[1] Hamel first ran for city council in the 1998 municipal election as Vision Montreal's candidate for Saint-Pierre.
Both elections were won by Gérald Tremblay's Montreal Island Citizens Union (MICU), and Hamel served as a member of the opposition.
Line Hamel, who described herself as "in shock" at the charges, agreed to stand down from Vision Montreal's caucus and sit as an independent while the matter was before the courts.
[6] She was not permitted to run under Vision's banner in the 2009 municipal election, however, and instead ran for borough mayor of Le Sud-Ouest as an independent.
A Montreal Gazette article reporting on the trial indicates that Line Hamel chaired a local urban planning advisory committee at the time of her father's illegal activity.