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Creating an Alpha World City – II

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What’s Montreal going to look like in 2030?

According to StatsCan, the Greater Montreal Area will have a combined population of 5.275 million people, with more than two million living on the island alone.

Just a reminder, this is the projected population by 2030, less than seventeen years from now. How large will we be in twenty-five years? Or fifty?

Greater Montreal is a geographically immense area, one that contains a wide variety of development zones – industrial, commercial, high, low and medium density residential and, currently, still a fair bit of green space, rural or semi-rural areas on the periphery. I believe we’ve achieved a kind of balance in the greater region, but in order to sustain major population growth, we will have to look towards increasing density in the urban core – suburban sprawl has already extended so far in all directions its common for commuters to spend well over an hour in transit between home and office (and that’s not limited to public transit, highway traffic at rush hour won’t get you home much faster.

If we strive to contain sprawl, such as with a moratorium on new housing construction, we can maintain the current balance of developed and natural lands within the greater region of Montreal (not to mention stabilize the real estate market), something that would likely serve to drive up the value of detached suburban homes considerably. The city’s suburban middle class would rather quickly find themselves living in far more valuable homes, and the consequential ‘scarcity’ of new homes will drive demand for alternatives, such as high-density urban or semi-urban areas. Moreover, there would be ample reason to get home-owners to invest significantly in home renovations considering such legislation would establish a more-or-less permanent ‘seller’s market’ concerning suburban real estate.

If we want to get the most bang for our collective buck we can’t afford a city that expands ever outward. It places an unnecessary stress on the lives of far too many citizens, is ludicrously expensive and is getting more and more expensive to maintain. The metro region has a population density of 900 people per square kilometer – over an area of 4,400 square kilometers!

But if we place limits on outward expansion and focus on densification we concentrate the tax-pool to a fixed area, and can potentially enlarge the area that constitutes the City of Montreal, be it through annexation, densification or both. As it stands there is a sizeable enough demand for high-density condominiums in the city centre there are over a dozen projects currently underway, and more to come, all of which are being built on otherwise empty lots. But even though these condos will sell and provide much-needed high-density construction, no services have been provided for. The city needs to adjust to problem quickly if it wishes to secure new long-term city residents.

Montreal has all the potential, the human capital, the cultural and intellectual capital necessary to become an Alpha World City – a city of international economic, cultural and political significance. Broadly speaking I believe we are on the right path towards achieving this goal, though it is largely as a result of decisions made long-ago and becoming poorly understood today. Too little is being done today to insure our future, and thus, if we’re to guarantee ourselves a global role for the bulk of the 21st century, I’d like to suggest we begin putting into place the laws and administrative structures necessary to propel massive growth.

Montreal could be one vote, one referendum away from becoming the largest city in Canada. If we willed it. If the citizens of the region collectively backed the idea that the area we know as Greater Montreal were fused into a single city. What a proud and powerful city that would be.

Whether in one single referendum or a series of individual local votes, the mayor could conceivably ask the citizens of the independent communities within Greater Montreal whether they would like to merge into the City of Montréal proper. It’s called annexation, and whether by provincial dictate or individual plebiscites leading to direct votes, it’s largely how Montreal came to become the size it is today. Places like Pierrefonds, Ahuntsic, Outremont, Cartierville, Saraguay, Notre-Dame-de-Grace and Saint Henri were once all independent communities. Today, they are distinct elements and communities within the larger metropolis. If the City of Montreal were to succeed in convincing a majority of the citizens of all independent communities within the Greater Montreal region to agree to voluntary annexation, we could grow to a city of 3.65 million people almost overnight. That number, incidentally, is expected to crack the four million mark in the next few years.

If we were all Montrealers, we’d be almost twice as large as Canada’s current largest city, the City of Toronto with their population of 2.5 million. This may not seem that impressive at first, but consider the economic and political power wielded by a city with a tax-base of four million people. That’s where things start getting very interesting in my opinion, as the City of Montreal would have a residential tax-base similar to Alberta or British Columbia. At this point, the City would have to take on a greater portion of the provincial administrative and services burden (such as with regards to healthcare, social services and education – the city would have to establish its own departments to handle local administration of the hospitals and schools, according to mega-city needs and constraints. In a sense, this would be similar to the relationship between New York City and New York State with regards to the administration, organization and operation of key social services). Now while this would, by necessity, make the government of the City of Montréal grow to a considerably larger size, it also means we’ll have a greater degree of operational autonomy, and can better organize services to suit our needs.

