Meet Valérie Plante, elected as new mayor of Montreal.

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Meeshika Sharma
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Valérie Plante.43 of Projet Montréal has been elected mayor of Montreal, beating out veteran politician Denis Coderre in Sunday's municipal election.

Plante won over voters on a promise to improve public transit (including a new Metro line), alleviate traffic woes and make the city more family friendly. She becomes the first woman to be elected mayor of Montreal.In her winning speech, she said, "During the course of this campaign, I had one thing in mind: put Montrealers first. I'm not going to change that."

"I'm going to get Montrealers moving again. I'm going to build safer roads for pedestrians, seniors and cyclists."

Projet Montréal, which had previously had been limited to some of the city's denser central boroughs, succeeded in winning over voters in key battlegrounds further afield, including Ahuntsic-Cartierville and Côte-des-Neiges-Notre-Dame-de-Grâce.

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publive-imageIn his concession speech, a sombre-looking Coderre announced he is quitting municipal politics. Calling Montreal "one of the greatest cities in the world, " he said, "No matter the result, we have to be proud of what we accomplished."

An opinion poll this summer found Plante was still unknown to two-thirds of Montrealers.

 

 

 

But Plante, a native of Rouyn-Noranda, Que., with a master's in museum studies, succeeded in winning over voters through the course of the campaign.

She said, "Tonight we have written a new page in Montreal's history books.Three hundred and seventy five years after Jeanne-Mance, Montreal has its first mayoress."

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