Monthly Archives: December 2013

A modest proposal, Commentary, Economic commentary, Let's make this an election issue, Political commentary, Social commentary, Sovereign Socialist, Sovereign Socialist featured article

Feeding Poor Children: Not a Tory Priority

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This man doesn't care about your starving child.
This man doesn’t care about your starving child.

Straight from the horse ass’ mouth, Tory industry minister James Moore says it’s not his responsibility to feed his neighbour’s child, this in reference to the fact that child poverty is an area of provincial jurisdiction, not federal.

The minister, who represents Port Moody-Westwood-Port Coquitlam (a part of Metro Vancouver) in parliament, reminded us that the Tories are doing an excellent job keeping ‘kids’ bellies full’ by cutting taxes and apparently creating jobs, even though unemployment rose last month in British Columbia, and that province further has one of the higher rates of childhood poverty. One in seven Canadian children live in poverty, and despite a unanimous motion passed in the House of Commons in 1989 to eliminate childhood poverty in Canada by the year 2000, nothing was done (other than, somewhat absurdly, renewing the motion nine years after the initially-projected date of completion). Minister Moore argued that the Fed can’t be responsible for making sure kids get a breakfast, and that he wouldn’t support an ‘intrusion’ of the federal government into realms of provincial control.

Moore was emphatic: “We’ve never been wealthier as a country than we are right now. Never been wealthier.”

Bullshit.

1. Today the average Canadian is burdened with the highest individual and household debt rates in our nation’s recorded history.

2. Our real estate market is the most overvalued in the world and an entire generation of Canadians lack sufficient means to own their own home.

3. Our currency is projected to lose about a dime’s worth of value in the next year.

4. Wealth is increasingly concentrated in the hands of our local ‘top one percent’.

5. By some estimates we have one of the world’s most over-educated workforces with far too few jobs requiring that level of skill, which in turn results in stagnant salaries for people with increasingly expensive tertiary educations and an influx of highly-skilled workers into job categories normally filled by people with lesser skill levels. The cascading effect has arguably pushed about 2.5 million Canadians into a near-permanent underclass of unemployed people.

6. Our economy is less well-balanced than it once was, as manufacturing has declined significantly our wealth is now almost exclusively generated by environmentally and economically unsustainable primary resource extraction.

7. The middle class has had its economic foundation as well as the social safety net steadily dismantled over the course of the last thirty years, though the process has picked up of late. First went the industrial jobs, then many of the white collar jobs too. Jobs that brought pride to the worker and bought a home, a car, a retirement, vacations and educations were replaced by service-sector jobs that lack in both pay and benefits. Our economy isn’t driven by production anymore, but rather by consumption. Across the country a plethora of communities have lost the means of production and have seen big-box stores, casinos and call centres becomes the primary local economic drivers. Now, the middle class faces new challenges, namely in terms of retirement planning, since the Tories are insistent the Canada Pension Plan not be extended.

Wealthy?

No, we’re not wealthy.

Not when three-quarters of Canadians can’t make any RRSP contributions in a given year. We can’t possibly be a wealthy country if the Tories believe, as they insist is gospel, that 50,000 jobs will be lost if individual contributions to the Canada Pension Plan are increased.

Real wealth doesn’t work that way; wealth is derived from saving money, even if it is mandatory. Yet Canadians are making less than they were a generation ago. Costs keep rising and salaries haven’t kept pace with the value of what we produce. This is fully untenable.

And while I concur that minister Moore is correct in his assertion that combating child poverty is tactically the responsibility of the provincial governments, it is of strategic federal concern.

The federal government provides regulations and guidelines for food inspection, education standards and hospital operations, so why not extend this to guaranteeing no child goes hungry as well, and providing provinces with the means to address this particularly onerous and shameful problem?

The federal government has a responsibility to all Canadians, and childhood poverty is of concern to all. And yet all this government does is hack away at the social fabric, the safety net and the people’s ability to maintain a proud and powerful middle class.

Ending childhood poverty is exactly the kind of major problem only the federal government has the means to properly, and expeditiously, address. There’s nothing stopping the Fed from leading the provinces in a combined effort to eradicate this problem, aside from a complete and total lack of will.

And there you have it, the Tory MO.

It’s not in their interest to bring this country together. It’s not in their interest to make the state work for the people, because all this does is remove new realms of profit for the ruthlessly expedient among our business class. It’s not in the Tories’ interest to make Canada Post work, nor to keep the CPP well-funded, because their strength and their power comes from dismantling and privatizing as much of this as is possible.