I’ll tell you this much. We could build as we needed without turning to the provincial or federal governments for hand-outs. We’d be economically sovereign.

There’s a lot of potential power there. That tax revenue could fund excellent public schools, expand access to post-secondary education, provide rehabilitative homeless shelters, Métro expansions, you name it. If Montreal can’t grow out any further and low-density residential development is constrained, the rise in land value could result in greater personal wealth on a large scale, not to mention a potentially significant local generational wealth transfer. Urbanites desperately seeking suburban homes and neighbourhoods will have to pay more for homes, meaning the extant middle class middle-aged generation (which missed the long promised major wealth transfer of the 2000s) may in turn be able to provide their children with a considerable degree of wealth at some point in the future. Containing that wealth may serve, in time, to lessen the burden of taxation.

Talk of merger isn’t likely to win anyone over any time soon, given former Premier Bernard Landry royally fucked public perception of the word by forcing all communities on the Island of Montreal into a single city back in 2002 with the forced merger. I wouldn’t propose forcing anyone to do anything, especially not when they could be asked and convinced its the right thing to do first. And taking this necessary first step really has nothing to do with Toronto, though I could imagine this might be just the rallying-cry to unite voters around. It has everything to do with taking control of our destiny, of running our own affairs and working towards an attainable goal.

You see this map? It’s not really what the Montréal Métro map looks like, and it’s not even entirely based on STM plans and predictions. Rather, it’s based on the idea that the entirety of the metropolitan region should be connected via a common high-capacity public transit system, as one might see in any Alpha World City. We have an excellent public transit system by any set of standards, but its not growing fast enough. We’re above and beyond most North American cities, but are falling behind internationally. The stigmas attached to public transit need to be eliminated, and the system needs to be expanded to levels comparable with Tokyo or Paris. Granted we don’t have their population, but major growth can only be obtained if key pieces of infrastructure are already in place.

You may be asking why we need to get bigger, why we need to start thinking on a bigger scale? For me its rather simple – I’d like to see a veritable utopia, a city that takes complete care of its citizens and vice-versa. A city which is invaluable on a global scale, with the resources to be at the forefront of the arts and sciences. In order to live like kings we will require a larger population, and in turn will have the resources to employ the latest technologies to improve life for all citizens across the board. You might think this is crazy, that achieving any kind of utopia is futile. I politely disagree.

But I will say this. It is exceptionally disconcerting to see just how many people have a general ‘that can’t be accomplished because other people have tried and failed in the past’ mentality. I’ve heard with regards to the Big O (it was so expensive we should demolish it), the Olympics in general (again, it was so expensive we should never do it again, despite now having paid for all the infrastructure), and even the possibility of Montréal re-gaining its position of global prominence. Hell, I was once told we can’t have trams here because there would be too much snow in the winter (we had year-round tram service from the 1880s to 1959, worked just fine).

The fact of the matter is, if we looked no further than our own recent history, we would find all the missing keys to re-gaining our national primacy. We would find the projects that once focused development and international attention, and find all the failures we could turn into success stories. We could be a city of Universal Expositions, International Olympiads and a seat of international governance (don’t forget – it was recently proposed that the UN move its headquarters to Montréal; this can be an issue as long as we insist on it, and let’s face it, of all places, the UN certainly belongs here). All of this can be ours again, insofar as we decide not only that it is possible, but more importantly, that it is vital to achieve a minimum standard as an Alpha World City. The initial investment must be made by the citizens of an expanded single-entity super-metropolis, though their tax-dollars, into building the components necessary for large-scale growth and development. Then follows the infrastructure and services development, the creation of expansion of city departments and agencies into a foundation of steady, well-paying jobs to facilitate the development of a proud and prosperous local middle class. And from this strong foundation we will attract and produce the commercial and industrial interests necessary to achieve this coveted status. An Alpha City can lead by the examples created by the R&D they can support, and they maintain their appeal by experimentation. Let our city become the new experiment in modern urbanism, it is high-time we lead by example.

