Transition Montréal leader Craig Sauvé and his upstart party may have been excluded from most of the debates as the race to become the city’s next mayor gathers steam, but he still managed to grab the spotlight this week.

He was quick out of the gate denouncing the Quebec government’s new prohibition on gender-neutral language in official state communications, saying it divides and stigmatizes people rather than protecting French.

Projet Montréal’s campaign director, Julie Bélanger, defected to his team.

And Sauvé was the target of a low blow from outgoing Montreal Mayor Valérie Plante, who had said she was going to stay above the political fray — a sign, perhaps, of the growing threat incumbent Projet Montréal sees in Sauvé peeling away their progressive voters.

Plante dredged up an old sexual assault allegation that Sauvé has always categorically denied. Dating from 2012, it resurfaced days before the 2021 election, forcing him to withdraw from Projet Montréal, although he won his council seat anyway and sat as an independent for the past four years. The complaint was investigated and charges ruled out. Sauvé has always been transparent about it.

But Plante brought up the accusation anew, and suggested that Sauvé had tried to rejoin Projet Montréal “until the last minute” and only settled on Transition Montréal when he was rejected.

Sauvé dismissed the mayor’s comments as “dirty politics.” Many publicly defended his integrity and questioned the mayor’s motives, including former Projet executive committee member Luc Ferrandez. Even current Projet leader Luc Rabouin distanced himself from Plante’s remarks as they distracted from his own campaign to be mayor, which has largely zeroed in on Ensemble Montréal leader Soraya Martinez Ferrada as his main opponent.

In an interview later in the week in a café on Monk Blvd., Sauvé talked in depth about why he really chose to lead recently formed Transition Montréal, and why he no longer feels at home in Projet Montréal, even though he has many friends in the party and did consider returning.

“There were a lot of things that I wasn’t convinced about in Projet Montréal, or even uncomfortable........

© Montreal Gazette