Woman with MD aims to be first wheelchair user elected as Montreal city official

From CBC TV in Canada:

A candidate in Montreal's upcoming municipal election is hoping to make history by becoming the city's first elected official who uses a wheelchair.

Lise Poulin (pictured), who suffers from muscular dystrophy, is making her first foray into politics — running as a candidate for borough councillor for Mayor Gérald Tremblay's Union Montreal party in Lachine.

The party's website bills Poulin, a customer service representative for Bell Mobility, and former spokesperson for the Canadian Association for Muscular Dystrophy, as an advocate for universal access programs.

Poulin said she doesn't just want to be known as "the candidate in the wheelchair" — but is fine with the label.

"I'm fine with who I am, and I think that is the key. I'm in a wheelchair, and that his who I am," Poulin said.

Campaigning with her husband David Noël, and current borough Mayor Claude Dauphin Thursday night, Poulin had to rely on them to ring the doorbell.

Few residents left their doorways to come down to the sidewalk to greet her, but that didn't bother Poulin.

"It's a family — it's a team effort, you know."

The fact that Poulin uses a wheelchair to get around didn't seem to bother voters in Lachine, including Clifford Obueza.

"[Politicians] who are not on wheelchairs, they don't do anything differently while standing up," said Obueza.

"They get things done by using the blue collar workers."

Montrealers go to the polls Nov. 1.