The reasons to build a supercity are many and would appeal to anyone living in the metropolitan region. Consider this my official announcement, I plan on winning a municipal election and becoming mayor, and under my watch we will climb to dizzying heights. Our future is the only thing I’m consistently concerned with, and I can imagine it looking very bright indeed.

On a final note, a short list of projects we may wish to consider if we want to become not only Canada’s first and foremost city, but beyond that, a city of global significance:

1. 24hr public transit access throughout the entire Greater Montreal region, using multiple systems

2. A unified public education system to guarantee French and English spoken and written fluency

3. A multi-airport system capable of handling more than 50 million passengers per year

4. An internationally recognized medical tourism hospital

5. The creation of a new bilingual university and several officially bilingual feeder CEGEPs

6. The development of a full-size version of Moishe Safdie’s subsidized housing project to provide subsidized housing for 100,000 more people

7. A car-free central business district

8. The development of a ‘locavore’ bureau, designed to ensure the new city can sustain its own food requirements. A simultaneous development would place emphasis on creating new centres of urban agriculture in addition to a proliferation of fresh produce markets.

9. Hosting both another Summer Olympic games and another Universal Exposition

(article in development, editing to come)

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So apparently we’re getting a very expensive bridge…

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The Champlain Bridge, Montréal - not the work of the author.

…and as always, efficiency takes a back seat when it comes to stimulus spending and infrastructure development in the Montréal region.

The CBC announced a plan by the Conservative government of Stephen Harper (in case you were unaware) to build a $5 billion replacement for the Champlain Bridge over the course of a decade. The new bridge will feature ten traffic lanes and is designed to fully replace the existing Champlain Bridge, which is estimated by some to no longer be worth retrofitting or renovating after 2022 when it will turn sixty years old. Maintenance costs to keep the bridge operational until then will come up to about $25 million over the next ten years. Previous cost estimates for bridge replacement came to $1.3 billion for a replacement by a similar span, and $1.9 billion for a double-decker tunnel capable of handling a similar amount of traffic (roughly 156,000 cars and trucks use the bridge each day) on one level with buses and trains on a lower level. The projected construction time was five years for each project, which is in line with the amount of time it took to build just about every other bridge and tunnel connecting the Island to the Mainland. Moreover, adjusted for inflation alone, the cost of building the Champlain Bridge would only cost about a quarter billion of today’s dollars. Now while many argue the cost of construction has gone up, I’d still like to know just what it is about this replacement bridge that justifies a $5 billion expenditure? For additional details, see the Wikipedia entry.

Perhaps the cost was estimated based not on actual costs for materials, labour, design and construction, but instead based instead on trying to ensure everyone gets a slice of the stimuli pie. Given that Québec lost out on the Great Canadian Shipbuilding Sweepstakes, perhaps this expensive bridge project is some kind of a consolation prize. Do we not recognize that it is sounder to seek smaller amounts of tax revenue for stimulus spending than larger amounts? Is it not our responsibility to seek efficient infrastructure solutions?

Here’s the deal – in my opinion, replacing the Champlain Bridge with an enlarged replacement toll-bridge isn’t exactly helping reduce traffic congestion in Montréal, and its not entirely fair to use tax dollars to build it and then a toll to pay for it. Moreover, it may not even be necessary, and that is to say that there are many considerably wiser, more efficient ways to spend such a large sum (such as on public transit) which in turn may allow the Champlain Bridge a longer life-expectancy and a considerably smaller associated long-term maintenance costs, thus making bridge replacement a moot point.

But none of that seems to matter – once again, infrastructure redevelopment is narrowly focused, places an emphasis on the needs of the few as opposed to the many, and is more about securing large investments for an already corrupt construction industry instead of seeking to trim costs and ensure fiscal responsibility. Is it any wonder the rest of Canada thinks we get an unfair advantage?

Consider the 2009 Métro extension plan, which aimed to increase the network by a dozen stations on twenty kilometres of new track and tunnel, extending into Eastern Montreal and the South Shore in addition to closing the Orange Line loop, benefitting the residents of St-Laurent, Pierrefonds, Cartierville and Laval. That project is estimated to cost $4 billion and could potentially add several hundred thousand more individual uses per day in addition to further extending the operational reach of both the STM and AMT. Aside from the issue that the provincial plan benefits people throughout the metropolitan region, it further would lessen the strain on our bridges, meaning the Champlain’s life-expectancy (with additional preventative maintenance) could be extended beyond sixty years. All of the other bridges are considerably older than the Champlain and are still working fine, and it should be noted that other bridges and tunnels were often designed as part of larger transit schemes. This replacement bridge will carry no tram lines, no provision for commuter trains, and only a limited number of reserved bus lanes. It’s too little, too late, and designed for a bygone era. How typically Québecois.

