Mayoral candidate keeps low profile
LINDA GYULAI
The Gazette
He's the silver-haired fellow with his arms folded in a fatherly manner smiling down from local billboards.
"We have a strategy and we're putting all the pieces together," Tremblay said in an interview this week in his United Island of Montreal party's headquarters on St. Jacques St. near St. Laurent Blvd. "We will be, in the next four months, everywhere announcing candidates, talking about our program, talking to people. And we'll win the next election."
Some supporters are more concerned right now with the suburbs' legal challenge of the megacity than with the election, he added.
Strong Organization
In fact, four months of spade work is producing results, he insisted. This week, for instance, he unveiled two campaign planks, one on youth and one on Mount Royal.
He's promised, if elected, to institute a student transit fare for those over 18, hire more youth at the city, tackle youth itinerancy and improve on affordable rental housing.
Just yesterday, he declared the heritage zone around Mount Royal must be expanded to include the summits in Westmount and Outremont. He also vowed to place a moratorium on development in the enlarged zone, hold public consultations on Mount Royal's future and hire a director for the park.
And while there are doubts about how many candidates his team has gathered, Tremblay's crew say they have 700 or 800 people helping them.
Some in key positions have worked for the provincial Liberals, including Christian Ouellet, Gilles Hebert and Marie-Claude Roy, who was on Tremblay's staff when he was a cabinet minister. A non-Liberal organizer is Louis Aucoin, who used to work for Bloc Quebecois leader Gilles Duceppe.
Tremblay's party has a goal of raising $3 million for its campaign, he said.
On Monday night, he said, "I was at a fundraiser (in St. Leonard) and we gathered $50,000. We're going to have another and there will be 800 people ... who are going to give us money."
Some nagging questions remain, though, such as the role independent mayors and councillors will play in the election and whether Tremblay's party will ever strike a partnership deal with the Montreal Citizens' Movement.
"There are still masses of people in the suburbs who don't even know who Gérald Tremblay is," said one holdout councillor, who didn't want to be identified. "So long as (that) continues, he's dead in the water."
- Linda Gyulai's E-mail address is lgyulai@thegazette.southam.ca
May 3, 2001 MONTREAL - The campaign to see who will run Montreal’s new megacity has come to the Jewish community. by Mike Cohen
Gerald Tremblay, a former prominent Quebec Liberal cabinet minister and thus far the main challenger to incumbent Mayor Pierre Bourque, addressed the influential Jewish Business Network on April 19. Bourque will speak to the same group on May 7. www.bnaibrith.ca/tribune/jt-finance.htm
Investissements dans les infrastructures
"TROP PEU, TROP TARD" - Gérald Tremblay
MONTREAL, le 23 mai /CNW/ - Le chef de l'Union de l'île de Montréal et
candidat à la mairie de la nouvelle ville de Montréal, Gérald Tremblay, estime
que les investissements annoncés par l'actuelle ville de Montréal dans ses
infrastructures souterraines viennent trop tard et ne réussiront pas à
endiguer les fuites de 40 % constatées dans le réseau d'aqueduc montréalais.
"C'est trop peu, trop tard, alors que le problème a été identifié par tous les
experts depuis de nombreuses années déjà. On peut déjà prévoir que le faible
niveau d'intervention prévu par l'administration actuelle nous mènera dans une
impasse et que, dans cinq ans, la situation n'aura pas changé" a-t-il déclaré.
Gérald Tremblay a rappelé que Pierre Bourque lui-même dénonçait, dans son
programme de 1994, "le manque général d'entretien" à cause duquel "le réseau
de distribution d'eau potable perd entre 25 % et 33 % de son eau
annuellement", promettant les investissements nécessaires pour réduire les
pertes d'eau potable. Pourtant, selon les plus récentes études, la situation
s'est considérablement détériorée depuis l994 et que Pierre Bourque s'est
montré incapable d'y remédier. "Les citoyens de l'actuelle ville de Montréal
doivent constater que 40 % de leurs taxes affectées à l'eau potable est
redirigé directement dans les égoûts" ajoute Gérald Tremblay.
Sat 3/17/01 8:01 AM On the spot
Gérald Tremblay, who is challenging Pierre Bourque for control of the supercity in next fall's vote, is usefully pushing a second major election issue - democracy, or the lack of, it under Mayor Bourque.
Until now, Mr. Tremblay has been mainly pitching decentralization - the idea of keeping as much local decision-making power as legally possible out of city hall and in the local districts.
Fri 3/2/01 12:09 PM Does Tremblay have right stuff?
By: MICHEL DAVID Le Soleil
It's often said that a bite from the political bug leads to an incurable
fever, but I really thought that the former Liberal minister Gérald Tremblay
had learned his lesson.
In a article he signed in La Presse last January, he wrote in connection
with the future mayor of Montreal that "his past should vouch for his
ambitions."
Feb 15 2001 9:00 AM EST Tremblay to run for mayor: report
MONTREAL - Gérald Tremblay will announce next week he is running to be mayor of the island-wide Montreal, according to La Presse & is offering the job of heading the executive committee to Vera Danyluk, the head of the Montreal Urban Community.
Tremblay will receive the support of Lasalle's mayor as well as Verdun Mayor Georges Bossé, MUC executive Frank Zampino and Cote St Luc mayor Robert Libman.
A Window on Westmount
mont-Mayor-GeraldTremblay.htm 