Yves Lévesque
Mayor of Trois-Rivières, Quebec
In office
November 4, 2001  December 27, 2018
Preceded byGuy Leblanc
Succeeded byJean Lamarche
Personal details
Born1957
Political partyConservative (federal)
Conservative (provincial; 2021-present)
Other political
affiliations
CAQ (provincial; after 2003, before 2021)
Parti Quebecois (provincial; before 2003)

Yves Lévesque (born 1957) is a Canadian politician, who served as Mayor of Trois-Rivières between 2001 and 2018.

Career

City Councillor

Lévesque won his first electoral victory in 1994, when he became city councilor in Trois-Rivières-Ouest. He was re-elected in 1998.

Mayor of Trois-Rivières

In the wake of the province-wide municipal merging of 2001, he ran for Mayor of Trois-Rivières and won an upset victory against favourite candidate and Cap-de-la-Madeleine Mayor Alain Croteau. In the 2003 provincial election, he campaigned in favour of the re-election of Parti Québécois incumbent Guy Julien, who lost.

In 2005, Julien ran against Lévesque for mayor, but the incumbent was easily re-elected with 70% of the vote.[1]

Recently, Lévesque has been trying to get the Trois-Rivières Draveurs, a franchise of the Quebec Major Junior Hockey League, back in town.[2]

On December 27, 2018, Lévesque announced he was retiring as mayor for medical reasons.[3]

Federal politics

Lévesque with Andrew Scheer in 2019

Lévesque officially joined the Conservative Party of Canada in May 2018, taking out a party membership and speaking at the party's convention in Saint-Hyacinthe. He stated at the time that he was considering running for the party in the 43rd election.[4] He joined the Conservative Party because of its stated goal of decentralizing power to the provinces.[5]

On May 30, 2019, Lévesque was named the Conservative candidate for the riding of Trois-Rivières.[6] During the race, he was expected to win; however, he lost the race, standing third. Lévesque blamed party leader Andrew Scheer's first French-language debate, wherein Scheer's perceived inability to defend his personal views from the other leaders shifted support from the Conservatives in Quebec, which never recovered.[7]

Lévesque ran in Trois-Rivières again as a Conservative in 2021 and gained 17,027 votes (an increase of 1,787) but came in second.

Electoral record

Federal

2019 Canadian federal election: Trois-Rivières
Party Candidate Votes%±%Expenditures
Bloc QuébécoisLouise Charbonneau17,24028.48+11.48$19,118.47
LiberalValérie Renaud-Martin15,77426.06-4.16$59,713.01
ConservativeYves Lévesque15,24025.17+6.54none listed
New DemocraticRobert Aubin10,09016.67-15.16none listed
GreenMarie Duplessis1,4922.46+0.75none listed
People'sMarc-André Gingras5650.93$5,574.25
IndependentRonald St-Onge Lynch1370.23$0.00
Total valid votes/expense limit 60,538100.0  
Total rejected ballots 1,0921.77
Turnout 61,63066.73
Eligible voters 92,362
Bloc Québécois gain from New Democratic Swing +7.82
Source: Elections Canada[8][9]

Municipal (mayoral)

2017

Mayoral candidate Vote  %
Yves Lévesque (X)26,50351.37
Jean-François Aubin23,25245.07
André Bertrand1,8373.56

2013

Party Mayoral candidate Vote  %
  IndependentYves Lévesque (X)29,20449.25
  IndependentSylvie Tardif18,49131.18
  IndependentCatherine Dufresne8,32414.04
  IndependentMarcelle Girard1,6092.71
  Force 3RRichard St-Germain1,3212.23
  IndependentPierre Benoit Fortin3520.59

2009

Candidate Party Vote  %
Yves Lévesque (X)Independent25,63754.9
André CarleForce 3R21,07745.1

2005

Candidate Vote  %
Yves Lévesque (inc.)34,29870.3
Guy Julien13,74128.2
Serge Simard7541.5

Footnotes

  1. Yves Lévesque l'emporte facilement, Radio-Canada, November 7, 2005
  2. Le retour des Draveurs ?, Radio-Canada, May 30, 2007
  3. Yves Lévesque quitte la mairie de Trois-Rivières, Radio-Canada
  4. Marquis, Melanie (12 May 2018). "Ex Bloc Quebecois leader Michel Gauthier joining Conservatives". iPolitics. Retrieved 14 July 2019. One of those being courted by the party is the well-known mayor of Trois-Rivieres, Yves Levesque, who said Saturday that he was seriously considering whether to make the leap to federal politics.
  5. Lepage, Caroline. "Yves Lévesque digère déjà bien sa "défaite"". Le Journal de Montréal. Retrieved 2019-11-17.
  6. "Yves Lévesque devient candidat du Parti conservateur". Le Nouvelliste Trois-Rivières. La Presse. 30 May 2019. Retrieved 14 July 2019.
  7. Stephanie Levitz. "Bittersweet Conservative post-election gathering set for Ottawa Wednesday". The Chronicle-Journal. The Canadian Press. Retrieved 2019-11-17.
  8. "List of confirmed candidates". Elections Canada. Retrieved October 3, 2019.
  9. "Election Night Results". Elections Canada. Retrieved November 9, 2019.
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