Tag Archives: Projet Montréal

Let's make this an election issue, Urban Redevelopment

Your City, Your Candidates – Nairi Khandjian

Leave a comment

IMG_1017

This was originally posted to Forget the Box as part of a series I’m doing: you can find the original here.

Nairi Khandjian is a friend, a young woman looking to represent the people of Norman-McLaren district in Saint Laurent borough for Projet Montréal. The district is roughly bounded by Highway 15 in the west, Décarie in the east, Henri-Bourassa boulevard to the north and highway 40 in the south.

Named after a prolific and well-respected NFB animator, Norman-McLaren district is a relatively recent addition to the cityscape. Saint Laurent was its own incorporated city prior to the forced mergers of 2002 and the citizens decided to remain a part of Montreal during the de-merger process.

As such it still has a unique local style and character, one in keeping with a community that grew up in the wake of the Second World War and has seen multiple waves of first generation middle class Montrealers pass through it. The community is diverse, with a strong Lebanese, Armenian and Haitian presence in the area. Norman-McLaren includes the major STM terminus at Cote-Vertu Métro station, the Décarie Village and the side-by-side CEGEPs Saint Laurent and Vanier.

Tell me a bit about your district; what’s your connexion to it and what do you like about it?

Well, I went to the Armenian school here, and there’s a large Armenian population living in Saint-Laurent, so I feel pretty at home here. It’s not my quartier, but it’s still a part of me. It’s my home away from home let’s say.

I like this place, it’s like the United Nations – another large expanse of middle-class residential living, people from all over the world living and loving together. What’s not to like? I love all the small ‘mom and pop’ stores on Décarie, it really completes the notion of community.

And why run with Projet Montréal?

PM is the party that truly represents the people who live here, who truly love this city. PM is the diversity party, the inclusivity party. It has volunteers, candidates and employees from all walks of life, all parts of the city and every conceivable political orientation. We all want the best for our city and for that reason we can see past our trivial differences to the greater good. I wouldn’t even consider running for any other party, not that we really have any other parties to speak of.

How did the city of Montreal end up in its current political situation?

Citizens weren’t being listened to and as a consequence have become jaded. This is a tactic employed by many political parties – make politics as distasteful as possible and lower the operating margins in consequence. Fewer voters are easier to control and less than 40% of eligible voters cast votes in the 2009 election.

Complicating the issue is that once elected a lot of local politicians become comfortable doing a job with little to no actual oversight. They treat it as a four year long series of perks and not a civic responsibility.

What would you do for your constituents if elected?

We should prioritize a Métro extension of the Orange Line by two or three stations northwest towards Gouin Boulevard, with an intermodal station at Bois-Franc to alleviate congestion on our roadways, highways and the AMT’s Deux-Montagnes line. Then we should implement measures to better engage the citizenry.

The people need to have a say on how money gets spent locally, not to mention itemized monthly budgets of where and how local funds are spent. We need full financial transparency and enhanced civic engagement in the borough’s finances. Do this across the city and there won’t be any future Charbonneau Commissions, that’s for sure.

STM busses at Côte-Vertu metro, a major transporation hub in the Norman-McLaren district
STM busses at Côte-Vertu metro, a major transporation hub in the Norman-McLaren district

What do you love the most about Montreal?

Where to start? I love the diversity of our city. I love our natural cosmopolitanism. We are incredibly lucky to be so diverse and get along as well as we do.

Also, I love how easy and cheap it is to have fun in this city. We live in a place where the simple act of taking a walk can be exciting and memorable. It costs nothing to go walk around the Old Port or hike up Mount Royal. That’s something pretty special right there.

And what do you hate about this city?

The unproductive and completely bogus ethno-liguistic tension in our city. It’s manufactured, fake. People are open and inclusive, we’re not the way our politicians portray us, and we don’t have the actual tension the media and nationalist organizations push.

And fuck it, the potholes suck too. We need better roads.

What would you like to see removed from the local landscape?

The Grevin wax museum. I couldn’t believe it when I saw all those ridiculous ads in the Métro – are we living in Niagara Falls?

Are we not a major global city, are we not the cultural capital of Canada? What the hell are we doing with a wax museum? It’s so cheap, contrived.