If we continue down this path, what next? Will we privatize our prisons? Will we privatize healthcare? Will we privatize the army too?

In any event I’m off point. I read this article and felt sick to my stomach – this is the kind of sleaze we’ve allowed into government. He has been trained only to repeat the talking points about cutting taxes and the apparent link to the creation of jobs, even though time and time again it has proven such is almost never the case. Lowering taxes on the already wealthy only makes them wealthier, it never enriches the people nor the state.

So when this industry minister tells you just how wealthy we are, remember always that the we he is referring to isn’t you, or I for that matter. He is referring to those who are already wealthy, to the small clique of elites who’ve parked their support behind the most regressive and stubborn political elements in our country and far too many of our allies. This is a man who knows nothing of his people, has no vision for their collective future, and has no qualms whatsoever about his disinterest in dealing with childhood poverty.

In a normally functioning democracy, such callous disregard for the lives of Canadian children would require an enhanced RCMP personal security detail for the minister. It is a profoundly sad irony this is the same party that argues anyone supporting the legalization of marijuana is, in effect, looking to personally sell drugs to minors (and a more specious argument I’ve never heard in my entire life. What’s worse, it betrays the general lack of knowledge Tories have about how economy works – do they honestly think children have much money for drugs?)

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Back to Baseball Basics

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Expos at the Big O, circa 1990
Expos at the Big O, circa 1990

There’s been a bit of buzz lately concerning both the future of the Olympic Stadium and the possible return of the Montreal Expos, two of my favourite subjects, incidentally. There’s a lot of information floating around so I figured I’d try to reign it all in, so to speak.

First, as to the Expos, the news is that a lobby group called the Montreal Baseball Project, led by former Expo Warren Cromartie, has released a feasibility study conducted by Ernst & Young, and with the support of the Montreal Board of Trade. Their opinion, based on the study’s results, is that a return of Major League Baseball (herein MLB) is indeed feasible.

As Mr. Cromartie puts it, baseball needs two things to survive: history and numbers. I’m in total agreement as to the historical component – baseball has been a popular pastime and spectator sport in our city for well over a hundred years. The sport itself is derived from traditional games played in the United Kingdom (namely, rounders and cricket) and, given our city’s proximity to the United States and our shared cultural experience with the Northeastern States in particular, it should come as no surprise that baseball has significant historical roots here. The more recent history is perhaps the most significant. Montreal is where Jackie Robinson, the first African American to break the ‘colour-barrier’ in the MLB got his start. We are the city of Canada’s first MLB team, the Montreal Expos, and for most of the team’s life they played in a futuristic and comparatively massive indoor stadium, perhaps the single most unique stadium in MLB history.

We made a run on the pennant in 1981 and fielded perhaps our greatest ever team in the tragically abridged 1994 season, the one many Montrealers still honestly believe we would have won.

According to Mr. Cromartie, we now have the numbers too. The whole project is estimated to cost over a billion dollars, of which about half would be to acquire an existing MLB franchise (the Tampa Bay Rays are rumoured to be the preferred pick, given their poor performance and financial issues in that city), while the other half builds a new baseball stadium somewhere ‘within two kilometres of downtown Montreal’. A 36,000-seat capacity stadium would be required and the report indicates favouring the Fenway Park (home of the Boston Red Sox) model (which is to say about the same capacity and integrated into the urban environment). Locations currently being studied include the Wellington Basin, the Montreal Children’s Hospital and a parcel of land adjacent to the Bonaventure Expressway. The existing Olympic Stadium (former home of the Montreal Expos) and the old Blue Bonnets site are also being considered.

Key to the success of this plan is that the public chips in $335 million, which according to the findings of the report will be paid back to the (assumedly) provincial government within eight years. Further, the report indicates projected tax revenue, largely from the salaries of the players, over the course of the next twenty-two years.

If this is accurate, as sports writer and broadcaster Dave Kauffman put it, all governments should get into the stadium-building business. Unfortunately, as we’ve seen in our own city with regards to the Olympic Stadium, this sometimes doesn’t quite work out and winds up costing the taxpayers a ridiculous sum (i.e. the billion dollars already spent by Quebec taxpayers on the existing stadium which formerly hosted an MLB franchise for 28 years).

But assuming that this report is accurate, is there really a market for baseball in our city, today?

I’m of the opinion that there can be a market for just about everything, the question is how well it’s marketed.

Permanence is the real issue – how do you get the team to stay? How is interest maintained?

