Montreal Mayor Valérie Plante will not seek re-election in next year’s municipal election.
Plante made the announcement at city hall Wednesday morning.
“It was a heartbreaking decision because I love my job,” Plante said, adding she wasn’t able to guarantee to Montrealers that she would be able to do the job with the same energy levels as she has had in the past seven years.
“I’m ok,” she said. “I’ll do my job until the end of my mandate.”
The next municipal election will be held in November 2025.
First elected as mayor in 2017 in a vote that saw Plante, a political neophyte unseat political veteran Denis Coderre, she led Projet Montréal to two terms in power – beating Coderre a second time but doing so at no small cost to herself and her party’s reputation.
While Plante said she intended to seek a third term as recently as last January, she has faced growing criticism from political and business circles over the direction in which the city – particularly its downtown core – was headed. Public spending priorities and Projet Montréal’s trademark mission to expand the city’s bicycle path network have also been sources of complaint.
Plante also suffered a health scare last December when she seemed to suffer from a malaise in the middle of routine press conference and had to be helped away by her staff.
This story will be updated.