Obviously Montrealers won’t be flocking to a wax museum, it’s $17 to get it. It occupies the fifth floor of the Eaton’s Centre, where they had the Titanic exhibit a few years back. It’s entertainment for others, but what about us?

The citizens need centres of culture, not cheap distractions and tourist traps. People study culture here and then split because we don’t develop the infrastructure for a culture-driven economy.

Well, I’d prefer and we’d all benefit from a culture and creation-driven economy in lieu of a tourism-driven economy. We could do a lot better than mere wax museums.

***

Montrealers go to the polls November 3rd 2013. For the love of all that’s good and holy, please go vote.

Kondiaronk - My Montréal Experience, Let's make this an election issue, Perspectives on the City

Your City, Your Candidates – Mary Ann Davis

Leave a comment
Wellington Street in Verdun (photo by StudyInMontreal.info)
Wellington Street in Verdun (photo by StudyInMontreal.info)

Part of an on-going series I’m contributing to. Mary Ann was a joy to interview. The original, as with a lot of other things I’ve written, can be found on Forget the Box.

***

Mary Ann Davis has lived in Verdun for over twenty years, having moved to Montreal as soon as she could get out of Thetford Mines. As a child, her father had taken her to Montreal on a business trip and in Phillips Square together they sat munching on ice cream cones. She vividly recalls taking in all that was around her, enjoying the comings and goings of so many people and deciding that this was the city for her.

Ms. Davis is a union organizer, LGBTQ activist and Projet Montréal candidate for Verdun borough mayor.

What’s the big issue, for you and the people you wish to represent, that will define this election?

Nun’s Island needs a new school. The current primary school on the predominantly residential and upper-middle class island is the largest in the province with over 900 students. A new school has been officially required since 2007 but there’s been too little movement on the issue.

The biggest problem is that there’s little available land left on the island and all of it is in private hands waiting to be developed into townhouses and condo complexes. With more than 22 000 residents living on the island, we believe a new school is a major priority.

The current borough government wants to place the school in a park, adjacent to two of the island’s major thoroughfares. The site is too small to accommodate the large new school which is required to serve residents’ needs, meaning if the current plan goes ahead, we’ll be right back where we started, needing another school, in but a few years’ time.

We think this is profoundly irresponsible. Moreover, Nun’s island will soon need a secondary school as well, given current demographic trends. We feel it’s far better we plan for those future realities now rather than deal with the consequences later on.

What has the current administration done about this issue?

The current Union Montreal borough administration has not handled this well. They made it a needlessly divisive issue; people are being harassed, tires have been slashed. Keep in mind that the Verdun borough mayor’s office has been raided by UPAC three times; it’s clear to me someone may have some significant real estate interests.

There’s enough undeveloped land on Nun’s Island for between eight and ten thousand more apartments or condos. That’s a lot of potential tax revenue. But Projet Montréal has thoroughly studied this issue, has analyzed the OCPM’s 71-page report and we’ve come to a different conclusion: private land should be used for new schools.

It’s ridiculous to put a too small school in the middle of a park. Other lots have been offered by private developers, so we’d really like to know why the current Union Montreal government is so insistent on the location the OCPM deemed insufficient.

How has Verdun changed since you moved here?

Well, the first week I lived here there was an arsonist on the loose.

So it has improved?

Ha! Yes, by leaps and bounds. There were parts of Verdun you simply didn’t walk around late at night by yourself back then, today Verdun’s nothing like that. Real estate speculators keep indicating it’s one of many ‘next Plateaus’ in our city. There’s certainly been some gentrification, but this has been problematic as well. Verdun is an affordable inner-ring suburb and I’d like to keep it that way.

Tell me about the community you wish to represent, what are their needs?

Verdun is now a very multi-cultural community, with large Chinese, Haitian, Bangladeshi, Pakistani and Rwandan communities. We also have a surprisingly large Latino community.

But all too often I find these diverse communities living in silos – I’ve been walking around visiting apartment buildings where only one ethnic group can take up an entire building. That needs to change.

Further, many immigrants feel completely disengaged from civic politics, some have even been incredulous when I told them that they had the right to vote in our municipal elections. Can you believe it?

What do you want to accomplish if elected borough mayor?

Aside from solving the public school problem in Nun’s Island, I want to revitalize our main commercial arteries with more locally-owned small businesses. We also need to avoid a ‘condo ghettoization’ of Verdun and secure low-cost housing.