Montreal benefits from two particular pro-sports success stories. First, and perhaps most obvious, is the Montreal Canadiens, the single most successful professional ice-hockey club in the entire world and one of the most successful pro-sport franchises of all time. The second, and perhaps a bit less obvious example, would be the Montreal Alouettes. The Alouettes prove that a pro-sport franchise can be resurrected successfully in Montreal, and further still that 1) downtown stadiums don’t necessarily have to be ‘downtown’ and 2) that recycling an old stadium helps engage the public with the historical aspects of the team.

In sum, people like ‘getting their history back’.

Both the Als and the Habs play up their history as part of their respective ‘raisons-d’etres’ (an admittedly ridiculous and self-fulfilling premise; “we’ve been around for a long time, and thus that’s why we’re here and you need to like us” – but who cares how silly it is, it works more often than not); the resurrected Expos could do the same for the same purposes, and this, in conjunction with the rush of enthusiasm sure to greet any professional club, would sustain interest at least for a little while.

But neither the province nor the city can get into the business of running a ball club, and if this project starts losing steam in a few years, neither should bail out the team. The team is the business, and thus it is their business to market the hell out of the themselves, popularize the sport locally, ingratiate the public by getting heavily involved in philanthropic pursuits and form the necessary strategic corporate partnerships to alleviate as much of the burden as possible from the taxpayers. In other words, it’s going to take more than simply promising to repay the start-up capital in eight years to truly gain the public’s support.

In addition to certain public-confidence-winning efforts I already mentioned, I would argue strongly in favour of provisions, such as for the creation of a trust financed through a portion of ticket and concession sales, which could in turn be used to support various public initiatives. This $335 million investment would be a lot more palatable if what it produces eventually gives back to the people that made it happen in the first place. If an ‘Expos Trust’ was able to finance specialist medical equipment for a hospital, or provides for the construction of a new homeless shelter, or finances the creation of a school, the potential fan base increases. Moreover, civic engagement with the team increases too, and that’s good for all interested parties.

Though this report is encouraging, there are still many obstacles in the way.

The first and perhaps most challenging will be determining which public will be making the ‘public investment’ this whole plan is predicated upon. Since this team will play in Montreal, and the stadium will be located in Montreal, and the majority of spectators will be either Montrealers or people who live in the region of Greater Montreal, it’s only fair that we come up with a somewhat significant portion of this money. Getting all Québec taxpayers to finance this project is inappropriate. I would even argue in favour of a temporary tax increase for people living in any community that is part of the agglomeration council, since we’ll be the ones to benefit most directly from this initiative. If the provincial and federal governments would like to chip in that’s fine too, but it may be in everyone’s best interest that the city have a more direct stake in the stadium. Perhaps the city could derive additional revenue streams if it was directly responsible for start-up capital, I think it’s worth investigating.

Second is choosing a location for the new ballpark. I think we can strike off Blue Bonnets for distance and the congestion it might cause on the Décarie Expressway, and I don’t think the Montreal Children’s Hospital site is remotely large enough for a baseball stadium (unless it was one really innovative stadium design). The Labatt Park proposal from 15 years ago was to be located on a site roughly three times as large as the MCH site, so unless there was a plan to expropriate Cabot Square and radically redesign the whole Atwater area I can’t imagine this location working out. I have a feeling the new stadium will end up just south of the ‘downtown’, but the Wellington Basin seems to be perhaps a bit too far south.

Screen Shot 2013-12-15 at 11.07.04 PM

By contrast, there is at least one spot along the Bonaventure Expressway I think would work quite well, outlined in blue above. Outlined in red is the space that was allocated to the construction of the proposed Labatt Park, so you can see they’re somewhat similar sizes of land. I like this location for several reasons. First and foremost it’s without question a downtown ballpark, and could be linked up to the RÉSO by means of extending the tunnel that connects to the Tour de la Bourse. Second it’s close to major transit and transport arteries, everything from Gare Centrale to the proposed ‘southern entrance’, the Orange Line of the Métro, the Underground City etc. Third, and depending on how it’s designed, it could bridge the gap between the Cité des Multimédias, the International Quarter, Old Montreal and the reborn Griffintown. In sum, there’s a lot going on in this area and it would take up space currently used for a parking lot, which is always a winner in my books.

