In final days of Montreal mayoral race, lines between Plante and Coderre become sharper

The promises have been made, the debates hashed out and the campaign is nearly over. What have we learned?

On certain issues, the leading candidates — Denis Coderre and Valérie Plante — edged closer to each other during the election, such as on the role of police in the city. Both now say they would hire 250 more officers to counter gun crime. 

Balarama Holness, who stands out from his competitors on several issues, and is running a distant third in polls, has said he would cut back the police budget and put more money into community resources.

On other issues, like housing, the divide between Plante and Coderre is more pronounced.

Plante passed a bylaw earlier this year that put new restrictions on housing developers in an attempt to create more affordable housing, while Coderre wants to ease those restrictions and let the free market do that job instead.

Overall, though, the competing visions for the city haven't been as defined as they were in 2017, when Plante beat out Coderre with a campaign centred around mobility, with a particular emphasis on public transit and cycling. 

"I think we can see that divisions are not as sharply distinct as they were back in 2017," said Daniel Béland, a political science professor at McGill University and the director for the Institute of the Study of Canada.

"In a way, we have a more moderate Plante, who is now a more seasoned politician, a seasoned mayor who has the experience of governing the city for years and went through the pandemic and so forth. And we have Denis Coderre, who has also adopted a more kind of subtle approach on some issues — on the environment, for example. He has also, as you know, put some water in his wine, as we say, in French."

But while Coderre has tried to run a more prudent campaign, shying away from the big projects that defined his time as mayor, the past week has brought their contrasting approaches to the city into focus once again.

On Wednesday, Coderre finally released his financial records and confirmed he had worked as a consultant in the leadup to his second mayoral run, including for a major real estate company up until March of this year. 

That consulting work, Plante argued, should call into question his proposals around rising housing prices and the zoning of new developments.

She also said it raised questions about transparency. 

Coderre reacted by accusing Projet Montréal of distracting voters from "the real issues" of the municipal campaign. And he said that Plante not disclosing that one of her councillors was the subject of a sexual assault allegation puts into doubt her own transparency.

"We must not take our eyes off the real issues of this election: the security crisis, the housing crisis, the climate crisis," he said.