Normandeau losing role as Agglom dispute ruler

It is part of Bill 55 dealing with many municipal matters, which Normandeau herself tabled in the National Assembly last Thursday.

If passed, the minister would no longer have the duty of resolving legal difficulties between partners in the Aggloms, one of the most contentious creations of the Charest government. As well as problems on Montreal Island, the minister has had to determine many tribulations within the Quebec City and South Shore Aggloms.

In future, the responsibility would go to the Quebec Municipal Commission (QMC), an administrative tribunal.

“I am not surprised to see the amendment. The appeal-to-the-minister process was one of the weakest parts of the demerger legislation,� Westmount MNA Jacques Chagnon said. “It was predictable that every dispute would end on her desk. The QMC will be better organized to deal with them.�

Westmount’s Karin Marks and other suburban mayors were not sharing that view this week. “I would agree if the demerger laws had been well conceived,� said Marks, “but they are very unfair — drafted to meet political needs, rather than for good management.

“Therefore, we needed to seek help from our MNAs to ensure the minister appreciated the issues. This resource is being taken away from us.�

Despite the bill being in preparation for some months, no mention of relieving the minister of her decision-making role was made when Normandeau met with suburban mayors and MNAs a week before the bill’s unveiling in parliament.

Under the demerger laws, the minister was called on to rule only on issues covered by local by-laws. The suburbs appealed many times in the early months of the Agglom, notably over the $105 million overcharging of budget costs by Montreal.

As part of their presentation to the minister, the mayors suggested a formal arbitration solution to many other disputes that the minister refuses to consider. These include Montreal charging the Agglom — and therefore attracting subsidies from the suburbs — for questionable projects.

For example, suburban mayors have taken the Tremblay-Zampino administration to task for charging street lighting to the Agglom and justifying doing so because there was some social housing on the street.

The mayors wanted Minister Normandeau to create an arbitration panel set up under the Civic Code to rule on such matters.

Before the meeting, Normandeau finally dealt with one of the issues that has been outstanding for six months — the overcharging of the 2006 Agglom tax. She ordered that Montreal must rectify it by a credit on next year’s individual tax bills..

On other matters the mayors raised, the minister and her staff said that there would not be a response for some weeks.