Vaillancourt’s history and Laval’s are closely entwined. He was first elected in 1973, eight years after Laval’s founding. That same year, a mayoral candidate named Robert Roy published How to Stop Corruption in Laval, a book decrying the “secretive nature of municipal politics in Laval”—suggesting that practically from its inception, Laval has had a reputation as a haven for big business and less-than-transparent governance. Vaillancourt had been pegged to take over the family furniture business. Instead, he was drawn to fix the new city’s many inefficiencies. “Development in Laval was anarchy,” he recalls. “All the towns had their own services. Nothing was standardized. There was no city centre. Everything had to be built.”
So he built, working to carve a new city out of farmland. It wasn’t easy—a mid-’80s Montreal Chamber of Commerce report referred to the city as “the third world of Montreal”—yet Laval continued to grow, largely thanks to the pro-business principles he helped shape. Its governance has cleaned up along the way; as Vaillancourt notes, all contracts with the city are subject to public tender. But his critics say elements of Laval’s old ways are very much alive in his administration. Guy Garand is head of CRE Laval, the city’s environmental protection advocate. In 2005, the organization rallied against a new bridge spanning the river between Laval and Montreal. “We used to get $25,000 from [the city],” Garand recalls. “After we opposed the bridge that money was cut.” The bridge, one of Vaillancourt’s cornerstone projects, was built anyway. It’s set to open in May.
“He’s like Maurice Duplessis,” says Audrey Boisvert, who ran against him in 2005 as a CEGEP student. “He’s done some good, but he controls everything. He knows his files.”
Indeed, by Vaillancourt’s count, he has attended 3,246 municipal council, zoning and executive council meetings over his career. “I can’t run a city as big and as important as Laval without knowing almost everything. I came into the world in Laval, and have lived here my whole life.” He admits to being a workaholic who deplores golf (“Who has a day to waste chasing after a ball?”) and only manages the occasional badminton game.
“The guy is very bright and well-educated,” says Herbert Black, a Montreal businessman who says he was thwarted in attempts to build a multi-million-dollar metal recycling plant in Laval because it would have put him in competition with Jean-Guy Hamelin, a well-known businessman and long-time PRO Lavallois contributor. “The people who run against him are amateurs. He’s so ahead of them, and he has so much more money to make picnics and do this and that for the people. That’s how he lasted.”
Certainly those seniors’ outings, along with initiatives like a water-tax rebate for the over-65 set, make for good politics—especially if you consider the demographic most likely to vote. “Political success doesn’t happen by magic,” said Vaillancourt attaché Jean Maurice Duddin when asked about the trips. “You have to work at it.”
Vaillancourt also seems adept at keeping opposition at bay. Local journalists have not fared well when it comes to investigating the mayor. According to a report by the FPJQ, the province’s association of journalists, local reporters “are regularly called to the mayor’s office to explain themselves—when they aren’t simply boycotted outright.” The report cites a critical article by Courrier Laval staffer Stéphane St. Amour, who left the city hall beat shortly thereafter. According to the report, St. Amour was asked to come to face the mayor’s staff. “It used to be a lot more simpler back in the day,” the mayor’s attaché said, according to the report. “We used to put undesirables on a spit.” St. Amour declined to comment, citing an ongoing labour grievance with the Courrier, where he still works.
Vaillancourt denied the allegations. As for former justice minister Ménard’s allegation of bribery, Vaillancourt furnished several letters written by Ménard in the ’90s and early 2000s, one sent following Vaillancourt’s 2002 win. “Congratulations Mr. Mayor of Laval and, I hope, dear friend!” Ménard wrote.
“I’m human like everyone else, and it hurts when I’m hit like that,” Vaillancourt says of the investigations into his administration. “But I have nothing to apologize for. This is the best-run city in Quebec.” Whether or not that’s true, throughout 10 consecutive elections, democracy has spoken loud and clear: Laval loves Gilles Vaillancourt, and he loves Laval right back.
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