The mayor of Quebec City has died in hospital.
 
Andrée Boucher, 70, was taken by ambulance to Laval Hospital from her home in Sainte-Foy Friday morning suffering from a heart attack.

Quebec City Mayor Andrée Boucher acknowledges a standing ovation as she is recognized in the House of Commons on Dec. 7, 2006.
(Canadian Press)

Boucher, who was elected mayor of the amalgamated Quebec City in 2005, had been mayor of Sainte-Foy since 1985.

She ran for mayor of Quebec City before the mergers in 2001 and lost that election, but she ran successfully in 2005, despite a low-key campaign with no posters and a budget of only $5,000.

Instead, she invited Quebec City voters to visit her home, and they came in droves; it was that kind of free publicity that drove her unusual campaign, and she rode that wave until election day.

Boucher was a strong demerger activist during the province-wide referendums on amalgamation. In the end, only two of Quebec City's 13 former suburbs voted to demerge. Sainte-Foy residents opted to remain part of the amlgamated Quebec City.

Recently, much of Boucher's time had been taken up planning Quebec's 400th anniversary celebrations, set for 2008.