Nick Auf Der Maur - Politician

Politician

As a young man, he participated in left-wing politics. While working as a story editor at the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, Auf der Maur and his producer were arrested under the War Measures Act during the October Crisis. His cell was across from that of future Parti Québécois cabinet minister Gérald Godin. He was not charged with an offence.

As a politician, he was a long-time city councillor in Montreal. He was also a candidate at various times in provincial and federal elections in Quebec, never successfully, with frequent changes of political affiliation. He accurately predicted the massive cost overruns and deficits of the 1976 Summer Olympics held in Montreal, and was a sharp critic of longtime mayor Jean Drapeau. In 1987 Auf der Maur controversially supported the Overdale development which saw nearly 100 of his constituents evicted from their homes, which were then demolished in 1989.

In 1974, he was elected as a city councillor for Montreal for the Rassemblement des citoyens de Montréal (Montreal Citizens' Movement). In 1976, he formed the Alliance démocratique (Democratic Alliance) party and ran as a candidate in the 1976 provincial election; the party won no seats and soon disbanded. In 1978 and 1982, he was again elected city councillor under the Municipal Action Group banner, and in 1986 was re-elected as an independent candidate. In the 1984 federal election, he ran as a Progressive Conservative candidate in Notre-Dame-de-Grâce, and although the Conservatives won that election in a landslide including many Quebec seats, Auf der Maur failed to win a seat.

He remained a city councillor, and in 1988, he even briefly joined the Civic Party of retired former mayor Jean Drapeau, which he once bitterly opposed. He left that party a year later, eventually joining the Montreal Municipal Party, an evolution of the Municipal Action Group. However, upon merger of the Montreal Municipal Party and the old Civic Party in 1992, he became part of the new Civic Party, but left a year later. In 1994, he ran as an independent and was defeated in what would prove to be his final election. Columnist Allan Fotheringham wrote that half the voters in Montreal thought Auf der Maur was a joke and the other half thought he was a legend. It was also said of Auf Der Maur: "half his (downtown) constituents share his lifestyle -- and the other half wish they did."