Unfortunately, it now seems as though the STM is unable to secure funding to execute the entire plan, and so the Mayors of Montréal, Laval and Longueuil now have to petition the people and the provincial government for their own individual extensions. This is an awful situation to be in, yet here we are, bitching and banging heads against each other for a thin slice of the better idea. If the fed can justify spending $5 billion on a bridge replacement, why not spend $4 billion to help more people get around and then spend the billion left-over dollars to fully renovate and upgrade the existing bridge? How is that a sounder investment?

Consider other plans, such as the use of ferries, light-rail lines across the ice-bridges, new Métro and commuter train lines or running surface trams on reserved lanes on the existing bridges and tunnels. There are many ways to cut down on the number of people bringing their cars into the city and increase the number of people utilizing public transit as their primary means to get around. But if the City can’t reign in government and guarantee an efficient use of stimulus funding, then we’re bound to develop along someone else’s politics, someone else’s vision. And as long as we congratulate ourselves for taking unfairly large portions of the communal tax revenue (as some kind of sick justification for our opportunistic federalism, no doubt), then we get what we pay for, and have no reason to pout when things fall apart. We’ve been responsible for our own infrastructure problems for years because we develop said infrastructure as though it were a consumer item, and thus the bridges, tunnels and buildings we procure are designed to artificially stimulate the construction industry by requiring near constant maintenance. And so we are literally stuck in a rut. Why is it that every Summer major construction work is required throughout the City? Are we foolish designers or are we trying to keep a bloated industry well-financed with futile self-perpetuating renovation work? We must begin designing more durably and begin employing innovative technological solutions to finally solve our frequent problems with rapid infrastructure degeneration.

It’s becoming clear to me that we are not designing with problem-solving in mind, and this will be our undoing. Technological solutions for most of the infrastructure problems we encounter on a day to day basis could be saving us incredible amounts of money, but they mean some people in the construction industry won’t make as much money as they used to. The new Champlain Bridge project smells so bad of graft and nepotism you’d think the price tag was of the scratch-and-sniff variety.

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What of our privilege? What of our prosperity?

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It bothers me to hear our enlightened and benevolent dictator, one Stephen Harper, prattle on and on about the comparative strength of the Canadian economy vis-a-vis other G20 and G8 nations. He goes up in front of American TV cameras to remind Americans that the good neighbour up North hasn’t been affected by the worldwide recession, and further that we’re always a sound investment. It’s simultaneously economic-nationalist gloating and a somewhat undignified plea for additional capital investment. It’s unclear to me whether Mr. Harper actually believes we’re in a privileged economic position or whether he’s simply trying to feign confidence knowing full-well we’re about to bear the brunt of our own localized melt-down. If we entertain the notion that Stephen Harper is in fact an economic mastermind expertly steering Canada through a momentary fiscal storm, then we are still left with a far bigger problem, that of growing inequities in Canada. In sum, Canada’s good economic track record has only really been good for the richest 1% of our own population, and that our middle-class is in as perilous a position now as we were during the post-Cold War economic recession and re-adjustment. I really would like to know who is benefitting the most from our apparently robust national economy. I don’t see many opportunities, I know the dollar is as valueless today as it was ten years ago (despite actually being worth quite a bit more) and I know that the educated youth are almost all royally fucked, with too few opportunities and too many (subsequently) wasted minds. With no ‘economic stimulus’, young people are left to drift, wondering why they ‘invested in their futures’ with student loans so many years ago.

But perhaps I’m being overly pessimistic. Perhaps I lack faith.

What would rekindle my faith in my Prime Minister, my nation’s economic foundation, and the elites of my nation? A single massive act of charity.

Like this? Read the rest here. Scroll down to post no. 3

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The Future of the Olympic Stadium

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What if this was the view from a condo tower? Would that sell?

