Jean Doré

Thursday 28 October 1999

One year after mayoral race, back in business

Then, upon discovering the caller is a reporter, Dore's musical "hello" gives way to a warning.

"I'm not talking publicly about what's happening these days in municipal politics," he says without prompting. "I made my decision to withdraw from political matters."

Having declared last spring that he was quitting his party and politics, Dore - the mayor of Montreal from 1986 to 1994 who made an unsuccessful comeback bid in last year's municipal election - seems happy these days to discuss technology instead.

Dore is now president of Hypersecur Corp., a new Canadian subsidiary of a U.S. firm that develops smart-card technology aimed at financial institutions.

One year after his humiliating defeat in the Nov. 1 municipal election by his nemesis, Mayor Pierre Bourque - who also beat him in 1994 - Dore has become a corporate man again, as quickly as he leaped back into politics six months shy of last year's election.

Dore's fate since last Nov. 1 is similar to that of another once-very-public mayoral candidate who shares his initials: Jacques Duchesneau.

Both JDs hardly spent a day out of the spotlight for much of last year. Now, they're barely visible. And that's the way they like it.

"Sure, I'm happy," Dore said of his present life. "My comeback in '98 was basically an accident. I thought we could propose an alternative for Montreal. Montrealers thought otherwise. Well, that's democracy."

Dore not only lost on election day, he lost bigger than any pundit ever imagined: he came in last among the four main mayoral candidates, behind even the little-known Michel Prescott, leader of the party that Dore once led, the Montreal Citizens' Movement.

Bourque, written off before the municipal race because of his low popularity rating, grabbed 44.2 per cent of the vote. His party, Vision Montreal, took 39 of 51 council seats. Duchesneau placed second with 26.3 per cent of the vote, while his New Montreal party got three seats. Dore scored an anemic 10 per cent of the vote, with his Team Montreal party winning two seats. The MCM became the official opposition after capturing four seats.

"I won't come back," Dore said this week. "I've given my share, an important part of my life, to politics. I've done it and moved on."

After the election, Duchesneau also retreated to the private sector.

But while he doesn't exclude another run at the mayor's job, Duchesneau is setting what may be impossible limits.

"If you don't have $1 million in a bank account É forget about it," Duchesneau, who retired as chief of the Montreal Urban Community police last year to run, said this week.

"The last campaign was very costly. People were promising all sorts of things. I had people telling me, 'Go ahead; we'll support you.' But they were all waiting for the polls. People supported me with words, but that's not how you win an election. You win an election with money."

Duchesneau won't say how much money he spent out of his own pocket.

"I don't want to talk about it because it brings me nightmares," he said.

Duchesneau - who pledged to stay involved in municipal politics until he could run again in 2002 - hasn't watched a city-council meeting since April. Dore hasn't attended one.

Duchesneau, who remains New Montreal's leader, now says the party will hold a leadership race next year - but hasn't decided whether to run.

"I can see myself in politics and I think I can bring a lot to politics, but I have to earn a living," he said.

In May, Duchesneau became president of Vehi-Tech, a Longueuil company that sells emergency vehicles, like police cars. The company is a subsidiary of Swedish car-maker Volvo.

Also in May, he and three other retired members of the police brass launched a security consulting firm called RAND, an acronym that stands for the names of the four partners: Claude Rochon, who replaced Duchesneau briefly as interim MUC police chief; Lorrain Audy, who was a deputy chief of MUC police, police chief in Hull, and a former assistant deputy minister of public security in Quebec; Gaetan Nadon, a special adviser to Duchesneau while he was MUC police chief; and Duchesneau himself.

Compared with public life, the highs and lows of the corporate world might seem less punishing.

"If I talk about politics with the family right now, I'll get killed," Duchesneau said. "They found it quite hard."

First, rivals last year dug up a blemish on Duchesneau's 30-year career record - the Quebec Police Commission found him guilty in 1984 of abusing his authority during a drug raid.

