The Gazette du lieu suivant : Montreal, Quebec, Canada • 8

A8 THE GAZETTE montrealgazette.com TUESDAY, JUNE 18, 2013 MONTREAL CITY EDITOR: MICHELLE RICHARDSON 514-987-2462 I mirichardsonmontrealgazette.com ASSIGNMENT EDITOR: 514-987-2617 I citynewsmontrealgazette.com Eight candidates join Coderre slate SEVEN COME FROM UNION MONTREAL Previous council experience heralded would be an "alternative" come election time and one that would be able to find consensus. "I said since the beginning that I want to be a conductor, who is there to choose the partition and make them play together, but we need an orchestra, and that's exactly what we're sending as a message today," he said. The candidates are: Mary Deros: City councillor from Park Extension, and member of the city executive committee, responsible for cultural communities. She left Union Montreal in December. Pierre Cagnier: The sole non-Union Montreal candidate and current mayor of the Ahuntsic-Cartierville borough.

He left the Projet Montreal party in 2010 to become independent. Jean-Marc Cibeau: city councillor from the Ovide-Cl-ermont district of the Montreal North borough. Frantz Benjamin: City councillor from St-Michel. He left Union Montreal in October. Chantal Rossi: Borough councillor from the Marie-Clarac district of Montreal North.

She left Union Montreal in February to sit as an independent. Monica Ricourt: Borough councillor from Ovide-Cler-mont district of Montreal North, formerly of Union Montreal. Dimitrios Jim Beis: Borough councillor for the Bois-de-Iiesse district of Pierrefonds- Roxboro. Formerly of Union Montreal, he will also be running for borough mayor. Catherine Clement-Talbot: Borough councillor from Cap-Saint-Jacques district of Pierrefonds-Roxboro.

Formerly of Union Montreal. Coderre denied suggestions that the candidates' experience may be a liability following Monday's arrest of Mayor Michael Applebaum. Responding to questions about how the public could trust a team that says they were oblivious to the corruption that was taking place around them, he said Montrealers "should not throw the baby out with the bathwater." "You have to be careful because those people are not corrupt," he said. "In the future, we'll have some new candidates, some new blood," alluding to plans to unveil candidates from outside the current political sphere. Coderre, who officially announced his candidacy May 16, made a point of touching on changes he said are needed at the bureaucratic level in order to guarantee that city contracts are not corrupted, saying a team familiar with city hall is needed for reform to take place.

"All that is based on the best practices, (in terms of) the structure and the way to govern, but you need the experience to do that," he said. "And I'm the guy who's got that experience." akovacmontrealgazette.com lecting these individuals for his campaign. Among them is executive committee member Mary Deros, who left Union Montreal late last year. "It's not a team we threw together suddenly," he said. "It's the fruit of a lot of consultation, work on the ground, discussions and passionate work." Despite the candidates' past connections to Union Montreal and Tremblay, Coderre said his team, Equipe Denis Coderre pour Montreal, ADAM KOVAC THE GAZETTE Experience was the name of the game as mayoral candidate Denis Coderre announced the eight latest candidates to join his team.

Of the eight, seven had been members of the defunct Union Montreal party, which folded in the wake of the corruption scandals that forced the resignation of Gerald Tremblay as mayor. Coderre insisted that a lot of hard work had gone into hand-se 'We need new blood': Joly announces mayoral candidacy THE GAZETTE She has no political experience, no candidates, no platform, no financial background and no name recognition. But Melanie Joly says she has what it takes to be mayor of Montreal. Joly, who announced her candidacy on Monday, is a 34-year-old lawyer who until recently worked for public relations firm Conn Wolfe. "I don't think experience is an issue in Montreal I think there's a lot of experience throughout the city," Joly told reporters.

"I think we need new blood." She said Montreal has for years been dragged down by corruption and paralyzed by political bickering. "To reinvent Montreal, we need honest, competent and visionary people, new ideas and citizens who stand up and take back their city," Joly said. "I don't owe anything to anybody. I will be accountable to Montrealers." She said in the coming days she will announce the names of candidates who will run with her. She said she will form a party but there will be "no party line" among candidates who are elected.

