Former Gatineau mayor says partisan politics pushed her to resign

A year ago, then Gatineau mayor France Bélisle abruptly resigned, citing a hostile political climate. This week she has spoken out, offering more details of her complaints about municipal politics in Quebec. 

"There was a conflict between duty and power," Bélisle told CBC Radio's Ottawa Morning.

"I was there for duty," she said, while other "people were there for power."

When Bélisle was elected in 2021, she was the first female mayor of the fourth largest city in Quebec. But just over two years later she stepped down, 20 months before the end of her term. 

At the time, Bélisle said a toxic working environment — including death threats — had forced her to quit to protect her health and integrity. But she took no questions at the news conference announcing her resignation and has provided little further detail since. 

That changed this week with the publication of her book L'heureuse élue, which means "the happy elected one" in French.

Bélisle says that while the problems with politics at the federal and provincial level are well understood, less attention is paid to the municipal level. 

While in Ontario municipal elections are non-partisan, this is not the case in Quebec. Political parties at the municipal level there "makes a huge difference in the dynamic and the relationships," Bélisle said. 

"You would walk in the room and a group of people, they don't look at you," She said. "They stop talking just to make you feel bad."

She said this made it difficult to make co-operative decisions in the best interests of the people of Gatineau.

Bélisle said had expected to "sit at the table, be respectful, work together" to find compromises. "This is not what was happening," she said. "I was very disappointed, so much that inside I became sick because I was disillusioned."

While Bélisle does not name the former colleagues with whom she had issues, Radio-Canada reports that many are identifiable by their titles or references to newspaper articles in Bélisle's book.

But the author insists the book is less about settling scores and more about highlighting problems in municipal politics. 

"This could be the story in many municipalities, not only in Quebec," she said. "And the reason why I've made the book is for elected people not to feel so lonely. I felt very lonely."