Boroughs

Luc Ferrandez has been a consultant in change management for the last 10 years. Prior to this, he held the position of Director of communications at CAE Electronics, of senior communications advisor at Hydro-Québec and was a researcher for the CNRS in a laboratory specialized in environmental matters. He holds a Ph.D. in Political Sciences from the Écoles des hautes études en sciences sociales in Paris, and has also earned first both a master's and a bachelor's degree in Political Sciences from the Université du Québec à Montréal. As a consultant, M. Ferrandez has worked on designing, co-ordinating and developing total quality projects, implementing SAP information systems, important restructuring plans and in carrying out various payroll systems overhaul, strategic planning and accountability projects. As a citizen, Luc Ferrandez has been involved in a variety of causes aimed at protecting and enhancing the quality of life in the older Montreal boroughs: campaign for a re-development of Notre-Dame St. on a human scale, traffic calming, protection of the Mount-Royal, opposition to the erection of a wall between the Plateau and Rosemont, the Pedestrian's Charter, Porte Ste-Marie.

An award-winning investigative journalist, researcher and translator, Alex Norris has lived in or near Mile End for more than 20 years. As a news reporter, he covered everything from city politics to foreign affairs. He also researched organized crime, urban sprawl and intercultural relations. Mr Norris has taught investigative journalism in Africa and Latin America, and won the prestigious Prix Judith-Jasmin in 2003 for his exposé on Quebec's video lottery industry. He is also the holder of a National Newspaper Award and a Canadian Association of Journalists investigative-journalism prize. Mr Norris has been active in his community on green-space, traffic and visual-pollution issues. He is fluently bilingual and also speaks Portuguese and Spanish. Mr Norris and his wife are raising two sons on the Plateau.

Richard Ryan is a community organiser and worked for 12 years within several community groups dealing with immigration and intercultural relations before moving into the field of healthcare where he has worked for the past seven years. Mr Ryan has lived in Mile End district for 20 years. He is involved at different levels in his borough concentrating his efforts these past two years in his work with the Comité des citoyens du Mile End. He is part of the organizing team that established the Citizen Process on the Revitalization of the St-Viateur East Sector (the industrial sector of Mile End). This process mobilized hundreds of Mile End citizens to get involved in planning the future development of this area. Father of an eight year-old girl, Mr Ryan is also involved at Lambert-Closse school.

Josée Duplessis is a sociologist by training and ran a consultation firm dedicated to improving the environmental practices of Québec municipalities. A devout environmentalist and cyclist to the core, she counts the following among her achievements: the first Ressourcerie du Québec, an environmental portrait of the Island of Montreal, and a strategic plan on the transport of goods for the Metropolitan Region. Mme Duplessis taught a course on the social and environmental impact of industries at École de technologie supérieure and started a theatrical company which made more than 150,000 children aware of daily environmental practices. She was equally the Vice President of the Conseil régional de l’environnement de Montréal. A citizen of the Plateau for 20 years and Borough Councillor since 2005, Mme Duplessis was involved with numerous issues, notably the preservation of Fire Station 26, the weekly compost (brown bin) collection serving 3,000 people, and the development of social housing.

Carl Boileau has lived in the Plateau since childhood and has witnessed the evolution of the borough. Founding co-ordinator of Projet Montréal in the Plateau, Mr Boileau, co-listed with Richard Bergeron, leader of Projet Montréal, ran in the 2005 elections winning the DeLorimier City Councillor seat for the party. In 2006, he interned with the Groupe Les Verts in Paris’ City Hall. An active blogger and a webmaster by training, Mr Boileau administers the Voix de gauche website. Holding a degree in multimedia, he makes a living in this area.

Richard Bergeron was born in 1955 in Alma, in the Lac Saint-Jean area. He came to Montreal in 1975 to study architecture at the Université de Montréal. During his four years as a student he drove a taxi part-time. It is by driving over 100,000 kilometers through the streets of Montreal that he came to know and love his adopted city.

He practiced architecture for two years before undertaking a Master’s degree in Urban Studies. In between study years he served as a CUSO volunteer (Canadian University Service Overseas) in Guinea-Bissau. Upon completion of his degree he worked as a consultant for an urban planning firm.

In 1986, he enrolled once again at the Université de Montréal, this time in a doctoral program in Urban Planning, with a focus on urban policies in developing countries and involving a case study in Côte d’Ivoire. Concurrently, he taught at the Institut d’urbanisme. Involved in several research projects on urban policy, the management of urban services and the environment, he travelled extensively, namely in Burkina Faso, Haïti and Morocco. In 1991, Richard Bergeron defended his doctoral thesis and published his first book, L’antidéveloppement : le prix du libéralisme, with L’Harmattan Editors, in Paris.

From 1990 to 1992, Richard Bergeron was President of the Fédération des coopératives d’habitation de l’île de Montréal. In 1992-1993, he held the post of visiting professor at Université Laval, in the Master’s Program in Regional Planning and Development. There followed two years of research on the economics of housing development, at the Université de Montréal, punctuated by several teaching assignments at the Institut d’urbanisme, as well as in the Master’s Program of Environmental Science at the Université du Québec à Montréal.

From 1996, Richard Bergeron became a consultant for the Ministère de la métropole, whereby he conducted a dozen studies on the potential redevelopment of vacant lots around Montreal metro stations. During this period, he also wrote Le livre noir de l’automobile, published in 1999 by Éditions Hypothèse. He went on to serve as an analyst and editor for the group in charge of transportation at the Mécanisme québécois de concertation sur les changements climatiques. From 2000 to 2005, he was in charge of strategic analysis for the Agence métropolitaine de transport.

In 2003 he published L’économie de l’automobile au Québec, again with Éditions Hypothèse. Two years later, he pursued his reflection on our collective over-dependence on the automobile in a fourth book : Les Québécois au volant, c'est mortel, this time with Les Intouchables Editors.

Over the course of his professional career, Richard Bergeron has worked on nearly all aspects of urban development, overall planning, the economics of real estate, service management, the environment, transportation, etc. His publications, reports and lectures on these subjects are standard reference among his peers, theoreticians and practitioners alike.

In 2004, having come to the conclusion that the main impediment to the adoption of an overall fair and sustainable approach to urban development was of a political nature, Richard Bergeron founded Projet Montréal. Less than a year later, in the election of November 2005, he garnered just under 9% of the vote for the mayoralty and with the help of his running mate Carl Boileau, he was elected city councillor for De Lorimier district in the borough of Plateau-Mont-Royal. Over the course of the next four years, he divided his time between the tasks of an elected official and those of establishing a new municipal party.

In the Montreal municipal election of 2009, in which he once again ran for mayor, he received 25% of the vote and 14 members of his party were elected city and borough councillors.

Richard Bergeron is married to Amina and is the father of two children, Guillaume and Nadianie.

Piper Huggins has lived on the Plateau Mont-Royal for almost 20 years with her spouse and two children. Ms Huggins is passionate about social justice and democratic participation. She worked for the New Democratic Party of Canada (NDP) during almost ten years as political organizer and campaign director responsible for Québec. She was subsequently elected to the position of President of the Quebec Section of the Federal NDP (2006-2008). Ms Huggins currently works for the Centre for Research and Teaching on Women at McGill University. Her educational background is in Political Economics which she studied at Concordia University. Ms Huggins is a ‘City Girl’ who adores Montreal, the life of its neighbourhoods, its rich history and culture, and its enormous potential.