Then, at his campaign launch in Windsor Station before 2,200 people in May 1998, he was hit in the face with a cream pie by "entartistes," who target politicians they say are too arrogant.

"After the cream pie, my wife never came back to public events," Duchesneau revealed. "My family was scared from then on. What if someone came the next time with a knife or a gun?"

Dore, an intensely private man, subjected himself to having his trademark mustache shaved off on television to show Montrealers he had changed. He also defended himself from attacks on his record as mayor.

Now, a year after the election, there's a sense among observers that Dore and Duchesneau lost the 1998 campaign as much as Bourque won it.

Dore's and Duchesneau's campaigns sputtered out over the summer of '98, as Bourque's was becoming red-hot. While Bourque toured neighbourhoods at a dizzying pace, Dore took a vacation and Duchesneau lay low to write his election platform.

The candidates also pulled stunts.

Days before the election, Duchesneau produced a letter from a John Barroll Brown, head of a British company called CIT International Ltd., saying he was willing to invest $500 million in the city if Duchesneau was elected mayor. When journalists tried to reach Brown at a London telephone number on the letter, a receptionist said he was out of town. (The Gazette tried to phone Brown again this week, but the number is no longer in service.)

In the dying days of the campaign, Dore announced he was prepared to quit the race to avoid splitting the vote. Then, in a humiliating reversal, he declared he'd stay in.

Since the election, Duchesneau and Dore have landed on their feet, becoming company presidents. But the future of their Pop-Tart parties - instant creations to field candidates and collect donations - is less certain.

Duchesneau's New Montreal party was $600,000 in debt as of March 31, said party consultant Martin Dumont. After 40 fundraisers held this year, he said, the debt is down to about $300,000.

Dore's party racked up a $600,000 deficit last year. No one from the party was available to say what it is today.

For Duchesneau and Dore, the business world offers a chance to build - or rehabilitate - a reputation.

"When you become a politician, people talk about you as if you were garbage," Duchesneau said. He felt hurt when jokers drew mustaches on his campaign posters. "Then people wonder how come no one wants to run? Come on."

• No top jobs for life, Dore promises He wants to make room for women and minorities at city's upper level by LINDA GYULAI
  
  
• Monday 26 October 1998 Dore reveals offer made to rivals The mayoral candidate says he'll guarantee Jacques Duchesneau or Michel Prescott chairmanship of the executive committee if one of them agrees to pull out of the race. MICHELLE LALONDE Mayoral candidate Jean Dore says he'll guarantee his two rivals positions on the executive committee if they'll just drop out of the race and unite behind his bid to oust incumbent Mayor Pierre Bourque.
  
  
• Sunday 25 October 1998 Dore stays, says voters need choice Relief palpable among candidates: 'We need a leader to be there' Jean Dore pinned his dramatic decision yesterday to stay in Montreal's mayoral race on his adversaries and a need to offer voters an alternative to Mayor Pierre Bourque.
  
  
• Friday 3 July 1998 City plans to recyclecontaminated land Montreal and Quebec are to spend up to $60 million to clean up old industrial sites over the next five years if companies come up with development projects. by ALLISON LAMPERT (saved)
  
  
• Saturday 20 June 1998 'Over my dead body' Call it a reckless turn of phrase. A fateful vow. A particularly passe pledge. Mayoral candidate Jean Dore has gone on the record as being opposed to spending $20 million to extend Cavendish Blvd. north into Town of Mount Royal. Cavendish, he said, was never meant to receive heavy traffic. (saved)
  
  
• Saturday 20 June 1998 Jean Dore has gone on the record as being opposed to spending $20 million to extend Cavendish Blvd. north into Town of Mount Royal. Cavendish, he said, was never meant to receive heavy traffic.
  
  
• Saturday 20 June 1998 Dore kicks off Team Montreal .. 500 of the new party's faithful gather to support former mayor's bid by AARON DERFEL Mayoral hopeful Jean Doré attacked the Quebec government and his political opponents with equal zeal last night at the inaugural convention of his Team Montreal Party.

