Jacques Charbonneau is a former politician in the

Canadian province Canada has ten provinces and three territories that are sub-national administrative divisions under the jurisdiction of the Constitution of Canada, Canadian Constitution. In the 1867 Canadian Confederation, three provinces of British North Amer ...

Quebec Quebec is Canada's List of Canadian provinces and territories by area, largest province by area. Located in Central Canada, the province shares borders with the provinces of Ontario to the west, Newfoundland and Labrador to the northeast, ...

. He served on the Montreal city council from 1986 to 2001, originally as a member of the

Montreal Citizens' Movement The Montreal Citizens' Movement (MCM, or RCM) was a municipal political party in Montreal, Quebec, Canada. It existed from 1973 to 2001. Origins The Montreal Citizens' Movement was founded shortly before the 1974 municipal elections by a vari ...

(MCM) and later as a member of

Vision Montreal Vision Montreal () was a municipal political party in Montreal, Quebec, Canada. It was founded in 1994 and dissolved in April 2014. Between 2001 and 2013 it formed the official opposition on Montreal City Council. Origins Vision Montreal was e ...

(VM).

Private career

Charbonneau was a communications advisor for

Hôpital Notre-Dame Hôpital Notre-Dame () is a hospital in Montreal, Quebec, Canada. It is located on Sherbrooke Street East in the borough of Ville-Marie, across from La Fontaine Park. It was established in 1880, and has been at its present site since 1924. Ser ...

in private life, a position that he retained after his election to city council. In the 1980s, he helped organize meetings and conferences on care for the disabled.

City councillor

Montreal Citizens' Movement

Charbonneau was first elected to city council in the 1986 municipal election for the east-end division of Louis-Riel as a candidate of the Montreal Citizens' Movement, which won the election with a landslide majority. Forty-eight years old at the time, he subsequently served as a backbench supporter of

Mayor In many countries, a mayor is the highest-ranking official in a Municipal corporation, municipal government such as that of a city or a town. Worldwide, there is a wide variance in local laws and customs regarding the powers and responsibilitie ...

Jean Doré Jean Doré (12 December 1944 – 15 June 2015) was a Canadian politician and mayor of the City of Montreal, Quebec. Background Doré studied law at the Université de Montréal, where he was president of the Students' union, student union fro ...

's administration. He was re-elected in the 1990 municipal election, in which Doré and the MCM won a second consecutive mandate. In June 1991, Charbonneau announced his support for Mouvement Québec, a Quebec sovereigntist group that sought to have a referendum within a year on the future of Quebec's status in Canada. Charbonneau openly criticized Doré's administration in mid-1992, saying that it needed to improve its record on neighbourhood services. The following year, he joined with other MCM dissidents in protesting the mayor's decision for Montreal to lease space in the

World Trade Center World Trade Centers are the hundreds of sites recognized by the World Trade Centers Association. World Trade Center may also refer to: Buildings * World Trade Center (1973–2001), a building complex that was destroyed during the September 11 at ...

. He finally resigned from the party on October 18, 1993, to sit as an independent. During his second term on council, Charbonneau was a member of the

Montreal Urban Community The Montreal Urban Community (MUC) (, , CUM) was a regional government in Quebec, Canada, that covered all municipalities located on the Island of Montreal and the islands of L'Île-Dorval and Île Bizard from January 1970 (when it was created ...

's urban planning committee.

Vision Montreal

After leaving the MCM, Charbonneau took part in behind-the-scenes negotiations that led to the launch of

, a new municipal party led by Pierre Bourque. He was re-elected under the party's banner in the 1994 municipal election, in which Bourque was elected mayor and Vision Montreal won a council majority. Charbonneau was appointed to the Montreal Urban Community's environmental committee in early 1997 and also served on its executive. In April 1997, he spoke against plans to construct a giant waste incinerator in Montreal's east end. Charbonneau criticized Bourque's administration in June 1997, saying that it had neglected its promise to protect a group of houses that were sinking into the ground in the city's east end. He later resigned from VM to sit as an independent on July 18, 1997, in protest against Bourque's decision to sell the

Hippodrome de Montréal The Blue Bonnets Raceway (later named Hippodrome de Montréal) was a horse racing track and casino in Montreal, Quebec, Canada. It closed on October 13, 2009, after 137 years of operation. Demolition of the site began in mid-2018, after sittin ...

to the

provincial government A state government is the government that controls a subdivision of a country in a federal form of government, which shares political power with the federal or national government. A state government may have some level of political autonomy, o ...

. After serving for a year as an independent, Charbonneau rejoined Vision Montreal on August 10, 1998. Helen Fotopulos, an opposition councillor, remarked that the move had been "in the works" for some time, as evidenced by Charbonneau's record of voting with the mayor. He was re-elected in the 1998 municipal election and served for three more years as a pro-administration backbencher. He did not seek re-election in

2001 The year's most prominent event was the September 11 attacks against the United States by al-Qaeda, which Casualties of the September 11 attacks, killed 2,977 people and instigated the global war on terror. The United States led a Participan ...

, after Vision Montreal denied him re-nomination.Linda Gyulai, "Dumped Weiner stays silent on megacity," ''Montreal Gazette'', 1 May 2001, D15.

Electoral record

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Charbonneau, Jacques Living people Montreal city councillors Year of birth missing (living people)