There were public consultations held last weekend to discuss what ought to be done with the Olympic Stadium. Unfortunately I was both occupying Montréal and otherwise unaware the guided tours of the building that were part of the consultations, and so was unable to go myself. Regardless, if you’d like to participate in the online discussion and complete a survey, click here.

So what are we to do with our beloved and excessively expensive Big O?

I, for one, do not and have never supported any plans to demolish it, despite the popularity of such a flippant suggestion.

First of all, it’s paid for. If it had a regular tenant, such as a professional sports team that could guarantee high attendance, the costs of maintenance moving forward will pale in comparison to the revenue generated through use of the stadium. Use begets more use, and a return to the days when the Big O was also a prime location for rock concerts, conventions and congresses will come naturally as long as there is a primary draw. General usage was considerably higher when the Expos were popular and drawing large crowds. Moreover, we know with certainty that major league sports and concert venues can have a positive local influence and stimulate further economic growth in the area immediately surrounding the site. The area around the Montreal Forum has yet to recover from the loss of stimuli that went with the move to the Bell Centre, as has the area around the Big O. By contrast, the area around the Bell Centre is starting to show signs of improvement and may very well (for better or for worse) become a focal point for new development in the Central Business District (CBD).

Second; there’s nothing wrong with the facilities, the buildings or the infrastructure – it’s what’s around the Olympic Park which is partially the problem. Consider this: the City of Montréal has been concentrating recreational and leisure activities along Sherbrooke East between Pie-IX and Viau since the creation of the Montréal Botanical Gardens in the 1930s. Now, add to that impressive attraction the Olympic Stadium and Tower, the Insectarium, Biodome, Maurice Richard Arena, the new Planetarium, Saputo Stadium, Chateau Dufresne, the Olympic Pool, a municipal golf course, the Olympic Village, Maisonneuve Park and a multiplex cinema to boot. Just adjacent to the area bounded by Assomption, Pie-IX, Rosemont and Hochelaga Blvds is the Maisonneuve-Rosemont hospital complex and CEGEPs Rosemont and Maisonneuve. This area is further served by three stations on the Green Line of the Métro. Ergo, when asked what I would do to help secure a bright and prosperous future for the Olympic Stadium I would say ‘consider what hasn’t been centralized here’ – it’s what’s missing that is the key.

I think the answer is principally transit and residential accommodation. With so much to offer there are scarcely any hotels in the area, no high-rise apartments taking advantage of the breath-taking views, no condominiums taking advantage of the latter in addition to the supremely well-connected location, and no commercial office space. Instead of banging our heads against the wall wondering why we didn’t bring the stadiums closer to the city, why not bring more of the city out to the stadium? With so much concentrated at this point, why isn’t the entirety of the Olympic Complex not viewed as the Eastern Gateway to the City of Montreal and ‘regional service centre’ for the Eastern core of Montréal? The space from Papineau to Assomption could stand to use increased densification along principle arteries, such as St-Joseph, Rachel, Ontario, Hochelaga, Pierre-de-Coubertin and Sherbrooke. A combination of new medium-income apartment towers and high-income condo towers lining these streets will help establish a visual link with the denser core of the urban centre and require a re-evaluation of land use in the sector bound by Dickson and Pie-IX extending South from Rosemont Boulevard to the river. By increasing population density the demand for additional community cultural and social services grows proportionally, and thus new schools, libraries, CLSCs etc will have to be built, likely occupying space otherwise zoned for light industrial activity.

This sector is lousy with old industrial spaces which no longer provide the societal anchor they once did. The industry can be consolidated in more opportune locations and the space better utilized to support a significant increase in the local population. Moreover, increasing the population while simultaneously diversifying social and cultural groups in the same area will help ‘even-out’ the neighbourhood, and provide numerous additional possibilities for small businesses and local services. So while old warehouses are turned into condo towers and elementary schools, additional social and civic services can be concentrated at the Olympic Site – there’s a lot of open space here, I can imagine space for a CLSC or library or a really kick-ass kindergarten can be worked into its master plan. The point is, build up the population significantly, and then focus that population’s attention on the Big O as a kind of meta civic centre.

To see a bird’s eye perspective of the Olympic Park and environs, click here.

