As Examiner columnist Don Wedge broke the news two weeks ago, the City of Westmount claims it is owed $22 million — a rude awakening for anyone who thought we had disentangled ourselves from Montreal’s dodgy municipal bureaucracy.

But the headache throbs with the realization that cash-strapped mega-Montreal is not about to cough up anything near that amount, in fact it has the audacity to claim that instead of owing Westmount any money at all, Westmount is actually on the hook for another $2.4 million.

It is a sordid, twisted issue that gets more complicated and absurd the deeper you get into it. The bottom line is that it is unfair to all Westmounters—not that fairness ever played a role in this farce.

Moreover, since this $22 million discrepancy is the result of a political decision opposed by most local residents, it is an insult — to Westmount in general and staunch anti-merger advocates like Mayor Karin Marks in particular.

Back when former Montreal mayor Pierre Bourque was promoting his beloved ‘one island one city’ vision, he was warned of the dangers ahead — most persistently by Westmount’s then-mayor Peter Trent — but he refused to listen. He pressed blindly on, aided and abetted by the Parti Québécois, setting the stage for a municipal restructuring that would be far more complicated and fiscally unfeasible than anyone originally feared.

Mr. Bourque and many other elected officials who brought about this mess have snuck away and are safely languishing in private life, protected by their obscurity and all but forgotten by the very people who now have to pay the price for their ill-fated, irresponsible blunders.

Perhaps it would be a ‘fair’ gesture to send Mr. Bourque a copy of Westmount’s $22 million claim, just to remind him that Je me souviendrai was not a mere catchphrase but a promise taken very seriously by those who adopted it as their battle cry during the darkest days of the battle — a battle against a political situation that should never have happened in the first place.

As for Mayor Tremblay, all we can ask of him is to keep his voice down and pass the aspirin.