Montreal Would Be 'More Dangerous' With Plante Or Coderre As Mayor According To Holness

If either Valérie Plante or Denis Coderre get elected mayor in November, Montreal would be "more dangerous," according to mayoral candidate and Mouvement Montréal leader Balarama Holness.

"Montreal will be more dangerous under a Plante or Coderre administration because they both avoid accountability and fail to address the root cause of city violence: poverty, social exclusion, and marginalization," Holness said in a statement shared with MTL Blog.

Holness called out Mayor Valérie Plante and former Mayor Denis Coderre for, in his words, "blindly investing in the SPVM."

"We have seen the budget skyrocket from $400 million to $800 million per year in the past few decades," he said, calling for a record of "every dollar spent by the SPVM" to be made public.

Under a Holness mandate, SPVM expenditures would be greatly reduced and much of the police budget would be frozen or eliminated altogether, "including the $57 million dollar gun range that was earmarked for 2020-2022," the statement from the party reads.

Rather than funding the police, Holness says his administration would invest $1 billion into building new sports and recreation facilities in Montreal in order to "improve urban health, limit high school dropouts, and build stronger and safer communities."