I’d also like to get citizen committees up and running on specific issues, be it new schools or what our needs are vis-a-vis the Champlain Bridge replacement. Ultimately, we need a far more engaged citizenry, so that we can resuscitate Verdun’s greatest single characteristic – its community spirit.

Is Montreal a gay sanctuary?

From my perspective, yes, absolutely, but we need to be aware of how recent this is. When I first moved to Montreal I did so because small-town Québec wasn’t terribly interested in being open and inclusive towards homosexuals.

But we absolutely must remember that, even as recently as twenty years ago, gay-bashings were far more frequent and the Montreal police even had a ‘morality squad’ which was all too often employed in raiding underground gay clubs, beating the shit out of people, and/or patrolling Mount Royal ticketing men for ‘cruising.’ It’s probably very surprising for young people today to hear such things.

What changed on a local level?

About twenty years ago the gay community in Montreal got organized and began pushing for reforms. It helped that there was a human rights commission set up to investigate anti-LGBTQ hate crimes, not to mention all the bad press the Sex Garage raid produced. But things really picked up when the gay community began concentrating in what is today the Gay Village and local politicians realized that the LGBTQ community as a whole was increasingly wealthy and far better connected.

Once politicians realized we were organized and resourceful (not to mention swimming in disposable income), they became sincerely interested in ‘the gay vote.’ The rest, as they say, is history.

***

Montrealers go to the polls November 3rd 2013. For the love of all that’s good and holy, please go vote. Make sure your name’s registered by calling Elections Québec.

Commentary, Kondiaronk - My Montréal Experience, Let's make this an election issue, Perspectives on the City

Your City, Your Candidates

Leave a comment

The City Along Mountain Street

Part of an on-going series of interviews of local candidates I’m doing with Forget the Box, an excellent Montreal blog. This is the full version of the interview I did with Jimmy Zoubris, a local businessman looking to represent Projet Montréal in the Peter-McGill district of Ville-Marie borough.

And just a note – the answers are paraphrased. Otherwise you’d be reading a transcript of a recorded conversation, and that’s just too… NSA, FBI & CIA-ish for my tastes.

***

I met up with Jimmy Zoubris, city councillor candidate for Projet Montréal in Peter-McGill district, at one of my favourite local cafés, the Shaika in NDG. It occurred to me on the walk over that Sherbrooke Street West and Saint Catherine’s Street West have something in common – high concentrations of medium/high density urban housing and a surprising number of independently owned and operated businesses. I wondered if there was a correlation; St-Cat’s runs down the middle of Peter-McGill district, which is defined (working counter-clockwise from the north) by the mountain, Westmount, the 720/Guy/Notre-Dame in the south (i.e. including everything up to Little Burgundy and Griffintown), with an eastern edge created by University, Pine and Parc. It includes Concordia and McGill, the remnants of the Square Mile, much of the modern central business district not to mention a multitude of institutions.

It is a demonstration of the incredible contrasts of our city, and the juxtaposition of so much diversity in a part of town you could walk across in half an hour makes it a fascinating place to want to represent.

Consider the district has a very high median income – over $70,000 per annum in 2009, yet also a significant homeless problem, at about 10% of the local population in 2006 (and I’m assuming both these figures have increased since). Moreover, an incredible 45% of the district’s residents live below the poverty line (many of which are students). Though only 22% of residents speak French at home 63% are bilingual in both official languages. Immigrants represent 44% of the local population, the majority of them Chinese, though immigrants from Lebanon, Morocco and France are also well represented in the district. What’s curious about Peter-McGill, is, first, that small-scale enterprises seem to thrive near the large residential sectors of the district, and second that the district has large depopulated areas – notably in the central business and retail district towards the eastern edge of Peter-McGill. Suffice it to say there are a lot of competing interests here, and it will be a difficult task for any potential candidate.

I asked Jimmy off the bat what he likes about this city, and he simply looked around and waved his hand; “this,” he said, “small, independently owned and operated cafés, bistros, restaurants etc. These are a rarity in the suburbs, but in the city, they’re everywhere. Trendy little coffee shops are competing one-on-one with major chains, and it often looks like the little guy’s winning. There’s a lot of potential. It’s certainly what my district could use more of, especially as you get closer to the downtown core. Projet Montréal wants to empower entrepreneurs and support the development of more small businesses. Too much of the downtown is dead after five or six.”