All this said, I think the Montreal Baseball Project should be open to using the Olympic Stadium at least for a while as it drums up interest. We should start with exhibition games and move forward from there, but we shouldn’t wait until the stadium is built to field a team. The Alouettes used the Big O while Molson Stadium was being renovated for their explicit use, so why not follow their lead. Furthermore, if the Expos work out some kind of deal with the STM (again, much like the Als have), then special shuttle buses could help make the Big O a lot more ‘accessible’ than it currently is.

I realize as I’m writing this that I don’t have any space to write about the Big O and its potential future, so I’ll save that for another post.

Until then, just remember these key facts in case you need to debunk any of the popular theories surrounding the Expos. This is a city of naysayers, and I think both Mr. Cromartie and the MBP have a point to be made, but I don’t want them to be drowned out by what effectively amounts to little more than low morale.

1. Baseball ‘works’ in Montreal and has ‘worked’ here for more years than not. The Expos have been gone for a decade, this is true, but they existed for 35 years prior to that. Before them the Montreal Royals existed from 1897-1917 and then again from 1928 to 1960. Ergo, the ‘gaps’ without baseball average about a decade and since 1897 we’ve only been without baseball in this city for 30 out of 116 years.

2. The Big O is not ‘too far away’. While it would definitely be more ideal to have a ballpark centrally located in our downtown core, the Big O is close to the centre of the region of Greater Montreal, sits atop a Métro line (and provides access to two stations) and is well served by surrounding boulevards, tunnels and bridges. If it needs to be used temporarily, the STM can help make it work. Further, it’s not ‘too far’ for fans of the Montreal Impact, whose stadium is literally next door, or for the many tens of thousands of people who visit the Botanical Gardens, Olympic Pool or Biodome. Further still, I believe the Big O offers far better parking options.

3. We lost the Expos due to bad management and taking the fans for granted, not because there’s no love for baseball here. Even the protracted dispute over Labatt Park didn’t sink the club (but putting so many eggs in an undeliverable basket didn’t help).

Anyways, that’s where I’ll end. Looking forward to seeing how this one plays out, no pun intended. Apparently both Mayor Coderre and Projet Montréal leader Richard Bergeron support the project, as they’ve no doubt considered the potential economic stimulus and spin-off.

But as they say, you need to spend money to make it.

A modest proposal, Commentary, Kondiaronk - My Montréal Experience, Perspectives on the City, Political commentary, Urban Redevelopment, Worth reconsidering

So we’re getting light rail anyways…? (Updated)

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I’m almost willing to place a bet on it…

When the time comes to publicly eulogize Richard Bergeron (which I hope is a very long time from now), someone will remark how the Champlain Bridge LRT is his legacy. There may even be a call to have it named after him, or some such thing, as inappropriate and random as the decision to name the dilapidated old gazebo in Fletcher’s Field after Mordecai Richler.

It would be inappropriate chiefly because neither Monsieur Bergeron nor Projet Montreal ever advocated for a Champlain Bridge light rail system; after all, their constituents reside in Montreal, not Brossard. Rather, they supported the creation of a tramway network in the high-density central core of the city, largely to alleviate congestion on our highest-use bus and Métro lines. (Author’s note: as Projet Montréal City Councillor Sylvain Ouellet mentions below, the party did in fact advocate for an LRT system – albeit somewhat euphemistically – to be included in the design of the new Champlain Bridge right after the Tories made their original announcement about a year ago. So perhaps it’s not as inappropriate as Richler’s derelict gazebo. That said, it would be odd to name a portion of an LRT system after someone – the Bergeron Branch on the (new) Champlain Bridge? Sounds weird to me anyways. Regardless, I hope that our future city benefits from a far more expansive light rail network and that we publicly recognize Mr. Bergeron’s role in pushing this idea.)

For an interesting perspective on the primary differences between light rail and trams, read this fascinating piece by Jarrett Walker.

The basic difference is generally assumed to be whether or not the vehicle travels on a separate track or lane (in which case it would be called light rail) whereas a tram shares the road with regular traffic. I’ve always thought of trams as short and light rail as considerably longer too, but there’s a lot of overlap. Mr. Walker proposes considering stop spacing – the distance between regular stops – as a better differentiator.

In our case, a Champlain Bridge LRT system may have tram-like stop spacing once it gets downtown, or where it starts in Brossard, but would be a true LRT over the bridge and through the Cité du Havre as it would, presumably, make far fewer stops. But I’m getting ahead of myself…

Think about the proposed Champlain Bridge LRT system the next time you’re out waiting in the cold and two or three jam-packed accordion buses fly past you on Cote-des-Neiges Boulevard. That or a similar number of equally packed Métro trains at any a growing number of stations.

