Man charged with threatening to kill Coun. Stéphanie Plante is a former candidate for Vancouver mayor

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The man charged with threatening to kill Ottawa Coun. Stéphanie Plante is a former independent candidate for the Vancouver mayoralty with a checkered history of espousing controversial views.

Jason Claude Lamarche, 47, was arrested and charged this week with harassing Plante and conveying a death threat by email to the Rideau-Vanier councillor.

According to his charge sheet, Lamarche is accused of engaging in “threatening conduct directed at (Plante)” that caused her to “reasonably fear for her safety.” He is also charged with knowingly conveying a death threat by email.

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The allegations have not been tested in court.

Lamarche appeared in court to formally face the charges on Wednesday and was released from custody after posting a $1,000 bond on the same day.

He was prohibited from communicating with Plante and he cannot be within 500 metres of her or any place she might be, with an exception granted for court appearances.

He was also prohibited from owning or possessing weapons and must comply with a strict 11 p.m. curfew, according to the release conditions imposed by Justice of the Peace Jocelyne St Jean.

His residence is listed in court documents as The Ottawa Mission at 35 Waller St.

Lamarche did not have a defence lawyer listed in his court file and was represented by an assigned duty counsel during his court appearance Wednesday.

Lamarche was charged last year with assaulting a man with a weapon or imitation weapon, this newspaper has learned. At the time, Lamarche’s address was listed as an apartment on McArthur Avenue in Vanier.

He was arrested and formally charged in September 2023.

That case was resolved with a peace bond and a $1,000 cash bond. The assault charge was conditionally withdrawn after Lamarche signed a promise to keep the peace and be of good behaviour for 12 months.

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That 12-month term took effect on the day he signed the order: June 19, 2024.

Two days later, on June 21, he is alleged to have sent the emailed death threat to Plante.

Plante called it a “very scary situation” and expressed her gratitude to Ottawa police in a social media post Tuesday.

“I want to thank Ottawa Police who have arrested a man who recently made very detailed and serious threats against me. I am grateful and relieved a very scary situation hasn’t escalated further,” she posted.

Plante was elected to council in 2023, but previously worked as a political staffer on Parliament Hill where she witnessed MPs deal with their own threats and harassment. She said she was expecting to receive some online abuse when she was elected, but was disturbed by the nature of the threats, which were emailed to her office last week.

“They were two very specific, very detailed emails about how an individual felt about me, how he felt about my mother tongue, how he felt about French,” she said in an interview Wednesday.

“Obviously we get emails from people who are unhappy with us, but there was no reference in these to a policy decision or a quote I’d given. It was about me, personally,” said Plante.

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“He mentioned it many many times about my linguistic background and how much he didn’t like that. I can’t imagine that that would get someone so mad that they’d threaten someone’s life.”

Plante said she has “never gotten something so personal.”

The councillor said she recognized the suspect from her walks around the ward, but had never spoken to him.

Lamarche moved to Ottawa in 2018, according to his LinkedIn profile, shortly after his failed campaign in Vancouver’s mayoral race. He finished in 11th place in a field of 21 candidates that year and garnered 695 votes (the 2018 mayoral election was won by Kennedy Stewart with 49,705 votes.)

Lamarche came under fire years earlier as a candidate for Vancouver city council.

Old blog posts on Lamarche’s personal website resurfaced during the 2011 municipal election that detailed the author’s so-called “date matrix” — a method Lamarche allegedly used to rank women he had dated.

He was first accused of misogyny, then accused of writing “racist, sexist and inappropriate comments” on urbandictionary.com, according to a 2011 profile in the Vancouver Sun.

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The “crude and offensive” entries were written under the pseudonym “DowntownJ” —  a moniker Lamarche used during his early days as a skateboarder.

Lamarche “categorically insisted he didn’t write the posts,” according to the 2011 profile.

Lamarche claimed the entries were actually written by one of the eight people who lived in his building at the time and who had gained access to his personal computer.

According to his LinkedIn profile, Lamarche was most recently working in Ottawa as a “multi-disciplinary business professional and entrepreneur.”

He is due to appear next in court for the charges related to Plante on July 18.

-with files from Blair Crawford

ahelmer@postmedia.com

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