Where’s your favourite place to bring tourists to the city?

First, I’d take them to Mount Royal, the lookout, Lac des Castors etc, so that they can see the jewel we protected. It’s hard to believe fifty years ago Jean Drapeau had half the trees cut down to ‘prevent immorality’, as they used to say. But today we’re smarter, we value our green space, especially a park of such quality design, so universally enjoyed by all Montrealers. I think I would bring an eager tourist to see Montrealers using something they cherish and love very much. But after that, we’d go to the market, Jean Talon, Atwater, just to enjoy the experience, have a bite, watch people go by. I know it sounds odd, but I think we can all appreciate it, there’s something calming and refreshing about a market place. I wouldn’t mind seeing more of them, I think they’re a hit with an increasingly food-conscious population.

You’re a small businessman and we’ve spoken before of your thoughts concerning the necessity for a better business climate for small-scale entrepreneurs; what can the city do to improve the situation?

The fact is this – people don’t like empty storefronts on our main commercial arteries. It’s a peculiar problem – it doesn’t mean one business has driven others out of business and are ‘winning capitalism’, it means property values have increased out of step with actual business revenue. And like a virus it can spread to a whole block; remember what Saint Catherine’s from Fort to Lambert-Closse looked like a few years ago? It was a ghost town! Projet Montréal wants to change all that and so do I. The city has the resources to initiate buy-local campaigns and develop web portals and social media sites and applications for local businesses and business development. The city needs to pay attention to merchant’s needs, especially on the small end of the scale. Simple improvements to sidewalks – be it by repairing old cement, or installing recycling bins and benches, whatever, improvements like these can do a lot to help local businesses. And on top of that, the city should probably become more involved in promoting the creativity and uniqueness of local goods and services, and the fact they’re so much more available to urban citizens than suburbanites. Facilitating a better business environment that supports local entrepreneurs is one part of a broad plan to reverse population loss to the suburbs.

What do you like the most and what do you like the least about living in your district?

Like? Well, for one thing the nightlife. It’s not just Crescent Street, on the whole we’re well equipped with a wide variety of restaurants, bars, bistros, nightclubs to suit all tastes. It’s the part of town that seems to be on all the time, and I don’t mind that. For a lot of Montrealers this is an exciting, entertaining district. As to what I like least, it’s the class extremes, too much obscene wealth next to abject poverty. We have about 2,000 homeless in this district, that’s a problem that’s been ignored for far too long.

What do you propose to fix it?

The city should take the lead, partner with established charities like Acceuil Bonneau, and work to increase their capacity, possibly by securing abandoned residential and institutional properties that haven’t sold in many years. Coincidentally, there’s an abandoned old folks home across from the CCA that hasn’t sold in over a decade. No doubt we should definitely collaborate with established charities and see if we can help them help others better.

What’s Projet Montréal’s greatest challenge in the forthcoming election?

Getting the message from one end of the island to the other. We’re a big, complex city with a lot of moving parts, so it’s definitely going to be a challenge not only to get the message out, but to make people care enough to listen in the first place. We’re dealing with a local population that’s already fed up with local politicians and it shows, only 40% of citizens voted in the 2009 municipal election. That’s pathetically low, but to me it seems like some people are getting turned off by local politics and politicians. Suffice it to say, this only makes the job of the honest politician that much more difficult.

But I’ll say this, despite those challenges, and despite Montreal’s size, Projet Montréal is about Montreal first and foremost, the affairs of the province and country come second. We are a party for the citizens, and we know once elected the citizens will be our boss. Projet is cognizant there are no one-size-fits-all solutions for Montreal, and that what works well in one borough may not necessarily work in another. We know this because we’re the grassroots party, built from the bottom up, not paid for from the top down. Though Richard Bergeron often likes to look at the big picture in terms of how Montreal is going to evolve, on the person-to-person basis, at the district level, it’s about being a good representative, listening to constituents’ needs and correcting local problems.

How did Montreal end up in the political mess it currently sits in?

