Projet Montréal is the second party, after Équipe Denis Coderre, to complete its team in Côte-des-Neiges—Notre-Dame-de-Grâce. Dr. Kianoush Rashidan will be running in the Darlington district.
“This is a very strong team built around a strong borough mayoral candidate in Michael Simkin,” said party leader Richard Bergeron during the press conference.
Bergeron said he’s equally pleased with the complete six-member slate’s diversity. “We always try to find the right equilibrium, and I’m very satisfied with the team that we’ve put together in CDN-NDG,” he said.
A lecturer at Université du Québec à Montréal (UQAM), Rashidan has been an involved member of the Darlington community ever since moving to the district from Iran in 1994. He hopes to campaign on what he considers to be the four most important principles: integrity, compassion, energy and honesty. « I intend to represent the citizens of Darlington with honesty and efficiency. I’ll work with the Projet Montréal team to restore integrity to the CDN-NDG borough. Citizens deserve a government that will listen and respond to their needs, » said Rashidan. “Integrity is a rare commodity in politicians today. In the academic world where I work, you have nothing if you don’t have your integrity – it’s key.”
Rashidan will be running against Équipe Denis Coderre’s Lionel Perez and Coalition Montréal’s Érik Hamon.
The other Projet Montréal CDN-NDG councillor candidates are Peter McQueen (Notre-Dame-de-Grâce), Magda Popeanu (Côte-des-Neiges), Sarah Gutman (Snowdon) and Christian Arseneault (Loyola).
Housing
Dr. Rashidan considers housing to be one of the most important issues in Darlington.
Projet Montréal’s mayoral candidate in the borough, Michael Simkin, also listed dignified housing as the top priority in Darlington. He says that Projet Montréal will be able to make changes so that citizens can “hold the landlords accountable for maintaining properties.”
This is the party’s second candidate for councillor in the Darlington district – Sujata Dey previously withdrew from the race for personal reasons. « We respect her decision,” said Peter Deslauriers, Projet Montréal’s CDN-NDG coordinator.
