Yves Lévesque

Yves Lévesque
Yves Lévesque
Mayor of Trois-Rivières, Quebec
	In office; November 4, 2001 – December 27, 2018
Preceded by	Guy Leblanc
Succeeded by	Jean Lamarche
Personal details
Born	1957
Political party	Conservative (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 Québécois	Louise Charbonneau	17,240	28.48	+11.48	$19,118.47
	Liberal	Valérie Renaud-Martin	15,774	26.06	-4.16	$59,713.01
	Conservative	Yves Lévesque	15,240	25.17	+6.54	none listed
	New Democratic	Robert Aubin	10,090	16.67	-15.16	none listed
	Green	Marie Duplessis	1,492	2.46	+0.75	none listed
	People's	Marc-André Gingras	565	0.93	–	$5,574.25
	Independent	Ronald St-Onge Lynch	137	0.23	–	$0.00
Total valid votes/expense limit			60,538	100.0
Total rejected ballots			1,092	1.77
Turnout			61,630	66.73
Eligible voters			92,362
	Bloc Québécois gain from New Democratic		Swing		+7.82
Source: Elections Canada[8][9]

2017

Mayoral candidate	Vote	%
Yves Lévesque (X)	26,503	51.37
Jean-François Aubin	23,252	45.07
André Bertrand	1,837	3.56

2013

	Mayoral candidate	Vote	%
Independent	Yves Lévesque (X)	29,204	49.25
Independent	Sylvie Tardif	18,491	31.18
Independent	Catherine Dufresne	8,324	14.04
Independent	Marcelle Girard	1,609	2.71
Force 3R	Richard St-Germain	1,321	2.23
Independent	Pierre Benoit Fortin	352	0.59

2009

Candidate	Party	Vote	%
Yves Lévesque (X)	Independent	25,637	54.9
André Carle	Force 3R	21,077	45.1

2005

Candidate	Vote	%
Yves Lévesque (inc.)	34,298	70.3
Guy Julien	13,741	28.2
Serge Simard	754	1.5

Footnotes

Yves Lévesque l'emporte facilement, Radio-Canada, November 7, 2005
Le retour des Draveurs ?, Radio-Canada, May 30, 2007
Yves Lévesque quitte la mairie de Trois-Rivières, Radio-Canada
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.
Lepage, Caroline. "Yves Lévesque digère déjà bien sa "défaite"". Le Journal de Montréal. Retrieved 2019-11-17.
"Yves Lévesque devient candidat du Parti conservateur". Le Nouvelliste Trois-Rivières. La Presse. 30 May 2019. Retrieved 14 July 2019.
Stephanie Levitz. "Bittersweet Conservative post-election gathering set for Ottawa Wednesday". The Chronicle-Journal. The Canadian Press. Retrieved 2019-11-17.
"List of confirmed candidates". Elections Canada. Retrieved October 3, 2019.
"Election Night Results". Elections Canada. Retrieved November 9, 2019.

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[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.