There were far too many people with far too many powers, too much control at the borough level while the city executive, the mayor etc. all took the laissez-faire approach. Tremblay was either complicit or wasn’t paying attention – in which case his negligence is nearly criminal. Either way safeguards are needed, and increased transparency is one way to begin fixing things. We need an active, involved mayor, not some guy who only shows up for photo ops but is otherwise a ghost. It’s funny, I was reading recently that Denis Coderre wants to champion an ‘intelligent’ city and yet of all the former Union Montreal councillors now running with him, not one is participating in the live broadcasting of their meetings. Projet Montréal is going to great lengths to ensure we respect the letter of the law and the people’s interest in greater transparency. All you get from Coté or Coderre is a lot of hot air; all talk, no action.

There are well over one hundred thousand students living in what most would consider to be ‘downtown’ Montreal or in the most urban first ring suburbs. It’s clear they’re politically motivated, and yet the youth don’t participate in Montreal municipal elections. What’s Projet Montréal doing about this?

For one we have 19 candidates under the age of 35. Granted that’s not exactly young, but we’re doing what we can and as you might imagine, we have a lot of volunteers under the age of 30. Richard Bergeron proposed a few years ago that the city open week-long voting booths in the CEGEPs and universities to facilitate voting for Montreal’s students. It’s no different than absentee voting anywhere else, and we certainly have the technology to make it work. But Union Montréal struck down the idea, instead permitting those who own property in the city to vote even if they live and pay municipal taxes elsewhere. We were pretty upset about this. That students wouldn’t get help integrating into the democratic process, but the wealthy are allowed to participate in elections in places they don’t actually live? It’s sickening really, and it’s a kind of disenfranchisement as well. Of course, the political establishment in this city has been leery about the student vote since the early 1970s, when the party created by the students nearly ousted Mayor Jean Drapeau.

What would you like to see wiped off the map or otherwise expelled from Montreal?

What a question! Ha! Well, I’ll tell you what, I’ll answer it in two parts. For one, I’d like to officially banish Jeff Loria (chuckles all around, Jeff Loria is the art collector who ran the Expos into the ground). I’d put up a sign telling him to go back home to Florida (more laughs).

As to what I’d like to see disappear, definitely the big gaping hole where the Ville-Marie Expressway divides Old Montreal from the rest of the city. It has to be covered. Even if nothing’s put on top of it and we leave a big open field of grass, it would be a major improvement over how it currently stands. My understanding is that the Palais des Congrès is looking to expand on the western edge of the remaining trench, and the CHUM will expand on the eastern edge, the city should step in and cover the rest. We need to stitch this city back up, it’s been divided – physically, culturally – for far too long. Projet has a plan to change all that.

Cultural commentary, Economic commentary, Kondiaronk - My Montréal Experience, Let's make this an election issue, Perspectives on the City, Social commentary, Urban Redevelopment

Projet Montréal’s 2013 Platform & A Soft Landing for the Montreal Real Estate Market

3 Comments
Sunset on Beaver Lake
Sunset on Beaver Lake

Projet Montréal, the only clean political party left in Montreal, is first out of the gate with a campaign platform.

With a dozen weeks or so left before the November 3rd municipal election they are so far the only party to have developed a program, including 71 specific campaign promises. No other candidate has come up with anything even remotely similar, as the PM program covers everything it feels a city administration ought to be involved in (from transportation to quality of life, health, culture and economic development, among others), a smart move in that it will play a role in deciding the terms of future debate. With this document PM is pushing an issues and ideas-based election, as opposed to the facebook-styled popularity contest it’s been up to now.

I’ll save my judgement of the other mayoral candidates for when they actually come up with their own plan. As far as I’m concerned elections are supposed to be issues-driven, not personality-based. Thus, this is so far a one-party race; until the other candidates produce some kind of document outlining just exactly what they propose to do for this city, I can’t in good conscience even consider them legitimate candidates. I refuse to vote for a self-described political vedette.

What strikes me about PM’s platform is that it seems to be anticipating a long expected crash in the Canadian housing market and, further, seems designed to carry our local real estate market into the much desired soft-landing. In essence, investment needs to be coaxed away from suburban developments and big-box shopping centres and back towards the urban environment. In this respect, PM’s 71 promises are methods by which that investment will be secured. Our mayors have been of the laissez-faire variety for too many years. Now is not the time for the laissez-faire approach. Investment needs to be re-directed into improving city living as much as possible. The city and its urban neighbourhoods will continue to be a desirable place to live long after interest in suburban bungalows has waned, but we need an active administration to ensure investment follows interest.