  Buoyed by the presence of more than 500 people, Dore wasted no time in denouncing Mayor Pierre Bourque and challenger Jacques Duchesneau.
  
  

• Friday 19 June 1998 Dore looking for credibility for new party MICHELLE LALONDE Jean Dore's Team Montreal will try to prove it is a real party with ideas, a platform and growing support when it holds its founding convention this weekend.
• Sunday 7 June 1998 Dreaming of the future Two decades from now, they'll still be fixing the Ville Marie Expressway by TOMMY SCHNURMACHER (saved for June 7, 2018. when Premier Josee Legault, to the chagrin of Progressive Reform Party chief Mario Dumont, does a fiscal pact with Montreal Mayor Andy Nulman .. it gets better (saved)
  
  
• Friday 15 May 1998 Duchesneau has spot on his police record Abused authority in 1981 drug raid AARON DERFEL ...ut Duchesneau's record on the Montreal UrbanCommunity police force is not perfect, The Gazette has learned. ..The commission recommended that Duchesneau be reprimanded for his role in the raid... "The commission does not hesitate to declare that Det.-Sgt. Duchesneau did not have sufficient reason to arrest and detain without warrant all the occupants in the place that was raided," the record says. "The commission believes that Duchesneau abused his authority." (saved)
  
  
• long the way, Duchesneau added a hot potato of his own, confessing that unlike Pierre Bourque, he has every intention of double-dipping. If elected mayor, he said, he intends to collect both the $120,637 salary and the generous pension he accrued during 30 years with the Montreal police department, the last five as chief.
  
  
• #847 Jean Doré night May 27th.
  
  
• Tuesday 28 April 1998 Has baby bust cut crime rate? Experts offer several theories why Montreal's one of nation's safest cities ...The most popular hypothesis among criminologists is that our streets are safer because everyone is getting older. ... In any case, their age group is less prone to committing crimes than people in their teens and 20s, of which there are fewer and fewer. ... ''That's a major explanation for the drop in crime." and political instability. It suggests that the more people leave the province, the lower the crime rate.
  
  

• Saturday 25 April 1998 MUC cops defy province Police chief won't back down on decision to reinstate suspended officers At issue is a decision last January by former police chief Jacques Duchesneau allowing Constables Andre Lapointe and Michel Vadeboncoeur to exchange their banked vacation time for an early return to duty.
  
  
• Tuesday 21 April 1998 Do Montrealers really need another chief executive who has to learn on the job about elementary economic matters?

  Perhaps not. But bear in mind that, with the exception ofJean Dore (who has been in private enterprise since leaving the mayor's office in 1994), no other mayoral hopeful offers a more impressive economic background. A second weakness in Mr. Duchesneau's background is in human relations. As a police officer for the last 30 years, he has operated within a rigidly hierarchical system where the boss is truly the boss. Montreal's city council is, by comparison, a hotbed of insubordination. Bit he has a degree from the Ecole Nationale d'Administration Publique & has run a department of 4,000 officers and 600 civilians. ...It hired 53 women, 23 visible-minority members and 36 members of ethno-cultural groups.(saved)
  
  

• How do we draw the line in war-measures powers? ...He accused Montreal Urban Community Police chief Jacques Duchesneau of creating a "disturbing" precedent by granting the police exceptional powers to deal with unco-operative citizens or other suspicious characters. ..Duchesneau said this week that the unprecedented circumstances of the crisis confer on police "exceptional" powers allowing them to demand to see identification, ask citizens to justify their being in a particular place and compel them to leave their homes. Schabas is not concerned that Duchesneau's police force will commit too many civil-rights abuses (saved)
  
  

Tuesday 28 April 1998

I'll do better job this time: Dore
Former mayor Jean Dore says he's learned from past mistakes and wants his old job back. In fact, he argues, his experience makes him the best candidate.

MICHELLE LALONDE
The Gazette

Former mayor Jean Dore officially launched his new Team Montreal Party yesterday, and his main message - that he knows the job - suggests he is focusing on former police chief Jacques Duchesneau as the man to beat on Nov. 1.

