Change blows through several Quebec towns, with incumbents ousted by fresh faces

Saguenay and Sherbrooke are getting new mayors after voters opted to elect fresh faces instead of sticking with the status quo.

The two Quebec cities will now each be led by a woman who previously worked as city councillor. 

Évelyne Beaudin, 33, will become Sherbrooke's first female mayor. She won with 41.4 per cent of the votes, defeating incumbent Steve Lussier and former provincial cabinet minister Luc Fortin.

In Saguenay, it's Julie Dufour, 41, who will lead the city, after she defeated incumbent Josée Néron by more than 9,000 votes.

These results show an appetite for more female and diverse candidates, according to Jacob Robbins-Kanter, an assistant professor in politics and international studies at Bishop's University. 

"There is a demand from voters to have representatives that are more reflective of the population as a whole," he said.

Beaudin pledges for more transparency, affordable housing in Sherbrooke

Beaudin attributes her victory to having focused her attention on issues that matter to Sherbrooke residents.

"I think we offered a proposition that reunited [residents'] preoccupations, like housing, climate change," she told Quebec AM host Peter Tardif on Monday. 

One of her big priorities is to tackle the lack of affordable housing. She said one idea is to double the construction of affordable units.

Beaudin also said she wants to govern the city with more transparency than her predecessors.

"When you go and watch a city council meeting, everything is decided in advance and you don't know why they chose this option instead of this one," she said. 

She said she plans to make discussions at city hall open to the public, so that residents would know how decisions were taken.

Robbins-Kanter said he was surprised that Lussier, who came in third with only 18.8 per cent of the votes, didn't do better as the incumbent.

"I think that Madame Beaudin was really able to really unite more progressive voters," he said, adding that there likely had been some splitting of votes between her two opponents, who were competing for the same voter pool.

Saguenay's new mayor faces decisions on the city's economic future

For Christian Bélanger, a social sciences lecturer at the Université du Québec à Chicoutimi, the results in Saguenay show that people thought of incumbent Néron as a transitional leader, not a long-term one.

"It's clear that people wanted some changes, they didn't want to continue with Ms. Néron," he said.

It's the second election in a row where Saguenay has seen a change in  leadership. The city had the same mayor, Jean Tremblay, for more than fifteen years before Néron took office in 2017.

Dufour reiterated her desire to unify the city in an interview with Radio-Canada's C'est jamais pareil on Monday. 

"The biggest message that I want to deliver is a message of unity," she said.

During her campaign, she promised to work on redefining the city's identity and uniting Saguenay's boroughs.

One of the big challenges that awaits Dufour will be to diversify the region's economy and decrease its reliance on heavy industry, according to Bélanger. 

"The new team at city council will have to put in place a new vision for developing the city that will answer both the needs for the economy and the environment," Bélanger said.

The city's economic future was a big electoral issue in Saguenay this year. During her campaign, Dufour said she was keen to invest in new sectors.

Other Quebec towns that have a new mayor after voting out the incumbents include Sutton and Tadoussac.

In Sutton, newcomer Robert Benoît, who ran with the party Action Sutton, won with more than 63 per cent of the votes. He defeated incumbent Michel Lafrance and two other candidates.

Benoît's main priorities are to protect the town's water and green spaces. He said during his campaign that one of the reasons he decided to run was that he felt the previous administrations weren't doing enough to preserve the environment.

In Tadoussac, Richard Therrien defeated incumbent Charles Breton, also winning with more than 63 per cent of the votes.

In an interview he did with Radio-Canada before the election, he said he was in favour of a bridge between Tadoussac and Baie-Sainte-Catherine, which is a contentious issue in the region.