Curran: Harel's step back moves race for mayor forward a lot Especially when it comes with a fancy title and the prospect of a safe council seat. Especially when it allows you to transform yourself from perpetual also-ran to potential kingmaker. After more than two decades in public office, Vision Montreal Leader Louise Harel is nothing if not a seasoned political pro. She read the political tea leaves. The future looked bleak. Her party is bleeding debt. In recent months, Vision councillors have fled to the left and right. In 2009, Harel's lineage as a veteran Parti Quebecois cabinet minister and the shepherd of the 2000 forced merger of Montreal with suburbs doomed her first bid for mayor. She had no reason to expect a warmer welcome from phoenix suns 8s Montreal's jaded electorate in another three-way race this fall.
But politics isn't called the art of the possible for nothing. So while her rivals Denis Coderre and Richard Bergeron jockeyed for support inside and outside council chambers, Harel began dropping hints about her willingness to work within a coalition. When Bergeron made it clear Projet Montreal wasn't interested in a merger, Vision Montreal cast a wider net. Let Coderre and Bergeron strut around like roosters itching for a fight, Harel said in late May as the party headed into a weekend caucus. What she didn't mention was that she and Vision Montreal were about to unleash a rooster of their own. Vision Montreal's playoffs 12s convention that weekend was economist Marcel C?te's coming-out squadron blue 13s party, the first signal that the municipal election campaign was about to go from humdrum to hot damn, from a predictable cakewalk for Coderre to a three-way battle of wills and ideas. It would be easy to dismiss Harel's decision to bow out as an act of self-preservation, which it certainly is.
No matter how intensely anti-fusionists and ardent federalists feel about her she admits her party has been unable to breach the fortifications of Montreal's anglo west-end Harel has been a canny and dedicated politician who has been a positive presence in a period when the city has been in the depths of political despair. She struggled to learn English and spoke it haltingly but with a smile, knowing it was never going to be enough to win enough friends and votes to carry city hall. Her bitterness about that geographic and linguistic divide spilled out Tuesday. Yet in retreating from a battle she could not win, Harel said the one thing which most needs to be said. In this time of crisis, as the city struggles to emerge from the shadows of corruption and collusion, Montrealers and the people they elect to represent them will need to stand together.
Setting aside ideology won't be easy. In C?te and Coderre, this campaign will have two mayoralty candidates who are ferociously federalist; Bergeron has been more discreet about his allegiances, preferring to focus on local politics, where his bent can safely be described as left of centre. Questions about language and cultural identity, about bugs bunny 8s sovereignty and Quebec's place in or out of Canada are entwined in Montreal's being. They determine who lives where, which companies settle here, and on our worst days, how we interact with one another. But there's nothing like standing at the edge of an ethical abyss, embarrassed by the resignation of two mayors and staring down a litany of allegations about corruption and misuse of taxpayers' money, to focus the mind. Throughout a miserable winter and torrential spring, Montrealers have been waiting for something.
Not a miracle, then at least the possibility that the next four years will be better, kinder and cleaner. After Harel's announcement, Bergeron fumed that Vision Montreal now exists in name only. Given the experience Montreal and Laval have had with political parties in recent months, it's difficult to see why he thinks voters would think that's a bad thing. It may be too jordan 5 grape much to hope for that the city's next mayor will have the managerial chutzpah of New York's Michael Bloomberg or the natural political instincts of Calgary's Naheed Nenshi, whose handling of the Alberta floods has inspired comparisons with Superman and slogans such as Keep Calm and Nenshi On. It's not unusual to hear Calgarians predict 41-year-old Nenshi will run for prime minister one of these days. But Harel's retreat and C?te's arrival on the scene Wednesday will radically transform the campaign from a lopsided shoo-in to a genuine race. It's a start.
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