreal--that's unclear," says opposition councillor Marvin Rotrand. "Bourque's team says that if anybody in the suburbs gives them money, they're going to hold onto the cheques and cash them after the provincial minister changes the law. Let's not forget Bourque is a guy with a serious history of violating fundraising rules."

While Bourque visited the suburbs last Thursday, Rotrand held a meeting attended by 200 at Ruby Foo's in which longtime MUC chief Vera Danyluk all but announced that she would be running for mayor. But in her carefully worded speech, Danyluk avoided committing herself to the race.

Rotrand defends Danyluk's waffling by saying that "what she's saying is that she's willing to submit to a leadership contest." Although Rotrand's Democratic Coalition and Michel Prescott's MCM have together urged other Bourque opponents to form a single, united opposition, a third hopeful, Gerald Tremblay, announced his candidacy this week. In a fiery pro-Danyluk speech, NDG councillor Jeremy Searle denounced Tremblay as a "Bourque clone."