Do you find real estate flips and others unethical or illegal practices used by real estate agents, such as Verdun mayor candidate Antoine Richard, disgusting? Come and say it in person!
Tuesday October 19 there will be a Public Assembly where candidates for mayor of Verdun are invited to debate various issues. Let’s mobilize to greet the candidates and send a clear message. Verduners will fight for immeditate and long-lasting housing solutions. If we don’t show them our strength in numbers and our determination, all we will get is the status quo for one more term.
We don’t want elected representatives that use the housing crisis or the rigged financial system to make profit off the backs of ordinary people. Join us any time after 5:30pm, but before the start of the Assembly at 6:30pm, outside the Quai 5160 (Maison de la culture de Verdun) to be heard! You will be allowed to ask one question to the candidates during the Assembly, so you can be heard in that way too. Please wear a mask.
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It was learned on October 13 that the Verdun mayoral candidate for Denis Coderre’s team, Antoine Richard, would have made a lot of money through real estate flips and by using other prohibited or immoral practices. I invite you to join me on October 19th at 5:30 pm in front of the Maison de la Culture de Verdun (Quai 5160) during the public meeting to denounce the practices of mayoral candidate Antoine Richard, and to send a clear message to the other mayoral candidates that we need a fairer Verdun!
Mr. Richard would have made $471,000 in a few months. And he thinks he can represent well the citizens of Verdun, whose median annual income in 2017 was only about $55,000 per household? If elected, I pledge to keep only the equivalent of an average salary and to donate the rest of my elected salary to social causes. Making the same salary as the people we represent leads us to improve their living conditions!
Mr. Richard seems to think that doing legal but immoral things is no big deal, and he compares it to the practice of the ultra-rich to shelter their money in tax havens. TVA Nouvelles quotes him: « It’s a debate about whether it’s legal, but not moral? […] It’s like the Pandora papers. Is it forbidden to go to a tax haven or is it not? » Do you think that someone who agrees with the principle of tax havens will represent the interests of the workers of Verdun well?
I think that tax havens are clearly immoral and should be banned. We need to get the money from tax havens and use it to build much needed public housing; to fund our much abused health and education systems; to meet our needs, not those of the rich. This money was created by the hard work of working men and women, but it is the executives of big business who benefit from it. (In fact, they don’t even benefit because they already have too much money.) Former Montreal Mayor Denis Coderre, on whose team Richard is now campaigning, was able to find millions of dollars to fund a Formula E car. This means that when you want to find money, you can find it. The question is: what projects should we prioritize with the money we have? The ones that will benefit ordinary people, workers, youth, the homeless… or the ones that will benefit developers who already have money in their pockets?
Doesn’t Mr. Richard worry about conflicts of interest? So how will he act when it comes time to accept the development projects in the Dupuis-Hickson sector in Verdun? Can we trust that he will put forward the interests of those who need resources, housing, daycare, community gardens? Of course not! Rather, we can suspect that he will help his cronies in the real estate industry to make even more profits, and this in record time.
Fortunately, we have a strength: strength in numbers! The only way to turn the tide is to get organized and mobilize. I invite you to join me on October 19th at 5:30pm in front of the Maison de la Culture de Verdun (Quai 5160) during the public meeting to denounce the practices of the mayoral candidate Antoine Richard, and to send a clear message to the other mayoral candidates that we need a fairer Verdun!
Stop the renovations!
For an immediate rent freeze!
For universal and public rent control!
For massive construction of affordable public housing for everyone!
Source: https://www.tvanouvelles.ca/2021/10/13/les-pratiques-interdites-dun-candidat-de-denis-coderre-1
Rosalie Bélanger-Rioux 