The Rassemblement des citoyens et citoyennes de Saint-Léonard (RCSL) was a short-lived municipal political party in the suburban community of Saint-Leonard in Montreal, Quebec, Canada. The party was created in June 1985 by Rosario Nobile, a thirty-five-year-old lawyer who had previously run for council in 1982 as a candidate of the Union municipale de Saint-Léonard (UMSL). [1]
Saint-Leonard is a borough (arrondissement) of Montreal, Quebec, Canada. Formerly a separate city, it was amalgamated into the city of Montreal in 2002. The former city was originally called Saint-Léonard de Port Maurice after Leonard of Port Maurice, an Italian saint. The borough is home to Montreal's Via Italia.
Montreal is the most populous municipality in the Canadian province of Quebec and the second-most populous municipality in Canada. Originally called Ville-Marie, or "City of Mary", it is named after Mount Royal, the triple-peaked hill in the heart of the city. The city is centred on the Island of Montreal, which took its name from the same source as the city, and a few much smaller peripheral islands, the largest of which is Île Bizard. It has a distinct four-season continental climate with warm to hot summers and cold, snowy winters.
Quebec is one of the thirteen provinces and territories of Canada. It is bordered to the west by the province of Ontario and the bodies of water James Bay and Hudson Bay; to the north by Hudson Strait and Ungava Bay; to the east by the Gulf of Saint Lawrence and the province of Newfoundland and Labrador; and to the south by the province of New Brunswick and the U.S. states of Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont, and New York. It also shares maritime borders with Nunavut, Prince Edward Island, and Nova Scotia. Quebec is Canada's largest province by area and its second-largest administrative division; only the territory of Nunavut is larger. It is historically and politically considered to be part of Central Canada.
Saint-Leonard was governed by Raymond Renaud's Ralliement de Saint-Léonard in the mid-1980s, and three other opposition parties were already operating in the city when the RCSL was founded. Nobile initially said that he was open to merging his group with the other parties, but he later changed his position, saying, "If they're honorable, they should come with me, because they have nobody." [2] Domenico Moschella, the leader of the rival Action civique de Saint-Léonard, "This guy thinks he's God's gift to humanity [...] If anything, he should join us - not us join him." [3] This exchange notwithstanding, Nobile's party won the support of UMSL leader Rosario Ortona, who dissolved his party to join the new organization. [4]
Raymond Renaud was a politician in Montreal, Quebec, Canada. He was mayor of the suburban community of Saint-Leonard from 1984 to 1990, leading the municipal Ralliement de Saint-Léonard party.
The Ralliement de Saint-Léonard (RdSL) is a former political party in Saint-Leonard, Quebec, Canada. The RdSL existed prior to Saint-Leonard's amalgamation into Montreal and dominated the city's political life in the mid-1980s.
Domenico Moschella, also known as Dominic Moschella, was a politician in Montreal, Quebec, Canada. He served on the Montreal City Council from 2013 to 2015, representing Saint-Léonard-Est as a member of Coalition Montréal.
Nobile was the RCSL's mayoral candidate in the 1986 Saint-Leonard municipal election, and the party fielded a full slate of candidates for the city's twelve council districts. [5] Nobile described his party as a grassroots organization, likening it to Jean Doré's Montreal Citizens' Movement in the city of Montreal; of the RCSL's candidates, only Ortona had prior experience as an elected official. [6] Almost all of the party's candidates were Italian Canadians, and Nobile said that he would both enhance French- and English-language services and encourage the hiring of city employees who were fluent in Italian. [7]
Jean Doré was a Canadian politician and mayor of the City of Montreal, Quebec.
The Montreal Citizens' Movement was a municipal political party in Montreal, Quebec, Canada. It existed from 1973 to 2001.
Shortly before election day, Nobile predicted the RCSL would win every seat on council. In the event, he finished fourth the mayoral contest and the party failed to win any seats. It seems to have disappeared shortly after the election. [8]
