Yves Lévesque | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Mayor of Trois-Rivières, Quebec | |
| In office November 4, 2001 – December 27, 2018 | |
| Preceded by | Guy Leblanc |
| Succeeded by | Jean Lamarche |
| Personal details | |
| Born | 1957 |
| Political party | Conservative (federal) Conservative (provincial; 2021-present) |
| Other political affiliations | CAQ (provincial; after 2003, before 2021) Parti Quebecois (provincial; before 2003) |
Yves Lévesque (born 1957) is a Canadian politician, who served as Mayor of Trois-Rivières between 2001 and 2018.
Career
City Councillor
Lévesque won his first electoral victory in 1994, when he became city councilor in Trois-Rivières-Ouest. He was re-elected in 1998.
Mayor of Trois-Rivières
In the wake of the province-wide municipal merging of 2001, he ran for Mayor of Trois-Rivières and won an upset victory against favourite candidate and Cap-de-la-Madeleine Mayor Alain Croteau. In the 2003 provincial election, he campaigned in favour of the re-election of Parti Québécois incumbent Guy Julien, who lost.
In 2005, Julien ran against Lévesque for mayor, but the incumbent was easily re-elected with 70% of the vote.[1]
Recently, Lévesque has been trying to get the Trois-Rivières Draveurs, a franchise of the Quebec Major Junior Hockey League, back in town.[2]
On December 27, 2018, Lévesque announced he was retiring as mayor for medical reasons.[3]
Federal politics
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Lévesque officially joined the Conservative Party of Canada in May 2018, taking out a party membership and speaking at the party's convention in Saint-Hyacinthe. He stated at the time that he was considering running for the party in the 43rd election.[4] He joined the Conservative Party because of its stated goal of decentralizing power to the provinces.[5]
On May 30, 2019, Lévesque was named the Conservative candidate for the riding of Trois-Rivières.[6] During the race, he was expected to win; however, he lost the race, standing third. Lévesque blamed party leader Andrew Scheer's first French-language debate, wherein Scheer's perceived inability to defend his personal views from the other leaders shifted support from the Conservatives in Quebec, which never recovered.[7]
Lévesque ran in Trois-Rivières again as a Conservative in 2021 and gained 17,027 votes (an increase of 1,787) but came in second.
Electoral record
Federal
| 2019 Canadian federal election: Trois-Rivières | ||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Party | Candidate | Votes | % | ±% | Expenditures | |||
| Bloc Québécois | Louise Charbonneau | 17,240 | 28.48 | +11.48 | $19,118.47 | |||
| Liberal | Valérie Renaud-Martin | 15,774 | 26.06 | -4.16 | $59,713.01 | |||
| Conservative | Yves Lévesque | 15,240 | 25.17 | +6.54 | none listed | |||
| New Democratic | Robert Aubin | 10,090 | 16.67 | -15.16 | none listed | |||
| Green | Marie Duplessis | 1,492 | 2.46 | +0.75 | none listed | |||
| People's | Marc-André Gingras | 565 | 0.93 | – | $5,574.25 | |||
| Independent | Ronald St-Onge Lynch | 137 | 0.23 | – | $0.00 | |||
| Total valid votes/expense limit | 60,538 | 100.0 | ||||||
| Total rejected ballots | 1,092 | 1.77 | ||||||
| Turnout | 61,630 | 66.73 | ||||||
| Eligible voters | 92,362 | |||||||
| Bloc Québécois gain from New Democratic | Swing | +7.82 | ||||||
| Source: Elections Canada[8][9] | ||||||||
Municipal (mayoral)
2017
| Mayoral candidate | Vote | % |
|---|---|---|
| Yves Lévesque (X) | 26,503 | 51.37 |
| Jean-François Aubin | 23,252 | 45.07 |
| André Bertrand | 1,837 | 3.56 |
2013
| Party | Mayoral candidate | Vote | % | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Independent | Yves Lévesque (X) | 29,204 | 49.25 | |
| Independent | Sylvie Tardif | 18,491 | 31.18 | |
| Independent | Catherine Dufresne | 8,324 | 14.04 | |
| Independent | Marcelle Girard | 1,609 | 2.71 | |
| Force 3R | Richard St-Germain | 1,321 | 2.23 | |
| Independent | Pierre Benoit Fortin | 352 | 0.59 | |
2009
| Candidate | Party | Vote | % |
|---|---|---|---|
| Yves Lévesque (X) | Independent | 25,637 | 54.9 |
| André Carle | Force 3R | 21,077 | 45.1 |
2005
| Candidate | Vote | % |
|---|---|---|
| Yves Lévesque (inc.) | 34,298 | 70.3 |
| Guy Julien | 13,741 | 28.2 |
| Serge Simard | 754 | 1.5 |
Footnotes
- ↑ Yves Lévesque l'emporte facilement, Radio-Canada, November 7, 2005
- ↑ Le retour des Draveurs ?, Radio-Canada, May 30, 2007
- ↑ Yves Lévesque quitte la mairie de Trois-Rivières, Radio-Canada
- ↑ Marquis, Melanie (12 May 2018). "Ex Bloc Quebecois leader Michel Gauthier joining Conservatives". iPolitics. Retrieved 14 July 2019.
One of those being courted by the party is the well-known mayor of Trois-Rivieres, Yves Levesque, who said Saturday that he was seriously considering whether to make the leap to federal politics.
- ↑ Lepage, Caroline. "Yves Lévesque digère déjà bien sa "défaite"". Le Journal de Montréal. Retrieved 2019-11-17.
- ↑ "Yves Lévesque devient candidat du Parti conservateur". Le Nouvelliste Trois-Rivières. La Presse. 30 May 2019. Retrieved 14 July 2019.
- ↑ Stephanie Levitz. "Bittersweet Conservative post-election gathering set for Ottawa Wednesday". The Chronicle-Journal. The Canadian Press. Retrieved 2019-11-17.
- ↑ "List of confirmed candidates". Elections Canada. Retrieved October 3, 2019.
- ↑ "Election Night Results". Elections Canada. Retrieved November 9, 2019.