Balarama Holness says his commitments haven't changed, even after joining forces with another party

Balarama Holness wants to make one thing clear: his platform isn't changing.

While grabbing a quick lunch at a downtown café earlier this week, the Montreal mayoral candidate explained his decision to, as he put it, allow Ralliement pour Montréal to "join our ranks" (he didn't want to call it a merger).

Holness says it was a political decision that allows him to field a fuller slate of candidates ahead of the Oct. 1 registration deadline and have a better shot against Denis Coderre and Valérie Plante.

But he said the commitments put forward by his party, Mouvement Montréal, will remain "intact."

"We need to have some innovation, some new ideas and some courageous people at city hall," he said.

Those ideas include, most notably, a commitment to reallocate funding away from the police budget, which was $679 million last year, and put some of that money (upwards of $100 million, he said) toward things like social housing and social services. 

Holness also still wants to have Montreal recognized as a bilingual metropolis — a commitment that appears to fly in the face of one of Ralliement's main pledges, to protect and strengthen the French language.