It’s clearly one of Projet Montréal’s main goals to correct the population loss our city suffers to suburban development, now in some cases more than an hour away from the city centre. If the housing market bubble bursts, in my opinion it will be these suburban developments that will be suspended first. As it stands these new developments are a burden on available health and education services in the outlying suburban regions. It stands to reason a more forward-thinking civic administration would capitalize on this as part of its broad effort to get people to stay in the city. Simply put the city can offer a far higher quality of life in terms of available services, culture, variety of employment opportunities etc. It’s stylish too, and it just so happens our city benefits immensely from several large urban residential areas, most of which are extremely desirable to live in (case in point the Plateau, faithfully administered by Luc Ferrandez and Projet Montréal and perhaps our city’s most iconic neighbourhood and the envy of urbanites the world over. Consider what makes the Plateau such a success and ask yourself how many other urban neighbourhoods offer something similar).

The plan is hyper conscious of what Montrealers love about living in our city and as such much of the program aims to build on what we already appreciate. More bike paths, urban agriculture, Métro extensions, a tram system, fewer cars and less traffic in the city – the list goes on and on, but it’s all built around improving the lives of urban residents. I can’t help but think the entirety of the plan will result in higher property values city-wide, and I’m also encouraged that the party has outlined new poles for residential development within the existing city; new construction in the city isn’t going to end, it just has to be managed better. I think we’re getting pretty close to maxing out on the need for single or dual occupancy condominiums as an example, so hopefully private developers (who will have many more reasons to build under a PM government, at least based on this platform) will react and adjust appropriately.

Other interesting components of the PM program include a six-point plan to increase and empower independently owned and operated businesses and to revitalize ‘neighbourhood economies’ and the city’s many commercial arteries. PM also wants to improve public education by working more directly with the provincial government and local school boards.

Further, a significant plan to broadly develop the Métro, including prolonging operating hours til 3:30, replacing all Métro cars with the new model over the next seven years, and extend three Métro lines (Orange west to Gouin Blvd., Blue east to Anjou and west to Lachine/Ville-St-Pierre, and Yellow up to Sherbrooke and McGill College, effectively ‘twinning’ the McGill Métro station. A bold plan to say the least, but one that will certainly make it much more desirable to live in the city.

Anyways, here’s the link again – check it out, well worth the time.

Commentary, Kondiaronk - My Montréal Experience, Let's make this an election issue, Perspectives on the City, Social commentary

Meet Your Candidates, Meet Your City No.1

Leave a comment
The Filipino Chess Club of Montreal, at its former home, a Tim Horton's
The Filipino Chess Club of Montreal, at its former home, a Tim Horton’s

I’m going to try and interview a few local candidates in the run-up to election-palooza this November.

First up is an extended version of an article I wrote for Forget the Box on Sujata Dey, Projet Montreal city councillor candidate for the Darlington district of Cote-des-Neiges-Notre-Dame-de-Grace-de-Loyola-de-Snowdon-sur-Décarie-et-Upper-Lachine-Road-Next-to-the-Superhospital-and-the-Poorer-Little-Italy-de-l’Oratoire-de-l’Université-de-Montréal-Westmount-Adjacent. The photo above is taken from an article written by the candidate on community planning in her borough for a website called Montreal Serai.

Okay, it’s not really called that, but to the point, CDN-NDG is, in my opinion, a borough too big. Though we’re a big city, we’re a city of neighbourhoods, and I think we’ll benefit from smaller-scale representation. The borough system always seemed a bit odd to me – in CDN-NDG’s case too big to really cater to local needs, awkwardly gathering up a lot of the city’s diversity (cultural, social, aesthetic, historic etc.) into something that doesn’t quite work for residents while being big enough to become bloated with corruption. Remember, Michael Applebaum was once the paranoid borough mayor of CDN-NDG.

Now this isn’t to say that the borough system is structurally corrupt (I hope), but I think I’d prefer a ‘renovated’ system that devolved the power of the borough mayors and empowered the role of councillor as a member of a stronger, ‘more executive’ municipal legislative body, such as a congress of councillors. Ideally we’d have more councillors so that there’s a better representation of the city’s many communities, and neighbourhoods. I’d like a city where I actually knew my councillor and she or he knew me.

