The Face Off

The Montreal Mayoral debates got under way this evening, between primary candidates: current Mayor, Gerald Tremblay and opposition leader, Pierre Bourque. Tremblay's pet name for Bourque early on was: "Flip Flop"...this was a fairly apt description given what ensued for the half hour following. Bourque's team should have done their homework and armed themselves with correct information and prepared the speaker with solid retorts. Instead, when facing off with a very concise and erudite Tremblay, he came across as confused, bumbling on facts and in my opinion, shrinking every second and losing all credibility when offering his "plans" for the next four years. He spoke about offering breaks to students, the elderly and the handicapped with a city wide program...what does this entail?...what is he offering exactly?? Hedid make claims that he wants to be the "people's mayor"... in what capacity? Could he have expanded on this? OF COURSE! Instead, he made more reaching promises, like putting a freeze on public transit fares and not increasing taxes in the various municipalities, but we don't get any sense as to how he can actually accomplish this without burdening the very people it's meant to protect or where exactly it is that the money to support this is meant to come from. Tremblay is a man with a good team and a clear vision... "laying a foundation for a new city, focusing on priorities like managing the tax dollars, protecting green spaces, celebrating diversity and heritage amongst the cultural communities, investing in roads and infrastructures / social housing, to continue to make Montreal a place of prosperity and progress...etc..." all issues that really matter to the average citizen. No utopian mumbo-jumbo, but all realistic and more than manageable. GO MONTREAL, indeed!