If there’s a moment that best symbolizes Mayor Soraya Martinez Ferrada’s first year in office, it’s the night last winter she blew two tires on Montreal’s cratered roads on her way home.
Montrealers were already giving her grief that the city’s notorious potholes were downright disastrous. Blue-collar workers’ patching efforts were hampered by broken machinery. Meanwhile, the city was being put to shame by quixotic vigilantes going around filling the craters for free and winning praise on social media.
Martinez Ferrada could have just called the tow truck and gone home. But she turned the moment into political lemonade instead.