In light of the recent drama around tax returns and income statements during the Montreal mayoral election, we thought it would be good to compare exactly how much money Valérie Plante and Denis Coderre made last year.

Both candidates did quite well for themselves despite the fact that we were in a pandemic.

Denis Coderre

Coderre was under intense scrutiny for refusing to release revenue statements. He was adamant about not revealing his earnings and clients until after he won the election but backed down on Wednesday, November 3.

On his public LinkedIn page, we can see Coderre worked a number of different jobs after he lost the election in 2017 including at Stingray Music, the Fédération International de Automobile (FIA) and the Montreal Jewish General Hospital.

Multiple outlets reported that the former mayor and Ensemble Montréal leader had a before-tax income totalling $458,263 in 2020.

Not too shabby!

Valérie Plante

Plante, meanwhile, has championed "transparency" on her tax and revenue statements. MTL Blog reached out to the Project Montréal team and they sent us Plante's tax returns dating back to 2017.

In 2020, the incumbent mayor declared a gross income of $184,297.49.

Her revenues in the previous years were similar, never dropping below the $100,000 mark.

Balarama Holness

Holness didn't respond to MTL Blog's inquiries about his past earnings.

Both Plante and Coderre are far above the median income after taxes for an average person living in Quebec. According to the latest Statistics Canada, the average income for a person living in Quebec in 2019 was $55,600 dollars.