If an LRT system over the new bridge encourages more Brossardians to use public transit for their commuting purposes, great – this will help the new bridge last a little longer and may further serve, in addition to the ten lanes, to ease congestion and the subsequent concentration of vehicular emissions. But Montreal has its own public transit and pollution issues to deal with, dossiers we’ve neglected for far too long. Projet Montreal even proposed creating a sustainable transit fund, a trust of sorts, partially funded through STM general revenue and a tax on downtown parking (as well as other sources), designed specifically to fund the development and improvement of our public transit system. it astounded me to learn this wasn’t already the case.

Is it amateur hour in this city or what?

Seems like it these days. I’ve already mentioned that the Tories are shoving a bridge down our throats, without an open bid or architectural competition and, once again, preferring a European architect who builds with concrete etc., but what only dawned on me more recently are the implications of their proposal that the new bridge will include an LRT, apparently ‘as requested by the Québec government’ according to Minister Lebel. Funny, I thought Quebec City wanted control of all federal bridges in Montreal…

In any event, I highly doubt this means the Tories are going to help fund an LRT system, I figure at most they’ll include the cost of integrating an LRT track into the bridge, and leave building the vehicles, stations and the rest of the (presumed) system to the provincial government. And that’ll be Quebec’s contribution I suppose, assuming they go along with it in the end. I can’t imagine an LRT system will be delivered on the Tories’ expedited schedule. We’re treading dangerously close to repeating two fatal errors we’ve done, in separate instances mind you, in the recent past. The province was supposed to contribute an LRT to the Mirabel project so that the airport could be connected to the city. Never happened.

There’s not much out there about a planned route, nor whether the end product will tend more towards an LRT or a tram system. In fact, unless I’ve missed something, Marois and Lisée have been remarkably tight-lipped about the Tories’ bridge announcement but a week ago.

But if the péquistes want to save face and show they’re not completely out of the Montreal transit-planning loop, they’ll have to develop something, and soon too.

Or am I being too optimistic? This is Quebec after all.

Perhaps I should be more concerned about the potential for a lot of toxic filth sitting at the bottom of the river getting mixed up into our primary source of drinking water.

I suppose it’s just another reason we should build a tube-tunnel like the Lafontaine; sinking a tube into the water and atop the toxic sludge is probably the better option in this specific regard, but what do I know? Just another headache for the team that now has three fewer years to get the job done, and potentially one that, like so many others, will be ignored and passed down to future generations.

What a gift!

If this LRT ever does get built, I can imagine it running from somewhere central in Brossard (Dix-30 gets thrown about a lot) to somewhere central in downtown Montreal, perhaps on University as part of a new ‘southern entrance’ to the city that will come the heels of the Bonaventure Expressway’s eventual replacement. But this is all pie in the sky for the moment. All that’s been agreed upon for the moment is that the Fed will design a new Champlain bridge with an LRT incorporated. The rest hasn’t yet been nailed down and I can only imagine the fashion by which the Tories’ have conducted themselves thus far may not make for the most productive of meetings with the province.

There’s no debate whether we can get this done, it’s more a question of politics and political will. The PQ doesn’t like being told what to do or how things are going to roll, and it seems as though the Fed has perhaps even overstepped its bounds by treading rather forthrightly into areas of municipal and provincial jurisdiction.

As it pertains to us, all that matters is whether this is a one-off project or whether this evolves into something that actually supports the transit needs of the citizens of Montreal. This is my chief concern, as it should be your own. If this LRT system is another boondoggle, a white elephant to add to the local herd, we might never get a significant improvement to our public transit system ever again.

With low public morale comes a lack of political will.

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A Montreal Drive-By

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Greene Ave at what is now Boul. de Maisonneuve, circa 1905
Greene Ave at what is now Boul. de Maisonneuve, circa 1905

So here’s the scene.

I’m standing with a friend while she waits for her lift on Greene Avenue in Westmount a few days back. We’re across from the entrance to Westmount Square, about half way between Saint Catherine’s and de Maisonneuve. As we’re chatting we notice a jaunty little tune is coming from somewhere. I figure it’s outdoor speakers at the new Cinq Saisons epicerie just up the way, but it’s getting louder.

We look up the annoyingly empty avenue and see a brilliant light coming our way and into focus.

It’s a rented U-haul pickup truck with a boom-box strapped to the hood and a gigantic menorah protruding from the flat in the rear, all lit up with lightbulbs.