Badly defeated by Pierre Bourque in the 1994 election, Dore said he has learned from his mistakes and has put them behind him.

Though he did not dwell on those administration weaknesses yesterday, Dore has acknowledged that he ran a too-bureaucratic office. He had also been criticized for allowing para-municipal corporations to buy property when the prices were too high.

Dore, who has done well in recent public-opinion polls, said he now wants to focus his campaign on the five main principles that he said will unite a diverse coalition of supporters into a team.

That team so far includes only two sitting city councillors, Pierre Goyer and Martin Lemay, and about a dozen council hopefuls. These include Jean Lamarre, businessman and son of former Lavalin chairman Bernard Lamarre; Haitian-community organizer and school-board commissioner Keder Hippolite; Concordia University pastor and assistant professor Daniel Oliver; and lawyer Jacques Savard.

Dore likened himself to the thousands of Montréalers who have lost their jobs in recent years and have had to reinvent themselves to seek work.

"I offer Montrealers practical experience. I have recognized the errors I have made, but I won't spend the campaign doing that," Dore said.

The team's five rallying points - which Dore said is the closest thing to a party platform the team will have - seem designed primarily to attract business support.

Dore said his team wants to simplify the city's bureaucracy for those who invest in Montreal, freeze taxes and eventually lower them, improve basic services like snow removal, work to improve prospects for young Montrealers and end what he said is Quebec-government control of Montreal's finances.

He was referring to a special law passed by the provincial government that allowed the Bourque administration this year to adopt a budget with a deficit. The city is now relying heavily on the province to fill the $53-million shortfall before 1998 is over.

Dore won two elections under the banner of the Montreal Citizens' Movement, a once decidedly left-wing party that he helped form in the 1970s and that he abandoned last year.

When asked where he stands on the political spectrum now, and whether he would describe himself as a social democrat, Dore said only that he is now the leader of a "very pragmatic" party.

Dore declined to comment on Therese Daviau's resignation from the MCM, announced Sunday, out of respect for the fact that Daviau's mother died Sunday night.

After promising repeatedly to remain with the troubled MCM as its mayoral candidate despite her low showings in the polls, Daviau is now expected to join Duchesneau's team.

Dore focused on the need for an experienced mayor, one who can start work immediately, rather than taking two years to learn the job. Dore was aiming his comments at Duchesneau, who has no municipal political experience but who is expected to announce his candidacy tomorrow.

"We have to ask ourselves who is the best placed to relaunch Montreal. I think my experience is more comprehensive than that of Mr. Duchesneau. I think our team will be more representative and more competent than his," he said.

Dore stressed the need for a mayor to remain neutral on issues related to Quebec nationalism.

"The worst thing that could happen to Montreal is that we transfer to the municipal level the debates on the national question. It would be the worst catastrophe to do that."

He said his party will include provincial and federal Liberals, Conservatives, Pequistes and others who are willing to work together for the economic health of Montreal. The linguistic and cultural diversity of the city will be well-reflected in his party, he added.

Dore took some shots at Bourque, charging that the current administration has turned municipal services into a "Tower of Babel" by expanding the number of services and service directors.

He resurrected his old promise to decentralize services, and to put a service director in each neighbourhood so residents can call one number to get answers to their complaints.

Dore promised not to privatize water services - something the Bourque team has studied carefully - but said partnerships with the private sector to provide other services might save money.

Will Bourque come up through the middle? Amid the divided opinions, there was one strong endorsement of Jacques Duchesneau. At the provincial level, Jean Charest is carrying on with his campaign to meet the people without tipping his hand as to who his Brains Trust will be; rumors in the PLQ are that he is looking for a number of fresh faces. One rumor is that the TMR seat is reserved for Vera Danyluk. This appears odd following so soon after her battle over the MUC Chairmanship; if she were to step down now after winning that battle, she would have some formidable opponents. Stay tuned!