Candidates talk

Each week, TC Media invites the municipal election candidates to express their views on various local issues. Their response is published word for word. Their participation is not mandatory.

This week, we ask the candidates what specific steps would they put into place to better serve the English community.

Marc Barrette, Indépendant
The first thing I would like to do as mayor, for the English residents is if you receive a letter at home or a document that is hard to understand everyone is welcome to contact city hall and all of the workers would walk you through them and if needed the papers will be translated for your understanding. If you were to have any further question you can always go to city hall and help will be brought to your needs. One of my ideas is to put up more English posters to make things more understandable. I would be asking the residents what would they think and what they would like me to do to make everyday tasks and things needed to be applied easier for themselves and their families. I would also be having a meeting with the English citizens to see and think about what we can do better for them.

Giovanni Baruffa, Indépendant
As a citizen of Dorval, I have seen first hand how we service our citizens in both languages and generally speaking we are doing a very good job.

Data from Statistics Canada shows that over 50% of Dorval residents reported English as their first official language spoken and also the language commonly used at home, which is a significant proportion of our community.

When it comes to the employees of this city, I believe we need to provide them with the tools they need to help our citizens in both languages using clear guidelines and procedures.  For our city, communicating with our citizens is crucial to building a transparent environment, whether it is providing or receiving information.  Communication is essential in bridging the gap between all cultural communities.

Let’s work together and make Dorval great again.

Michel Fontaine, Indépendant
Interesting question, 28 years ago my wife and I chose Dorval to raise our family, at that time the question would have been the same except it would have been geared to french speaking citizens. The population of Dorval is unique and embraces both languages, the role of the city is to ensure good service in both languages. That is what I wanted for my family years ago and I also promise the same to the citizens of beautiful Dorval.  It is the people that made the city like it is and the city is the home that we all share because we are the city.

Mario Mammone, Indépendant
I strongly believe in offering all services in both French and English. In fact, being trilingual myself, I believe the more languages the better. Why stop at two? With its international airport, Dorval is Montreal’s gateway to the world. As such, Dorval should better focus on its airport. After all, tourism and international investment can be very lucrative. More than 100 million people live within a 1,000 km radius of Dorval. This represents a lot of potential travelers to our city, all of whom speak various languages. My family settled near the airport in the 1950s and are here to this day. My goal is to bring everyone – francophones, anglophones and allophones – to work together to bring Dorval back to life and make its main streets such as Dorval Avenue, Cardinal Road, and Lakeshore Road a jewel of international culture with music, plays, movies, dance, and even more to make our city lively and welcoming.

Edgar Rouleau, Équipe Action Dorval
The city of Dorval is officially a bilingual city, so all city services, such as courses, correspondence and other services are offered in both English and French. For that reason, both Francophones and Anglophones can feel welcome in Dorval and we are happy to see a large number of bilingual citizens.

Our team has always been vigilant that citizens are answered in the language of their choice, and we will continue to do so when re-elected. I am also proud to say that every Dorval Action Team Councillor and Candidate is bilingual.

I should also mention that I, as a Mayor, and the remainder of our team have an open door policy to citizens and groups. If issues of fairness or respect arise, be it about language or any other topic, we have always been present in the discussion and ready to act.