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Parti Montréal Ville-Marie candidates join race
Article mis en ligne le jeudi 28 mai 2009

	Photo Courtoisie
	The leader of Parti Montréal Ville-Marie, Louise O’Sullivan, with her candidates (from the left) : Joey Strizzi, Sergio Borja, Guillaume Benoit-Gagné and Francine Brodeur.

The race is on for the November 1st municipal elections, as the leader of Parti Montréal Ville-Marie and aspiring Montreal mayor, Louise O’Sullivan, announced her party’s candidates in Côte-des-NeigesNDG on May 15.
O'Sullivan was a member of the Montreal executive committee under Mayor Gérald Tremblay’s Union Montréal party from 2002 to 2004. She quit to sit as an independent in 2005 and ran for mayor of the Ville-Marie borough that same year with the Équipe Ville-Marie party, which she’s since transformed into the city-wide Parti Montréal Ville-Marie.
O’Sullivan also ran unsuccessfully for the Conservative Party in the 2006 federal election in the Liberal stronghold riding of Westmount-Ville-Marie. She founded the job placement firm Personnel Jacques Cartier Inc. in 1978.
Sergio Borja, a Lester B. Pearson school board commissioner and director of finance for a children’s shoe wholesaler, is counting on his commu--nity involvement and immigrant experience to replace Michael Applebaum as borough mayor.
At the Côte-des-Neiges Plaza mall where the candidates were introduced, Borja said that “there are 130 different ethnic communities in Côte-des-Neiges and they need one voice.” He is of Ecuadorian background and arrived in Canada in 1975 speaking only Spanish.
Borja also stressed the need to stimulate the local economy and find tenants for the empty commercial spaces along Côte-des-Neiges Rd. by offering incentives to businesspeople. He wasn’t specific about what these incentives would consist of.
Francine Brodeur is joining the race for the Darlington district once again, after an earlier attempt in 2005. Brodeur currently sits on the borough Traffic Commission and is a familiar face at borough council meetings where she’s intervened on issues affecting her community.
O’Sullivan’s two other candidates are young novices in politics. Joey Strizzi, who is running in NDG, is a Concordia University journalism and political science grad and former journalist for the Sherbrooke daily newspaper The Record.
Strizzi’s priority will be to improve public safety in NDG and cut down and drug-related crime and violence, he said. He also plans to look into the issues affecting the McGill University Health Centre.
Guillaume Benoit-Gagné, a third-year law student at Université de Montréal and co-president of the party’s youth branch, is the youngest candidate of the four. He hopes to impress voters in the Côte-des-Neiges district with his drive and enthusiasm.
“People always say to take advantage of youth. I’m happy to let you take advantage of my youth,” he told the small crowd of media and supporters gathered inside Côte-des-Neiges Plaza.
O’Sullivan will introduce her party’s candidates for the Snowdon and Loyola districts in the coming weeks.
Parti Montréal’s slogan is “des gens de coeur” – people with heart. O’Sullivan said she left the city executive committee after three years because the administration wasn’t listening to the citizens. She also addressed the lack of work opportunities for young people in Montreal, and said that she lost her son to a job in Europe.
O’Sullivan has fiercely criticized the Tremblay administration for its handling of the city water-meter contract. She has asked Municipal Affairs Minister Nathalie Normandeau to order a parliamentary commission to look into the debacle and protect the interests of Montreal citizens.
[ Iuliana Petrescu ]