Increasing population density isn’t enough by itself – types of residential housing must remain diverse and new opportunities for small businesses must be created. But on top of that, some key alterations to the urban tapestry will become necessary, specifically with regards to the quadrilaterals bounded by Pierre-de-Coubertin, Bennett, Ontario and Latourneaux in addition to the one bounded by Sherbrooke, Dickson, Hochelaga and Viau. Both of these areas are principally industrial. The former could be re-designed so as to allow for a new public plaza running between the Stadium and the Maisonneuve Market with large capacity residential and commercial buildings built along its edge. I would recommend a similar plan for the latter as well – after all, what’s centralization if it isn’t apparent to anyone that there’s a centre to speak of?

Aside from a generally massive increase to population density in this sector and (by extension) an effort to better equip this sector with necessary social services, improvements to transit would further allow the area to become a more self-sustaining tourism destination. Large underground parking garages need to be built around the site to support increased tourism from within the metropolitan area, and by extension, a new Réso expansion designed to link key facilities with new residential and commercial developments in the area could also do much to help draw residents to a new community centre focused on the Olympic Park site. In other words, if it was once the dream of Mayor Drapeau to encourage urban development towards the East, we need to ask ourselves what would make the Olympic Park area seem to be part of a larger urban whole. Consider the two plans for Métro extensions in this article – both involve the placement of a new multi-line station under the Olympic Stadium (the plan to have a Pie-IX metro line has been quite popular over the years, and there’s a definite need to improve Métro access East of the CBD).

In any event, I think I covered all the bases – securing a proud and profitable future for the Big O is almost thoroughly dependent on a City plan to completely overhaul the HLM sector and instigate a kind of gentrification that would encourage a new socio-economic diversity in the area, provide better services for families and further turn it into an outward-facing urban focal point.

But if you want to get more people out there on the cheap, perhaps the short-term, inexpensive solution is simply to re-build Corridart in a new form, linking the CBD with the Olympic Park by means of an outdoor art-gallery erected along Sherbrooke Street.

Suffice it to say, this is more than just a potential election issue – the citizens must make their voices heard.

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New on Sovereign Socialist – State Economic Planning for Conservatives (a primer)

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Oy...

This article was originally published by the Forget the Box news collective.

The ruling Tories have dropped the ball in one domain they repeatedly claim to be almost exclusively their own – supporting the Canadian military.

Let me be more specific. Tories typically talk a good game around election time about how they, and in their minds they alone, support the Canadian Forces. Both Stephen Harper and Brian Mulroney began their terms in office promising sweeping reforms, new equipment procurement plans, increases to personnel levels and a general ‘re-investment’ in ‘our men and women in uniform’. Typically, statements of this nature will be bookended with snide commentary about how ‘previous Liberal governments’ have ‘gutted’ the military, leaving Canadians hopelessly defenseless. It’s a good tactic because it works; it plays off of well-established though completely erroneous sentiments and pays off for the Tories during the election cycles. And true to form, though much is promised, almost nothing is provided.

And here’s the kicker; you don’t need to be a military historian to know that when it comes to defending Canada and using military spending to stimulate the economy, no party has a stronger reputation in this respect than the gold old Grits. The dirty little secret of the Conservative Party of Canada is their defense and strategic planning legacy, which has all too often fallen short. The fact that anyone in this great nation still believes the Tories know anything about defense only demonstrates the extent by which Canadian politics is framed by the American discourse, and worse still, American stereotypes.

Historically, Conservative military spending has been very much in-line with Conservative foreign policy, which stresses Canada’s ‘military obligations’ to NATO and the United States (because the Americans apparently need our assistance) and this in turn means we arm ourselves accordingly. Under Liberal governments, the stress is placed on national sovereignty and peacekeeping. Moreover, Conservatives historically tend to buying foreign-produced military hardware, whereas Liberals find ‘Made in Canada’ solutions. And don’t forget our last legitimately Progressive conservative Prime Minister, John Diefenbaker, was so consumed with eliminating the fiscal excesses of St-Laurent era ‘big government’ he axed the Avro Arrow and retarded Canada’s aerospace industry permanently thereafter – we still have yet to recover the technical prowess and ingenuity of that firm, more than fifty years after the fact. Diefenbaker’s nuclear-missile replacement was ultimately what would cost him the 1963 federal election, not to mention that he would turn around and later acquire American-made jets in 1961. Similarly today the Harper Administration is procuring 65 highly-experimental and so-far unproven fighters incapable of fully replacing the capabilities of our current fleet of 103 strike-fighters. The Canadian taxpayers are being asked to shell out $30 billion to purchase aircraft that won’t have engines or weapons, and the aircraft won’t even be built here. When Pierre Trudeau signed the order to procure 138 Hornets in 1982, he made sure to acquire the licenses as well, so that the entire fleet was built locally, and further built to a better design than their American counterparts. Our aircraft were so well built they are still outperforming more recent models of the type, and as you can imagine, given that the money stayed in Canada, the indirect economic effects were considerable. And the Tories want you to think this is fiscally irresponsible. Using a search and rescue helicopter or government jet to go on vacation, by their standards, is not.

