Thanks to Catherine Fournier, Marcel Béliveau “rides again”, and, Surprise upon catch! its famous television concept, comes back to life in Longueuil.
Last Wednesday evening, a wave of panic: Catherine Fournier announced that she would hold a major press conference the following morning “to take stock of her political future”.
The rumor immediately took off. Will she announce that she is running for the leadership of the Quebec Liberal Party, whose leadership race will be launched in January? Had she not slammed the door of the Parti Québécois in March 2019 to sit as an independent in the National Assembly?
Unless she intends to run in the next federal election? Wasn’t she a Bloc Québécois candidate in 2015? Perhaps she wants to succeed Justin Trudeau? We know that the mayor does not lack ambition and can quickly change allegiance.
Others believe instead that she will cross the Saint-Laurent to succeed Valérie Plante, who has just announced that she will not run for another term as mayor of Montreal. On the other hand, some sentimental Longueuil residents imagine that their beloved mayor will announce that she is pregnant and take maternity leave like Pascale St-Onge, the Minister of Heritage.
The cursed deer
Finally, more than one concludes that tired of the workload she carries and the harassment that social networks subject her to, Catherine Fournier will leave her functions like Mayor Évelyne Beaudin, of Sherbrooke, or Mayor France Bélisle, of Gatineau. After all, Longueuil town hall is no easy task.
There were floods in Longueuil following Storm Debby, and, above all, there are the damn deer that are happily frolicking in Michel-Chartrand Park and whose fate we cannot decide. Should we have them shot with a crossbow by the descendants of Guillaume Tell from Longueuil or have them killed with a revolver by the valiant police officers of Chief Patrick Bélanger? Or, a much more humane solution, should we let them copulate and multiply under the tutelary protection of Master Anne-France Goldwater?
Béliveau rides again!
In any case, announced at the last minute and without even having determined the place where it would be held, it was obvious that the press conference would be of capital importance for the future of Longueuil and above all for the personal future of Catherine Fournier. Thursday morning, Surprise, surprise! Very proud of herself and of the big tree that she was going to present to the media, Catherine Fournier simply announced that she would run again for mayor of Longueuil.
A little more and I would have thought that my old friend Marcel Béliveau had risen from the dead!