She would not say how many candidates she expects to run with her. As for a platform, Joly said she will be announcing her positions during fhe campaign. Joly said she has backers in the business community, but said she was not ready to announce who they are. She is the fourth candidate to join the mayoralty race. The others are Richard Bergeron, Denis Coderre andLouiseHarel.

It's time for Montrealers to take back our city: Joly, opinion, Page A21 i Ok I "'tf P'f'Vtl TO 2-sc; irfh'r h- 00 Jjf'" I I llh i ll tTr rtt JOHN MAHONEYTHE GAZETTE I don't owe anything to anybody. I will be accountable to Montrealers," Melanie Joly said in announcing her candidacy for mayor on Monday. CHARBONNEAU COMMISSION Notary says he funnelled cash but wasn't close to Laval mayor 7- A W4W. 1r i -J -fir Gauthier's testimony before Judge France Charbonneau is to continue Tuesday. that raising money through questionable means was a mistake.

The 2004 Gomery Commission looked into the federal Liberal Party's sponsorship scandal Bertrand, who kept the PRO des Lavallois party's books, was devastated when accused of using city funds for such activities as eating at sugar shacks, Gauthier said. "I told him that if you resign in the middle of this storm, it'll be an admission of guilt," Gauthier testified. "I advised him to seek legal advice. "He really thought he had done nothing illegal." The two men had arranged to meet at a Tim Hortons, but Bertrand was too upset to drive so his wife had to, Gauthier said. Bertrand's office, as well as his house, had been raided by members of the special squad set up to investigate corruption.

"And his wife was home when it was searched," Gauthier said. Gauthier's testimony continues Tuesday smontgomery montrealgazette.com Twitter: MontgomerySue SUE MONTGOMERY GAZETTE JUSTICE REPORTER Notary Jean Gauthier was flattered when the mayor of Laval entrusted him to accept envelopes full of money from engineering firms. And Gauthier, who then passed on the money to Jean Bertrand, a lawyer working for the PRO des Lavallois party, never accepted anything in return, he testified Monday "My job was to funnel illegal money between engineering firms and the PRO des Lavallois party," Gauthier told the Charbonneau Commission looking into corruption and collusion in the construction industry He says he collected illicit money for the party from 2000 to 2005. Gauthier, who turns 75 in a week and is already retired, said he wasn't close to former Laval mayor Gilles Vail-lancourt, who was arrested last month on corruption charges. He may have eaten dinner once at the mayor's house, he testified.

But Gauthier knew everyone in Laval, and Vaillan-court, who controlled everything at city hall, he said, met hundreds of people at fund- fc tJr.m H'lmatmSBmirmmua iiyt CHARBONNEAU COMMISSION "My job was to funnel illegal money," notary Jean Gauthier testified on Monday. raising cocktails, brunches and dinners. Gauthier wasn't in politics per se, he said, he was just interested in it and stillis. Telephone conversations between Gauthier and Bertrand, recorded by police the day Laval city hall was raided in October and played at the commission, captured a certain level of panic at least from Bertrand. says Bertrand as Gauthier tries to calm him, telling him it's not the time to resign.

"Wait until the storm passes," he says. "If someone messed up, he'll pay for it" Bertrand testified this month that almost every councillor in the party has participated in illegal financing by contributing in the name of family members and then accepting cash from local engineering firms as reimbursement Bertrand said he only became aware of the practice in 1995, although he served as official agent for the party between 1984 and 2013. UPAC arrested Gauthier and Bertrand in May stops him, saying there are microphones everywhere. Gauthier didn't ask questions about the envelopes of cash from engineering firms delivered to his office, nor did he know the amounts, he said. "I did it as a service," he said.

'It was for the party Gauthier said he realized it was time for him to stop when former federal Liberal minister Marc-Yvan Cote told the Gomery Commission The day of the October raids, Gauthier also called his daughter, Melanie, a bureaucrat at Laval city halL He told the commission he never received privileged information from her, yet in wiretaps she is heard giving him the details of the raid. Computers were seized, she says. When her father is about to mention a name of someone possibly involved, Melanie 1.