The Harper Administration has indicated that they consider national sovereignty and northern sovereignty to be synonymous, but aside from playing capture-the-flag with the Danes and Russians, the Tories have done nothing to further defend the Arctic. And defending the Arctic is much more than a routine sovereignty exercise for the Canadian Forces – its about ensuring our territorial waters aren’t used by American, Russian, British, French or Chinese ballistic missile submarines, about securing our resources from irresponsible foreign development and further ensuring that the Arctic ecosystem isn’t further damaged by international shipping and global warming. He said he would procure armed icebreakers – that was five years ago and nothing has happened since. Same thing with the proposed new joint support ships, amphibious assault ships and the upgrades to our existing fleet – lots of talk, little walk. What’s more distressing is that under Stephen Harper’s reign the Canadian Forces have been either selling off or otherwise shedding perfectly good military equipment; the common denominator being that the equipment was procured by ‘previous Liberal governments’. A case in point would be the sad fate of HMCS Huron, one of a class of four guided-missile destroyers with the potential to be used as a platform for a ballistic missile defense system, among other things. Extensively upgraded in the mid-1990s she was still fully serviceable when mothballed in 2000 due to personnel shortages. Instead of keeping the ship in such a static, still usable state, the decision was made by DND officials to tow her out to a Pacific Ocean weapons testing facility and sink her in 2007. Similarly, none of Canada’s four submarines are currently serviceable, and the Harper Administration purposely removed the long-range missile capabilities of these ships. The subs like the destroyers were procured by previous Liberal governments. So to were the reconnaissance vehicles used by the army, the coastal patrol boats used by naval reservists and most of our air defense equipment, all of which seems to have been ‘phased out’ by the Harper Administration. It seems these days that their only success has been to re-affirm our historically British military ties by denigrating our national sovereignty by re-affixing the Royal stamp to two out of three services. A great PR victory, but ultimately as useless as tits on a bull, to use a favoured Western Canadian expression. In sum it has come time for the citizenry to question this apparent Tory dominion on all things defense related. Time and time again they have proven themselves incompetent and fundamentally disinterested in using such large allocations of tax-payer revenue to better developing our high-technology and heavy-manufacturing sectors. It’s time to set the record straight on the Tory defense legacy.

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Clifford Lincoln’s Billion Dollar Little-Train-That-Shouldn’t

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Conceptual rendering of a Bombardier dual-power locomotive, to be purchased by the AMT

So the West Island Gazette is reporting Clifford Lincoln and a host of West Island mayors and other lobbyists are pushing the idea of an entirely new train to serve the southern half of the West Island. They are asking for one billion dollars (now that’s billion with a ‘b’ in case you weren’t paying attention) to build a new electric train that would speed West Island commuters from Downtown Montreal to Ste-Anne-de-Bellevue in thirty minutes. They also want to increase the level of service from 26 trains per week to 86. Right now the coalition pushing the idea has only gotten as far as an AMT-financed report (clocking in at $22 million and change) which will be ready next year to be brought before the government for approval. When asked about the hefty price tag, Lincoln was very quick to point out that the Province has crumbling infrastructure and thus needs to invest in it anyways, and further pointed out that the province seems to be able to afford such things as a new hockey rink for the Québec City area.

I’m not impressed with Mr. Lincoln’s lack of subtlety, but if it works with West island voters who can blame him for defining this issue as a typically provincial ‘us vs. them’ kind of affair. He may think he’s doing right by his people, but I sincerely doubt this card will play in Québec City. It’s not about hockey rinks (which would be paid off on a shorter time-span and provide countless indirect jobs as most venues do); the issue is graft – and this project smells to high-hell of it.

