Balarama Holness facts for kids
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| No. 36 | |
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| Position: | Cornerback |
| Personal information | |
| Born: | July 20, 1983 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) | |
Balarama Holness (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.
While studying law at McGill University, he ran for borough mayor of Montréal-Nord for Projet Montréal in the 2017 Montreal municipal election but lost to Christine Black. After the 2017 election, Holness launched a petition calling for the city to hold a public consultation on systemic racism and discrimination. 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."
On May 20, 2021, he announced his candidacy for mayor of Montreal in the 2021 Montreal municipal election 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.
Electoral record
Provincial
| Quebec general election, 2022: Notre-Dame-de-Grâce | ||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Party | Candidate | Votes | % | ±% | ||||
| Liberal | Désirée McGraw | 12,918 | 50.46 | -12.52 | ||||
| Québec solidaire | Élisabeth Labelle | 3,967 | 15.49 | +3.65 | ||||
| Conservative | Roy Eappen | 2,087 | 8.15 | +6.64 | ||||
| Coalition Avenir Québec | Geneviève Lemay | 1,877 | 7.33 | -0.68 | ||||
| BM | Balarama Holness | 1,701 | 6.64 | – | ||||
| Parti Québécois | Cloé Rose Jenneau | 1,302 | 5.09 | -0.37 | ||||
| Green | Alex Tyrrell | 956 | 3.73 | -2.94 | ||||
| Canadian | Constantine Eliadis | 723 | 2.82 | – | ||||
| Marxist–Leninist | Rachel Hoffman | 71 | 0.28 | -0.03 | ||||
| Total valid votes | 25,602 | 98.72 | – | |||||
| Total rejected ballots | 332 | 1.28 | – | |||||
| Turnout | 25,934 | 55.76 | -0.38 | |||||
| Electors on the lists | 46,506 | – | – | |||||
Municipal
| 2017 Montreal municipal election results: Borough Mayor, Montreal-North | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| 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 | |||
| Montreal municipal election, 2021: Mayor | ||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Party | Candidate | Votes | % | ±% | ||||
| Projet Montréal | Valérie Plante | 217,986 | 52.14 | +0.72 | ||||
| Ensemble | Denis Coderre | 158,751 | 37.97 | -7.69 | ||||
| Mouvement | Balarama Holness | 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 | ||||||||
