Gatineau has a new mayor.
Maude Marquis-Bissonnette won a byelection for the role of Gatineau mayor with 41.7 per cent of the vote. Former Gatineau mayor Yves Ducharme finished second with 30.9 per cent of the vote.
The City of Gatineau says 67,118 voters voted in this election, a turnout of 33 per cent of 203,032 eligible voters.
Marquis-Bissonnette ran under the municipal party banner of Action Gatineau. She was the only one of seven candidates affiliated with a party.
She is Gatineau’s second female mayor after France Bélisle who resigned in February of this year citing a “hostile” climate in Gatineau politics. Marquis-Bissonnette had come in second to Bélisle in the previous municipal vote.
Marquis-Bissonnette holds a PhD from Carleton University’s School of Public Policy and Administration. In fact, she was working on her degree while also serving as a Gatineau city councillor.
One of the themes of her election campaign involved creating a better working relationship with the federal and provincial governments.
The theme is something she spoke about as a PhD graduate at Carleton.
“Municipal governments are more and more involved in national and international issues. While those issues used to be tackled by national governments, now we are seeing the principle of ‘glocalization’,” she told FPA Voices magazine in June 2022. “This is why I am calling for better integration between all levels of government.”
As a doctoral student, Marquis-Bissonnette undertook case studies in Gatineau and Québec City on how immigrants were integrated into the community where she reported on a “governance void” that failed to clarify responsibilities between governments.
She is also promising to accelerate access to affordable housing, slow down drivers in the city to ensure safe streets for families and reflect the climate emergency in actions taken by the municipal government.
Marquis-Bissonnette was considered the election’s front-runner, according to a poll commissioned by Radio-Canada during the final days of the campaign.
She will now be mayor until the next general election in November 2025.
