Civic Alert: Optimism grows even as Charest postpones meeting

I wish I could write that during their meeting with him on Monday afternoon, Jean Charest told Karin Marks and the other suburban mayors that the agglom had failed and that he would complete the promised demergers.

But the summit never took place. Besides, he would never admit to such a scenario. Nevertheless, it is very tempting to believe that we are nearing a positive intermediate solution.

Charest postponed the meeting. That was the first good news. Instead, Marks, as president of the mayors’ association, and vice-president Bill McMurchie met Municipal Affairs Minister Nathalie Normandeau in her Montreal downtown office.

Their agenda was to “prepare” for a new appointment with Charest tentatively scheduled for sometime next week. In politico-speak, we should assume that the “preparation” was so the premier would have something acceptable to offer the suburbs.

There is no longer doubt that reform is in the air. “We have to make changes,” Westmount MNA Jacques Chagnon had told me earlier. “The agglom doesn’t work and when something doesn’t work, the government must change it.”

There may be very little time before the anticipated election — Chagnon expects it in late March. “We must find a way to do what must be done,” the Westmount MNA added.



Normandeau revisited

Now it is hard for anyone, even Big Montreal Mayor Gerald Tremblay, to pretend that it is working. He can be persuaded to change his position, as seen by his U-turn on Park Ave. Clearly Normandeau was stalling last fall, attempting to defend the indefensible decision she was handed when taking over the municipal portfolio.

Monday’s was a smaller meeting than when the suburbs presented their case to the minister in November. But Marks thought that their message was even better heard.

The mayor said that no new issues were presented. “They have become well-known to the minister and her staff. This week, there seemed to be a greater openness to them,” was the tactful way she summarized the discussions.

“I’m optimistic. We’re waiting to know what the government will do. There is only a brief time to make proposals acceptable to everybody. If the election is called next week, MNAs will only be in the Assembly for two or three days. It will be hard to get legislation passed.”

“Yet we insisted that electoral promises were not enough.”

The mayors are not asking for the agglom to be scrapped, only improved.

“It must be made to function with a distribution of responsibility and governance that is democratic,” said Mayor Marks.

The suburbs repeated their commitment to share the costs of regional services like public transit, police and fire. They want revisions to the list of local facilities which the Liberals included in the agglom legislation — the Claude Robillard Arena being a particularly sore point.

Face-saver

Excited as I am by the mayors’ optimism and Chagnon’s realism, I fear unmentioned hurdles. Where is a face-saver for Big Montreal Mayor Tremblay?

He has shown himself to be a bitter defender of Montreal’s ability to abuse, rather than cooperate with, the suburbs.

This chiefly has been seen over financial issues, but there have many others. Some were scarcely visible, others blatant — like the attempt to deny the people of Dorval the fluoridated water they had used for decades. That was extreme and eventually overruled by Quebec. It did his case a lot of harm.

Tremblay’s early insistence on the undemocratic design of agglom decision-making provoked Charest into endorsing the Montreal executive committee’s undemocratic rule of the Island.

Need for income

Montreal’s need for money may yet be a determining factor – electoral pressure not withstanding. Let’s wish Tremblay well with his bid for Quebec’s support of alternate

revenue sources. Successive governments —

federal as well provincial — have seen reducing contributions to municipalities as a way to avoid their own taxation increases. The forced mergers were seen, in part, as a continuance of the downloading.

It now seems the Liberals have accepted that they have gone too far.

The suburbs should be ready to concede part of their case. One point may be to allow Montreal to continue to bill for shared services — at least it is clear to the taxpayer where the money is going.

Protected tax bills

The suburbs would have to be protected from a repeat of this year’s exploitation by the Tremblay-Zampino duo, when they jigged in Montreal’s favour the shares paid by commercial and residential taxpayers.

The suburbs are asking for a restoration of the MUC system, in which the costs of the police and others were shared by the municipalities, who included them in their own tax bills.

For there to be any progress, the mention of anything resembling the initials MUC or the concept behind them should be dropped. Montreal has developed a myth that the MUC was evil. Quebec civil servants, most without first-hand knowledge, echo their fears.

Delighted by the positive note in the latest turn of events, I am nevertheless wondering what has happened to the Liberal MNAs from the east of Montreal. They were originally so supportive of the skewed referendum voting and the slanted demerger legislation. How have they been appeased?



