Marianne Giguère

Marianne Giguère is a politician in Montreal, Quebec, Canada. She has served on the Plateau-Mont-Royal borough council since 2013 and on the Montreal city council since 2017 as a member of Projet Montréal. In November 2017, she was appointed as an associate member of new mayor Valérie Plante's Montreal executive committee (i.e., the municipal cabinet).

Marianne Giguère
Associate councillor on the Montreal Executive Committee with responsibility for sustainable development and active transit
Incumbent
Assumed office 2017
Preceded by	position created
Montreal City Councillor for De Lorimier
Incumbent
Assumed office 2017
Preceded by	Louise Mainville
Plateau-Mont-Royal Borough Councillor for De Lorimier
In office 2009–2013
Preceded by	Carl Boileau
Succeeded by	Josefina Blanco
Personal details
Political party	Projet Montréal

Private career

Giguère was an educational consultant before entering political life.[1] She is also a singer and percussionist. Her campaign literature indicates that she joined Projet Montréal at the time of the party's founding in 2004.[2]

Borough councillor

Giguère was elected to the Plateau-Mont-Royal borough council in the 2013 Montreal municipal election, defeating incumbent councillor Carl Boileau in the De Lorimier ward. Projet Montréal emerged as the official opposition on city council after the election and won every seat in Plateau-Mont-Royal to continue as the local governing authority in the borough. In January 2014, Giguère was appointed as her party's critic on urban agriculture, cycling, and green spaces.[3]

On the day following her appointment, she urged the city to develop a plan to confront the presence of the emerald ash borer beetle in the city's parks and woodlands.[4] She also called for the city to improve access to public beaches,[5] and she supported the Plateau-Mont-Royal council's decision to limit one-hour free parking spots for shoppers in a bid to decrease car traffic in the area.[6]

Cycling issues

Giguère's primary area of focus during her first term was cycling and cyclist safety. She approved of the Montreal executive committee's decision to purchase the local assets of the bicycle sharing system Bixi in February 2014 after the company filed for bankruptcy, though she argued that the service should be taken over by the Société de transport de Montréal in the longer term.[7] She also called on the government of Quebec to modernize its highway safety code in April of the same year, saying that the existing code did not reflect the increased presence of urban cycling.[8] In September 2014, she urged the city to prioritize bike lanes on busy, arterial streets rather than in comparatively safe residential areas.[9]

In early 2015, the city opened a new bike lane on Saint Laurent Boulevard that met with a negative response from cyclists due to the absence of lane markings, a trajectory that some described as dangerous, and the fact that it ended with no obvious path for cyclists on which cyclists could continue. Giguère joined in the criticism, remarking, "It takes people who don't understand bicycles to design something like that. It makes no sense."[10] She did, however, support the city government's decision to dedicate a bike path on Saint Denis Street later in the year,[11] and she supported the city's twelve-point set of recommendations to reform the provincial highway safety code for the benefit of cyclists.[12]

Giguère argued in 2016 that the interests of cyclists were often ignored in Montreal's urban renovation projects. "We're really stagnating in terms of new dedicated paths that will bring out new cyclists," she said Marianne Giguère. "We have the idea that they're adding a few kilometres year after year, but there's no great vision."[13] In the same year, she presented a workshop on Projet Montréal's efforts to improve cyclist and pedestrian safety at the Pro Walk/Pro Bike/Pro Place conference in Vancouver.[14]

City councillor

Giguère was elected for the De Lorimier city ward in the 2017 Montreal municipal election, in which Projet Montréal won the mayoralty, a majority of seats of the Montreal city council, and, once again, every seat on the Plateau-Mont-Royal borough council. Following the election, she was appointed as an associate member of the Montreal executive committee with responsibility for sustainable development and active transit.[15] She works with executive councillors Luc Ferrandez and Jean-François Parenteau on the first of these files and with executive councillor Éric Alan Caldwell on the second.[16][17]

By virtue of holding her seat on city council, Giguère continues to serve on the Plateau-Mont-Royal borough council.

Electoral record

2017 Montreal municipal election: Councillor, De Lorimier
Party		Candidate	Votes	%	±%
	Projet Montréal	Marianne Giguère	8,415	70.84
	Équipe Denis Coderre	Linda Gauthier	3,464	29.16
Total valid votes			11,879	100
Total rejected ballots			275
Turnout			12,154	52.42
Electors on the lists			23,188
Source: Election results, 2017, City of Montreal.

2013 Montreal municipal election: Borough councillor, De Lorimier
Party		Candidate	Votes	%	±%
	Projet Montréal	Marianne Giguère	6,771	52.47	+4.35
	Coalition Montréal	Carl Boileau (incumbent)	3,587	27.80	-10.46
	Équipe Denis Coderre	Nam Truong	1,586	12.29
	Independent	Sophie Stéphanie Lapierre	960	7.44
Total valid votes			12,904	100
Total rejected ballots			416
Turnout			13,320	57.54
Electors on the lists			23,148
Source: Election results, 2013, City of Montreal.

References

1. "Meet The Executive Committee," Montreal Gazette, 21 November 2017, A3.
2. Marianne Giguère, Projet Montréal, accessed 7 December 2017.
3. "Projet Montréal unveils shadow cabinet for city hall," Postmedia Breaking News, 7 January 2014.
4. "Projet Montréal demande la création d'un fonds d'urgence de 10 M$ pour contrer les effets de l'agrile du frêne" [party press release], Canada NewsWire, 8 January 2014.
5. "Sauter dans le fleuve en plein cœur de Montréal : Projet Montréal propose un projet de bain portuaire" [party press release], Canada Newswire, 24 July 2014.
6. Bertrand Marotte, "Montreal merchants stage shutdown," Globe and Mail, 1 June 2015, A3.
7. Christopher Curtis, "City buys Bixi assets for $11.9 million; Despite its financial and legal troubles, service is still popular with Montrealers," Montreal Gazette, 20 February 2014, A2. See also "BIXI : le maire de Montréal refuse de s'engager à maintenir le service de vélo en libre-service" [party press release], Canada NewsWire, 2 May 2014.
8. "Projet Montréal urges safety review after rash of bicycle accidents," Postmedia Breaking News, 11 April 2014.
9. Michelle Lalonde and René Bruemmer, "City urged to move faster on cycling safety; Groups react to report that woman's death was avoidable," Montreal Gazette, 1 October 2014, A6. See also Jason Magder, "Bike path network to get major upgrades," Montreal Gazette, 13 May 2016.
10. Jason Magder, "Still Much Work To Do: Cyclists; City has made some safety improvements, but danger spots remain, advocates say," Montreal Gazette, 4 April 2015, A3.
11. Jason Magder, "City to give lane on St-Denis to cyclists," Montreal Gazette, 30 May 2015, A4.
12. Jason Magder, "12 things Montreal wants to change about bike laws," Montreal Gazette, 22 September 2015, A2.
13. Jason Magder, "Bike path network: Mind the gaps," Montreal Gazette, 21 June 2016.A3.
14. "Marianne Giguère à Vancouver pour discuter de réappropriation de l'espace public" [party press release], Canada Newswire, 12 September 2016.
15. "Meet The Executive Committee," Montreal Gazette, 21 November 2017, A3.
16. Matthieu Payen, "MOINS DE TÂCHES POUR FERRANDEZ," Le Journal de Montréal, 25 November 2017, p. 51.
17. "Gender parity but little diversity in Valérie Plante's executive committee", Canadian Broadcasting Corporation News, 20 November 2017.