As it rolled to a stop next to us, we saw two young Hasidic men in the cab, smiling from ear to ear.

They rolled down the window and wished us a Happy Hanukkah.

We smiled and returned the sentiment. And then they drove off, just like that.

A Montreal Drive-By…

***

I suppose some might be offended by such a thing, though this certainly wasn’t the case for either of us, regardless of the fact that neither of us are Jewish. Who cares? It was, fundamentally, an expression of good wishes between strangers. It is human to want another to feel good on a day that’s significant to them. How is it any different from wishing someone a happy birthday, or anniversary?

I’m not a Christian, but I won’t take offence if someone wishes me a Merry Christmas. And simple common sense and politesse dictates one return the sentiment as you receive it. I’m not going out of my way to respond with a Happy Holidays to a Merry Christmas, that’s just silly.

Some people in this province, in this city, would take a great offence at the scene I witnessed. I fear some would have responded angrily. Perhaps there’s a reason they were cruising down a deserted Greene Avenue instead of Pie-IX or Parthenais. Regardless, though it may have been an ‘ostentatious display’ of a religion, it caused no harm whatsoever. Contextually, it made sense (inasmuch as it was an appreciably quirky occurrence), it was the last day of Hanukkah.

It was nice. It was pleasant. It’s a story to tell.

And as you might imagine, it brought my mind back to thinking about the broad implications of the proposed (and inappropriately named) Charter of Quebec Values, let alone what it actually says about the society we live in. Bill 60 is nothing but an attempt by the separatists to re-cast Québec society in their image, and according to their often incoherent set of values.

It is an act to institutionalize racism. What would Madiba have thought of this? The great institutions of the province, and of this city in particular, are lining up to defy the law in its entirety.

Perhaps even more importantly, the mayors of Montreal and Québec City, Denis Coderre and Régis Labeaume, are indicating a rapprochement of sorts, and both seem to be asking for ‘special status’ vis-a-vis the proposed legislation, in addition to a general devolution of powers from the provincial government to the province’s two largest cities. This is a particularly interesting political development – a bloc against the PQ representing the interests of about 2.3 million Québécois – and two cities where the majority of the population is opposed to the divisive and thoroughly unnecessary charter. I’m in total agreement with Jack Jedwab; when Premiere Marois says there’s a majority of Québécois who support the charter, she is only referring to Francophones. As far as she’s concerned, the Anglophone and Allophone populations aren’t ‘real Québécois’ anyways.

It’s vile, disgusting, scraping-the-bottom-of-the-barrel nationalist-populist politics. Gutter politics, the foulest of the foul.

The péquistes, inasmuch as the people of Québec (all of us), need to realize this fundamental point:

Neither the French language nor French Canadian culture is in any way, shape or from threatened. There are ten million French Canadians living in North America and seven million living in Canada, the overwhelming majority of whom live in Québec. The Franco-Québécois community is growing and has been growing ever since the colonial period of the 17th and 18th centuries. There are more French-speaking people in Canada than there have ever been before, but by contrast, the Anglophone community of Québec is shrinking and has shrunk considerably. There are fewer Anglophones in Québec than there were forty years ago, and of those who’ve stayed, they largely learned how to speak French and got better integrated into Québec society.

And as to the immigrants, the first generation Québécois, they too have learned French, and are integrating into our society at their own pace. They’re of a naturally independent disposition, as are the Anglophones of the province, and they’ve formed bonds in their combined efforts to integrate into the broader society and culture.

And as you might imagine, nothing burns the ass of a dyed-in-the-wool separatist more than realizing the fundamental raison-d’etre for their political existence simply no longer exists.

There was once much less integration. There was once serious racial strife. There were once abuses and institutionalized racism of a different kind. There was ecclesiastical and existential oppression, there were (and still are) class struggles.

But people evolve and things change.

René Lévesque never wanted a political party. He wanted the PQ to be a simple political movement, uniting all Québécois in an effort to solidify greater provincial autonomy and bring the provinces and federal government together to re-negotiate the constitution. What he got, he did not expect. Lévesque believed things would not change, but Trudeau proved not only that things could change for the better, but further, that the independent and progressive mentality of Québec could ultimately be integrated into Canada as a whole. That’s why he won. Lévesque didn’t anticipate Trudeau would succeed in repatriating the constitution, ratifying it without Lévesque’s personal endorsement, and then further develop the Charter. Lévesque strengthened Canadian federalism inasmuch as he pushed a serious cultural reformation in Québec, one that would have the (again) unintended consequence of making Anglophones and Allophones better integrated in Québec society.

