Balarama Holness[1] (born July 20, 1983), also known as Steven Holness, is a politician and former Canadian football safety. He was originally signed by the Winnipeg Blue Bombers as an undrafted free agent in 2008. He won a Grey Cup Championship with the Montreal Alouettes in 2010. He played CIS Football at Ottawa.
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No. 36 | |
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Position: | Cornerback |
Personal information | |
Born: | (1983-07-20) July 20, 1983 (age 39) Montreal, Quebec |
Height: | 5 ft 11 in (1.80 m) |
Weight: | 194 lb (88 kg) |
Career information | |
University: | Ottawa |
Undrafted: | 2008 |
Career history | |
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CFL status: | Non-Import |
Player stats at CFL.ca (archive) | |
While studying law at McGill University,[2] he ran for borough mayor of Montréal-Nord for Projet Montréal in the 2017 Montreal municipal election but lost to Christine Black.[3] After the 2017 election, Holness launched a petition calling for the city to hold a public consultation on systemic racism and discrimination.[4] Founder of a social justice lobby group "Montreal in Action," Holness was profiled on November 21, 2020, by the CTV Television Network as "an inspirational view of a man confronting systemic racism."[5]
On May 20, 2021, he announced his candidacy for mayor of Montreal in the 2021 Montreal municipal election[6] as a candidate of the Mouvement Montréal party. Holness finished in third place with 7.23% of votes and Mouvement Montréal failed to elect any of its candidates.
On June 7, 2022, Holness announced the creation of party Bloc Montreal, being a part of the 2022 Quebec general election. Bloc Montreal finished with only 0.2% of votes and it failed to elect any of its candidates, including Holness himself.
Andrew Michael Holness, the current Prime Minister of Jamaica is his first cousin. Balarama's mother is a French-speaking Quebecer from Montreal. His daughter is named after Marie-Joseph Angélique, a Portuguese-born black slave in New France.[7]
2017 Montreal municipal election results: Borough Mayor, Montreal-North | |||
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Party | Candidate | Total Votes | % of total votes |
Équipe Denis Coderre | Christine Black | 11,864 | 66% |
Projet Montréal | Balarama Holness | 6,038 | 34% |
Total | 17902 | 100% | |
Source: CBC News, Quebec votes, Municipal 2017 |
2021 Montreal municipal election | ||||||||
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Party | Candidate | Votes | % | ±% | ||||
Projet Montréal | Valérie Plante | 217,986 | 52.14 | +0.72 | ||||
Ensemble Montréal | Denis Coderre | 158,751 | 37.97 | -7.69 | ||||
Mouvement Montréal | Balarama Holness[8] | 30,235 | 7.23 | |||||
Action Montréal | Gilbert Thibodeau | 4,327 | 1.03 | +0.68 | ||||
Independent | Beverly Bernardo | 1,760 | 0.42 | |||||
Montréal 2021 | Luc Ménard | 1,666 | 0.40 | |||||
Independent | Jean Duval | 1,129 | 0.27 | |||||
Independent | Fang Hu | 1,035 | 0.25 | |||||
Independent | Dimitri Mourkes | 841 | 0.20 | |||||
Independent | Widler Jules | 349 | 0.08 | |||||
Total valid votes | 418,079 | 98.19 | ||||||
Total rejected ballots | 7,687 | 1.81 | -0.59 | |||||
Turnout | 425,766 | 38.32 | -4.15 | |||||
Eligible voters | 1,111,100 | |||||||
Projet Montréal hold | Swing | +4.21 | ||||||
Source: Elections Montreal[9] |
2022 Quebec general election | ||||||||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Party | Candidate | Votes | % | ±% | ||||
Conservative | Roy Eappen | 2,086 | 8.2 | |||||
Canadian | Constantine Eliadis | 724 | 2.9 | – | ||||
Marxist–Leninist | Rachel Hoffman | 71 | 0.3 | |||||
Bloc Montreal | Balarama Holness | 1,691 | 6.7 | – | ||||
Parti Québécois | Cloé Rose Jenneau | 1,264 | 5 | |||||
Québec solidaire | Élisabeth Labelle | 3,893 | 15.4 | |||||
Coalition Avenir Québec | Geneviève Lemay | 1,842 | 7.3 | |||||
Liberal | Désirée McGraw | 12,780 | 50.5 | |||||
Green | Alex Tyrrell | 949 | 3.8 | |||||
Total valid votes | – | |||||||
Total rejected ballots | – | |||||||
Turnout | ||||||||
Electors on the lists | – | – |
Source: Global News[10]
Known as Steven Holness when he played on the Montreal Alouettes from 2010 to 2011, Balarama Holness (his legal name)…
Montreal Alouettes 98th Grey Cup champions | |
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Head coach: Marc Trestman
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