In any event, the article is part interview with the candidate and part ruminations on the city and its political reality. I hope you enjoy.

***

I find myself in front of a community centre/library in a converted office block on a muggy summer Sunday afternoon. High up on Cote-des-Neiges Road the mountain still forms the backdrop looking towards the city, with the road crawling out from the gap between Mount Royal and Westmount like a river pouring forth from a waterfall. Cote-des-Neiges Road is a never-ending torrent of humanity, the eponymous borough well represented by its main thoroughfare. The borough, Cote-des-Neiges-Notre-Dame-de-Grace, is the most populous of Montreal’s many boroughs, and is arguably one of the most cosmopolitan and integrated neighbourhoods in all of Canada. The Cote-des-Neiges component is itself more heavily and densely populated and has served, nearly consistently since the end of the Second World War, as the ‘first neighbourhood’ for many generations of immigrants. This is as true today as it was more than sixty years ago.

I’m here to cover the nomination of Ms. Sujata Dey, a businesswoman with deep roots in the community, as Projet Montreal city councillor candidate for the Darlington district of the aforementioned borough. Darlington, the northernmost part of Cote-des-Neiges, is also one of the poorest and most ignored parts of the city. Sitting there I realized this is where my father’s people come from, this is exactly where he spent his formative years.

They would tell you it’s changed dramatically, but all that I see is pretty much exactly the way they described it. Ours is a subtle timelessness.

The conventional thinking amongst establishment politicians in Montreal is that the poorest neighbourhoods are generally where immigrants reside and that, simply put, immigrants don’t vote in municipal elections. Therefore, the establishment parties don’t pay much attention to the needs of residents living in these areas and do almost no campaigning or reaching-out. This may explain why only about 39% of eligible voters cast ballots in the 2009 election, totalling just over 400,000 votes split between three main parties. A low turnout by anyone’s standards, but also in keeping with the ‘focus on your base’ mentality that so pervades Montreal municipal politics. That base, even in 2013, is all too often Caucasian, French-speaking and (at the very least) lapsed Catholic – the very same people who’ve been leaving the City of Montreal for adjoining suburbs at a near constant rate for the last forty years.

There are a lot of people who exert undue influence over Montreal, yet who also do not pay any taxes to the city and can’t vote in our elections. Keep this in mind when (if) the parties begin discussing their plans for the city – see how much is actually focused on the citizens who live here versus the interests of those whose time spent in the city is framed by their work schedules. Makes me wonder if ‘One Island, One City’ was really that bad of an idea in the first place.

In any event, Ms. Dey did not mince words.

“This is Montreal’s Enron moment.” I agree, though I wonder how fresh Enron is in people’s minds. Inasmuch as Enron was a great reminder for why we need strict government oversight to prevent fraud on an epic scale, so too does Montreal require a more invested citizenry. When we fall asleep at the wheel, when we resign ourselves to not being able to do anything to change the status quo, we lose. Enron foreshadowed the economic collapse of 2008-2009; it’s my hope that a prolonged era of darkness in Montreal city politics is coming to an end, rather than about to peak. I don’t know how much more the people can take. If the fall brings a whole new onslaught of fresh arrests and implications, we may lose our faith altogether.

Those gathered responded very well to this statement. The room was packed with some seventy people who, historically, have been all but ignored by the city’s former political machines. Sure, some of the people here may be paid lip service in the immediate run-up to the election – a photo-op, a promise to encourage diversity or something along those lines. It doesn’t tend to go much farther than that. Regardless, the room is full, the people attentive. I’ve been to a lot of nomination meetings; few have had this kind of turnout. I would assume these people would be the most disinterested – not for lack of understanding or being able to devote the necessary time, but simply because they’ve been ignored for so long. It goes to show the conventional thinking – much like conventional politics in general – isn’t worth much. The people gathered here care – they’re willing to sacrifice a precious day off to do their civic duty and implicate themselves in the process by which we might actually turn things around in our city.

Ms. Dey makes a fully bilingual presentation; two languages are required to cover all bases, so to speak, with children translating into other languages in whispers for their grandparents. She mentions she wants an ethics code, greater operational transparency, a system of checks and balances – some people’s eyes light up, incredulous – why doesn’t this exist already?

