Mercier election fever

>> Will Plateau voters dump the PQ after 15-year streak?

by CRAIG SEGAL

As the Mercier by-election battle heats up, the Mirror raced around the Plateau's snowy sidewalks to interview the top five candidates in two days. Here's what we found.

Nathalie Rochefort (Liberal), who showed up wearing leather pants 25 minutes late for the interview in her riding office, comes across as a real hard rock. Despite her craggy exterior, Rochefort wants to make daycare more available to parents, improve social services and, like all the other candidates, eliminate poverty. Yet when asked whether she has any disagreements with semi-comatose Jean Charest, she briskly snaps, "Absolutely not." The former NDP member says she doesn't get out much with all the community work she does, but reads lots of science fiction and listens to old French crooners.

Paul Cliche (Independent), who showed up right on time for the interview at a Laurier café smoking ultra lights like the dickens, sees himself as the Left-wing alternative to the PQ candidate. He's an old separatist backed by 11 PQ members in the Mercier riding, the NDP, the Communist Party, the Green Party and other Leftists.

Cliche's referendum would ask Quebecers whether they want their province to be a grassroots democracy where citizens regularly vote on policy. Unless they vote yes, Cliche says, Quebec may as well stay in Canada. The former parliamentary correspondent for Le Devoir is for the legalization of pot and pumping big money into social services.

Cliche likes long walks, cross-country skiing, travelling, poetry and hanging out with his grandkids.

Claudel Toussaint (PQ) leaned really close for the interview in a chi-chi Mont-Royal café. The energized 40 year old got dropped into the PQ slot after Yves Michaud got yanked out of the race for making disparaging remarks about minorities.

Toussaint wants to be the "best representative Mercier ever had." He wants to protect cultural diversity and the environment, and increase affordable housing. He also wants to properly represent minorities in the Quebec civil service and increase immigration as "a way to enrich Quebec society." He would give gays equal rights and decriminalize pot for medical needs only.

[Ed's note: As of press time, Landry is reviewing Toussaint's candidacy after a past domestic-dispute incident was uncovered by Quebec women's groups.]

André Laroque (ADQ) is the only candidate who has someone else's face on his flyer--the studly leader of his party, Mario Dumont. "The first thing I'll do if I win is go to sleep for a day," Larocque says tiredly in his dark basement HQ on St-Joseph, his head resting heavily in his hand. Laroque spent most of the interview criticizing Bernard Landry ("People know the government is an electoral dictatorship") and praising Dumont. Interestingly, this robust right-of-centre candidate is for the legalization of soft drugs, and would give gays equal rights. "The more people love each other, the more you should give them kids, whoever they are." The Rock sums up his chances of winning thusly: "Based on the last election results, we're dead."

Pierre Audet (Bloc Pot) wears a red beret and Star Trek badge in his election flyer; he is waving to voters with a marijuana leaf growing out of his hand. Aside from the ever-present pro-pot talk, the bushy-eyebrowed Audet wants to cut public-transit funds in half and construct greenhouses on building tops so that "Montreal will look like a garden from the sky." He'd pipe the heat generated from the plants under the roads to melt snow and ice. The electrician says poetic things like, "Mother Earth is a spaceship and human beings are in mutiny aboard her." Or, if you prefer, "Canada is a cow where the milk of democracy leaks, and we must admit that it's in Quebec where we find the cream of freedom of expression."

If you're not on the voters' list, register in person by April 4 at 201 Laurier E. Remember to bring two pieces of ID with your address and photo. If you don't have any ID with your address, bring a copy of your lease or a phone, electricity or gas bill with your name and address on it. Call 279-2030 to see if you're on the list