This map details the current AMT routes and proposed routes for future development. As you may well know, the AMT and the Aeroports de Montréal(ADM) have been arguing incessantly with the provincial government about how Trudeau Airport is to be connected to the Central Business District. The Train de l’Ouest plan mentions a stop in Dorval, though not necessarily at the airport. And while it is conceivable that the train would be able to offer this key service, there’s nothing indicating that Lincoln’s lobby-group has been in discussion with the ADM about using the new train station built into Trudeau Airport.

If this wasn’t problematic enough, the speed (30 minutes from downtown to Ste-Anne’s) seems highly improbable unless the train is to be built on a segregated track, at which point it could travel at exceptionally fast speeds and not get jammed up by freight trains sharing the line, though I wonder if this 30 minutes includes stopping at any of the stations. This means building a segregated rail line next to the existing rail lines used by CN, CP, VIA and the AMT along the Highway 20 corridor. Is there enough space to do so? And would constructing this new line disrupt service on the existing lines? And remember that bit about crumbling infrastructure? The last time I checked CN and CP own the track, and not the province. Nice try Cliff.

Map of Proposed Train de l'Ouest Route

Mr. Lincoln also wants electric locomotives as a means to cut costs long-term in addition to providing an ecologically sustainable alternative to diesel-powered trains currently used on that line. While this is a wise choice for the environment, it also means the AMT will have to build new storage and maintenance facilities for the locomotives and cars. As service disruptions on the Deux-Montagnes line over the last few winters have demonstrated, while electric trains are less polluting, they require a greater degree of maintenance and have proven prone to failure if left outside in exceptionally cold weather (which is what the AMT has been doing for years – this may have shortened the lifespan of the train sets used on that line).

All of this to say that while I applaud Mr. Lincoln’s efforts to get the Province to spend money helping the citizens of the West Island, a billion dollars is just about the right amount to get the program axed entirely. What’s more, the latest AMT expansion project, the Train de l’Est, is going to cost less than half of the proposed cost of its western counter-part. You can find those details here.

I might add, the distance East is more than the distance West, and involves building new stations entirely. The Train de l’Est will use the Bombardier dual-power locomotive (ergo diesel-electric) allowing it access to Central Station as well as the newly-built double-decker passenger cars. Using the dual-power locomotives is more practical than using electric locomotives, as they can use all rail lines in the city.

So then, with that in mind consider this – what if instead of building an entirely new electric-only rail-line for a billion dollars, we invested in rehabilitating all the old branch lines and procured/developed a state-of-the-art traffic direction system? This way we use all rail lines more efficiently instead of building a segregated line for express service (effectively because express trains could be switched onto lesser travelled branches). Take a trip to google maps and try to follow the different rail lines criss-crossing the island. You’ll soon discover that there are many rail lines not presently being used, such as the one which runs from Central Station to just East of St-John’s near Hymus. If dual-power locomotives were considered for this plan, this currently unused branch line could be very cheaply converted. A small extension further West from where it currently terminates would allow this line to reach the hotel and office complex just across from the Fairview shopping centre. Developments of a pedestrian tunnel running under the highway would in turn mean West Island residents would have access to the downtown via a train station located in the middle of two of the biggest parking lots in the West Island. Dual-Power locomotives operating on this seldom-used branch line could run between the centre of the West Island and Gare Centrale and would cost a fraction of what the proposed Train de l’Ouest.

So why aren’t cheaper alternatives being considered?

In sum, it seems as though this fundamentally boils down to a “let’s get what we’re owed” mentality that wins votes in West Island ridings. It’s too bad too, because a less expensive project may actually yield a green light. It stinks of opportunism and seems so outlandish and inappropriate that one is only left to assume the corruption and collusion in the construction and infrastructure redevelopment industries is about as bad as we all dared dream it was. That, or perhaps people in positions of power, lobbyists etc, are simply trying to make a buck, ultimately off the people’s backs.

Ask yourself – who does that billion dollars ultimately belong to? If you don’t ultimately think this is your money, then you can’t complain for skyrocketing costs and epidemic graft.