'So disrespectful': Montreal mayor fires back after Poilievre calls her 'incompetent'

Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre showed a lack of respect for elected officials by calling the mayors of Montreal and Quebec City 'incompetent' on social media, Valerie Plante said Friday.

Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre showed a lack of respect for elected officials by calling the mayors of Montreal and Quebec City "incompetent" on social media, Valérie Plante said Friday.

The Montreal mayor said she was "quite disturbed" by the Tory leader's comments on Thursday when he accused her and Mayor Bruno Marchand for stalling new housing construction in their respective cities.

"We keep on talking about mental health and how we want everybody, all of society, to be respectful to each other … he calls himself a leader and attacking personally, naming people, calling them names — to me, it is so disrespectful to my job, his job, anyone's job, and also of the type of climate, the social climate we want to be part of," Plante said Friday in an interview with CJAD 800.

A day earlier, the Conservative leader had shared a quote from Canada Mortgage and Housing Corp. (CMHC) analyst Francis Cortellino in a Jan. 16 Radio-Canada report, in which he said, "In Quebec, there have never been so few houses built since 1955, the year data began to be collected."

In an interview with CTV News, Cortellino said there is a shortage of standalone homes, but more high-density apartment buildings are going up.

"If you look at single family home starts, it's true there was a big decrease in 2023 and it was the lowest level 1955," he said Friday. "But at the same time, there's apartment starts and this is what we've been building mostly in the last few years."

Poilievre vowed to tie federal money for municipalities based on the number of homes they build if he becomes prime minister.