ADQ’s impact

Was it the inherent threat following the St- Baie-de-Senn-West mayors’ alignment with the ADQ that restored the balance?

On the West Island it remains a key factor. “I have now written to all citizens in Baie d’Urfé explaining my decision,” reports Mayor Maria Tutino, who was the organizer of the group split.

“I’ve yet to hear one negative comment, even from die-hard Liberals and former organizers.”

She is watching developments and emphasizes “Another promise to do something after the election is just not good enough.”

Chagnon speaks out

Jacques Chagnon is one Liberal voice speaking very clearly on the need for reform. “The agglom does not work. If we want it to work, we have to give it the means. It is as simple as that.”

Chagnon was speaking on Monday before he knew the result of the Normandeau-Marks encounter. As usual, he was very frank, but carefully choosing his words.

“I don’t expect too much until the next meeting with the premier,” he added. “We created the agglom and we have to find something else. This cannot continue for four more years.

“There is something wrong with an organization where some partners don’t attend, yet it continues to work,” he scoffed, referring to the mayors’ boycott.

“We have to find another way. Perhaps the South Shore is a model. It is certainly going better there, but there isn’t the overpowering share that Montreal has on the Island.”

Chagnon thinks there could be changes to responsibilities for arterial roads and sewage systems, as well as revision to the long list of Montreal facilities required to be subsidized by the suburbs.

“There will have to be some kind of supramunicipal body to look after the regional services. If what we propose does not work either, then we must propose another solution. It may take some years to find the right regional model,” he warned in his far-seeing way.

University funding

Chagnon missed the meeting with Minister Normandeau and the mayors because he needed to be in Quebec City, where he is chair of the National Assembly’s Education Commission.

Through the fall they have been listening to both academic and student leaders of Quebec’s 18 universities on the touchy subject of university finances and tuition fees. This week’s hearings with the universities of Quebec and Montreal were concluding the series.

Chagnon has a long experience in education administration. He became a school commissioner soon after graduating from Concordia in 1975. He was president of the Catholic school boards’ federation from 1982 until being elected to the National Assembly in 1985. He became education minister in the 1994 Daniel Johnson government.

“We know each other well,” he commented about those making presentations since the hearings began on Nov. 8.

Courage wanted

“There are huge funding problems and it is going to take courage to solve them. I don’t expect that we will hear a lot about the subject during the election, but we can’t let the subject be forgotten either.

“The quality of Quebec’s education is at stake.’

After 22 years as an MNA, he knows this will be another fight. “You have to patient,” he philosophized, “but also like a bulldog — once you get the meat between your teeth, never let it go.”

Civic Studies

Launched: Commander Natalia Shuster of Station 12 attracted a full house at the first of the WMA’s winter series with prominent local speakers. She will be followed by Examiner Editor Wayne Larsen (March 6), Fire Chief Daniel de Vries (April 3) and Gazette columnist Henry Aubin (May 1).

Deputizing: Francois Ouimet, president of the Montreal Liberal MNAs’ caucus, attended the Normandeau-mayors meeting on Monday. He was representing Jacques Chagnon and Geoff Kelley, the riding representatives of the two participating mayors. Both were unavailable.

Cold drive: Jacques Chagnon drove to Quebec City on Monday afternoon without heat in his car — wearing the toque, gloves and sealskin boots he normally keeps for visits to the North.

Platform: Liberal MNAs, including Russell Copeman, are ADQ bashing by pointing out Mario Dumont’s original support of Pierre Bourque and the megacity, and

stepping up their claim that the demergers resulted from Liberal legislation.

Food first: Pointe Claire is setting the pace with food waste collection. Its council on Monday approved a loan to buy 10,000 wheeled containers. A pilot service to 200 homes will begin in May, expanding across the city next year. It will add about $27 a year to the property tax of the average home to cover the purchase of the equipment.

Hybrids: Le Devoir reported that Quebec and Ottawa will fund new hybrid-engine buses in Montreal and Outaouais. To be built by Nova, they will each cost about $350,000 more than a current diesel vehicle.



• Community activist Don Wedge can be reached at calert@web.net. His columns are archived at www.westmountexaminer.com,">www.westmountexaminer.com,">www.westmountexaminer.com, go to Opinion.