Action Gatineau wins its bet. Maude Marquis-Bissonnette becomes the new mayor of Gatineau while Catherine Craig-St-Louis is elected as a councilor.
“Above all, thank you to the people of Gatineau for their trust. I am touched, honored. […] I will try to be everyone’s mayor. I intend to work with the entire municipal council,” declared the new mayor in front of her excited supporters, gathered at Minotaure, in Vieux-Hull.
Ms. Marquis-Bissonnette wanted to salute Daniel Champagne for having taken over since the departure of former mayor France Bélisle, as well as the six other candidates registered in the mayoral race.
Yves Ducharme, who wanted to make a return to city hall after having been mayor of the former city of Hull and the very first mayor of the merged city, from 1992 to 2005, did not hide his disappointment. He nevertheless accepts the result and asks Gatineau residents to rally behind the new mayor, whom he congratulated on her victory via a voice message.
“The result we wanted was not there, but democracy has spoken. Gatineau has a new mayor: Maude Marquis-Bissonnette, our mayor, my new mayor. […] Maude led an entire campaign and earned the trust of Gatineau residents for the next 17 months,” he first said, in front of an audience of some 150 people gathered at the Tecumseh Golf Club.
He wanted to thank the approximately 20,000 citizens who voted for him, saying he was proud of the campaign he led in recent weeks with 64 proposals for concrete measures “to improve the quality of life of residents.”
“I fully accept this defeat, which I consider honorable. When we enter politics, we accept the democratic verdict. It’s hard, but these are the rules of our system,” he added at the end of a speech lasting barely seven minutes.
From Valérie Plante to Bruno Marchand via Catherine Fournier and François Legault, a series of elected officials congratulated the new mayor on social networks.
After the counting of 553 of the 569 ballot boxes, Ms. Marquis-Bissonnette received 27,044 votes, or 41.74% of the votes. Yves Ducharme was in second place with 20,030 votes (30.91%).
The other candidates, Olive Kamanyana, Daniel Feeny, Stéphane Bisson, Rémi Bergeron and Mathieu Saint-Jean, quickly fell significantly behind the two leaders. Voter turnout was 32.8%.
The race was significantly closer in the Carrefour-de-l’Hôpital district at the start of the evening. Action Gatineau candidate Catherine Craig-St-Louis finally defeated her independent opponent Marie-Pier Lacroix by just over 300 votes.