This is why we’re now dealing with Bill 60, a proposed law that would have been laughed out of any other self-respecting legislative body.

The péquistes know there’s nothing more that can be done on the language front – there’s no threat. This is why Bill 14 was dropped entirely.

So now it’s culture and this idiotic idea that hijabs, yarmulkes and turbans are somehow threats to the stability, sanctity and perhaps even vitality of Québec’s culture and society. Bill 60 is more punitive than Bill 101, and has the potential to put many more people out of work. Crucial people too – doctors, teachers, nurses, early-childhood education specialists and all manner of social and civil-sector workers. Middle class jobs, with good benefits, denied to those who dare to wear a religious symbol, regardless of how subtle and harmless it may be.

There is fear, easily-stoked, of a Muslim invasion, of foreigners fundamentally changing who we are. There’s no empirical evidence, there never is when the PQ asserts a danger, just rhetoric bordering on hate speech and the kind of easy panic you associate with poorly educated backwoods types and siege-mentality suburbanites.

Well to hell with them.

Let the fearful be afraid, let the ignorant remain in the cave.

I’m hopeful the entente cordiale between the mayors Coderre and Lebeaume leads to something really meaningful. They have the power to either make the bill completely unpopular and impossible to make into law, or, barring that, gain the special status our cities’ deserve.

***

I’m reading The Watch That Ends the Night, an impossibly brilliant book by the late, great Hugh MacLennan. In it, he describes Montreal in the early 1950s as follows:

‘In the West End are the old English families, and in the East End there are the old French families. And in between them a no man’s land of international people with international concerns. They occupy the centre of the city, and don’t have much to do with either of the other communities.’

There’s still a lot of truth here, though I would argue that in the last sixty years, the biggest thing to change is that the cosmopolitan middle ground has extended quite a bit in all directions away from the centre of the city, and at least on this island, the French and English camps that really were once two solitudes have integrated, at the very least, into the cosmopolitan aesthetic so popularized by those living in the ‘no man’s land’. And none of this has made us any less culturally whole, nor any less socially distinct.

We are what we are, as we are and have always been, so why are our politicians trying to forcibly change us?

I hope we’ve got some fight in us left, this bill cannot pass.

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Even More Champlain Bridge Blues

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Superpoutre in place - credit to Robert Skinner, La Presse
Superpoutre in place – credit to Robert Skinner, La Presse

Superpoutre… guess we can all add that one to the lexicon. I have a feeling it may become quite common.

For the uninitiated, the ‘Superpoutre‘ or superbeam (a 75-tonne steel reinforcement beam), was successfully installed on the Champlain Bridge over the weekend, meaning motorists are safe to continue risking their lives to get to Brossard.

Mark my words, the Fed’s going to slowly reinforce the entire bridge with a steel exoskeleton until there’s basically a new bridge and the Champlain Bridge replacement project falls through completely (doubtless with many billions of dollars spent anyway).

Suffice it to say I’m suspicious, nay, deeply cynical, of anything promised by the Tories, especially if, as they said yesterday, they’re planning on completing a new bridge three years earlier than initially anticipated. This, from the same party that hasn’t delivered a single warship, icebreaker, fighter or maritime helicopter, despite their many, nay constant, assertions that they’re being as expeditious and fiscally responsible as possible concerning those particular major acquisitions. The truth, the reality, is the exact opposite. They’ve squandered time and money without producing a single thing throughout most if not all their years in office.

And now they want us to believe we’re getting a ten-lane bridge with an integrated light-rail system (and a toll) in four years?

Buddy have I got something to sell you…

Political Considerations

Perhaps the Tories are looking to pick up South Shore ridings in 2015…

Or perhaps it’s more subtle than that… just a simple reminder of who’s boss, who gets things done. I can’t help but see this as anything but more political theatre. Maybe they’re not interested in winning in the suburbs (à la Toronto and Vancouver, and here too, albeit twenty-five years ago) as much as they might want to undermine local confidence in the main opposition parties and their leaders, both of whom represent urban Montreal ridings. Heck, if there’s nothing going a year from now, maybe we won’t have any faith left in government at all. That kind of disengagement can make any election a cinch for the incumbent.

During Question Period today, when asked why there was no money set aside in the budget to actually pay the cost of construction, Infrastructure Minister Denis Lebel said that money was available, that he was aware, as he put it, that motorists were praying to god every time they crossed over and that the Federal government cared deeply about the safety of motorists etc. His announcement Sunday, equally calculated, included a provision for light rail that he had previously denied. The request for such a provision was a sticking point in negotiations between the Fed and the Marois government, which as recently as last Thursday was demanding that the entire bridge replacement project by transferred to the provincial government.

Lebel returned that the Fed would be amenable to transferring control of Montreal’s bridges to the province after the new Champlain is completed. Mayor Denis Coderre was unenthusiastic, and I can only imagine Marois et al is upset they’ve been beaten to the punch and that a toll is part of the package regardless of their thoughts on the issue (someone’s gonna pay fer dat bridge).

In any event, Lebel is also promising that the new bridge will have ‘architectural appeal’ despite axing the planned architectural design competition (which was apparently allocated about half the overall time for the project before the new schedule). Danish architect Poul Ove Jensen has been hired to oversee bridge construction, ARUP Canada will provide engineering services with Provencher Roy will provide architectural consultation.

No bid, mind you. ARUP Canada Inc. was awarded a $15 million contract to provide these services back on October 28th. Lebel’s justification of the choice (or lack thereof) was that this particular group effectively provided the simplest, most cost-efficient solution.

As to the choice of architect, well once again the federal government looks everywhere but our own backyard. Call me a patriot, I’d prefer our new bridge be designed by someone who actually lives here.

As you’re no doubt aware, our city has bad luck when importing foreign design and construction methods.

Plus que ça change…

The Olympic Stadium, much like the Olympic Village, was designed for the climate of Southern France, not cold, snowy, windy, rainy ‘providing all seasons with gusto’ Montreal. The concrete used on both structures have both been negatively impacted by our winters, and this is saying nothing of the stadium’s ill-conceived roof. Similarly, the long concrete causeway that connects the steel portion of the bridge with Nun’s Island was built by a French company that also didn’t take into account local winter conditions – namely by not including a method to drain away accumulations of highly corrosive salted slush on the roadway. These modifications weren’t made until many decades after the bridge was built, by which point the damage had already been done.

And why did this French company get the job? Because it had the lowest bid.

Instead of using steel girders (like the recently-installed Superpoutre) they proposed an innovative (perhaps experimental) steel-cable reinforced concrete solution for the construction of the Champlain Bridge’s support structures. The concrete is so enmeshed with the high-tension cables it’s nearly impossible to fully replace existing beams, and so it looks like the only long-term solution to keep the bridge running until its replacement is complete is to do exactly what’s been done for many years already – 24/7 inspection and monitoring, patch-up jobs here and there, regular lane closures and occasional major repairs such as the one we just experienced.

A bridge that’s impossible to adequately repair built with a material nearly guaranteed to fail. You’d almost think it was a con…

I’m anxious to find out some technical information about this new bridge, like what shape it will take, how it will span the Seaway and what materials will be used, but given the architect’s other designs you can expect something neutral, inoffensive though perhaps ill-suited for the aesthetic of the city. Consider that all our steel bridges seem to be holding up just fine (and have done so for many more years than the Champlain), and that the world’s best steelworkers live just across the Mercier Bridge in Kanawake.

Isn’t it a bit odd we use so much drab, cheap, ineffective concrete in local construction when we have access to a superior material and internationally recognized workmanship?

Incidentally, the Danish architect is well known for using reinforced concrete, not steel.

Plus que ça change.

In any event, to wrap this all up, I’m not convinced we’re going to get what we need in the end, and I’m unimpressed with the project so far.

It seems like the Fed is making the same old mistakes – everything from not using a Canadian to design the bridge to not having an architectural contest of any duration to not having an open bid and apparently sticking with the absolute cheapest option. Oh yeah, and then there’s the expected re-use of a potentially flawed construction material.

This isn’t a good way to start a rush job.

And it seems to have only become a rush job for largely political purposes, which is worse still.

And we haven’t even yet discussed the sum – expected clock in anywhere from $3 to $5 billion – nor whether that money might be better spent elsewhere in the grand scheme of things (and where does the Champlain Bridge’s maintenance budget come from, and how long will that bridge definitively last?)

Final note; we never even stopped to consider if we really needed a bridge at all. Tunnels, in most cases, can last far longer than bridges, and in our local case, could likely be built cheaper than a bridge using a proven technique utilizing prestressed concrete segments to create an immersed tube.

So when you get right down to it, my question is still, fundamentally, this: why aren’t we building another Lafontaine Tunnel instead of a new Champlain Bridge?