Why does it always seem that Montreal is missing the bare minimum requirements for a sustainable democracy?

Ms. Dey pushes on into new territory, a point made by several Projet Montreal candidates – she wants an audit. Audit the borough, audit the city, audit the departments, audit everything to see precisely where and how we’re wasting so much of our tax revenue. The idea of an audit is wise, though it would be a hard sell. That said, it could result in a cheaper government to run. Again, makes me wonder why we’re not already doing it on a yearly basis – cries of corruption in municipal politics and local construction firms dates back to before the war. Despite its historical precedence, I would argue strongly that we not consider inherent corruption as an element of our culture.

Ms. Dey continues, pointing out the lack of vital community space for such a diverse, growing population. As an example, she points out that the Filipino Chess Club was thrown out of their former informal home – a Tim Horton’s. In communities such as these, the demand for community space far outweighs what’s available, another victim of ‘traditional’ thinking (which stipulates, ignorantly, that recent arrivals don’t have time for trivial social gatherings). The reality is quite different – recent arrivals not only need a lot of community space, but they actually make good use of it. Every room in this office block turned community centre was occupied; once we were done we were hurried out so the room could be converted for a reception.

The lack of available space is itself not too far removed from another point underlined by the candidate – most people who live in Darlington don’t know who their representatives are, simply because they haven’t bothered to introduce themselves to the locals. It’s hard to mobilize for a higher quality of life when you have not only never met your municipal representative, but further still, that the individual in question spends half the year golfing in Florida, or otherwise ‘too busy’ to meet with his or her constituents. This is on purpose – our governments have been of the ‘laissez-faire’ variety that tends to shun civic engagement of any kind, largely because that gets in the way of private real estate interests, which, as we’re now becoming aware, seems to have been what Montreal City Hall was largely used for about two decades.

The people of Darlington are committed citizens, engaged and neighbourly – they have no interest in private real estate deals. They need jobs, they need a housing plan, they need community-focused politicians to take on the slum lords who’ve rendered so much of the area’s so-called ‘affordable housing’ roach infested, leaky, mouldy etc.

What a sick city we live in – I would’ve expected nonsense like this back before the war, but today? In 2013? Ça n’a pas d’allure!

The speech wraps and Projet Montreal leader Richard Bergeron steps up to make some closing remarks in surprisingly good English. I say surprising only because friends and associates had told me he was shy and didn’t consider himself very good. I think he’s being a little too hard on himself.

He praises the party for bringing people like Ms. Dey into the spotlight, for facilitating real community involvement in civic affairs. He derides the gimmicks and corporate marketing strategies of the pop-star candidates who’ve largely turned this forthcoming election into more of a popularity contest than anyone dared dream possible. Bergeron points out that Projet Montreal is the only party ‘without a Mafia expense account’ and, true to form, not currently being investigated by the SQ’s permanent anti-corruption unit (UPAC).

The only party left, the only party at all, the only party that will continue to exist after Mr. Bergeron retires. All of the other groups contesting this election are leader-driven that they’ll simply cease to exist after the election is over.

As you might imagine, this is less than ideal for a city trying, desperately, to re-establish its democratic credibility. There should be many citizen-driven municipal political parties, not just one, but Projet Montreal is the only party still standing. And for good reason – it conducts itself properly. Ms. Dey was the only candidate the party nominated for the district but the party took a vote anyways. It left an impression. Whereas other groups would do this by acclamation, Projet Montreal actually went to the trouble of recording the vote. In that sense, Ms. Dey was elected to represent the party, a small yet nonetheless telling detail. The fact that there was a vote actually attaches the candidate to the people she aims to represent. I’m sure some would deride this as mere pageantry, but I see it otherwise. At the very least it’s thorough; it doesn’t cut corners.

We should expect nothing less from our elected representatives; we go to the polls November 3rd.

Commentary, Let's make this an election issue, Urban Redevelopment

Intriguing Questions Concerning the Construction of a School on Nun’s Island

Leave a comment
Nun's Island - Isometric Perspective
Nun’s Island – Isometric Perspective

A friend forwarded me a press release from Projet Montreal concerning the planned location of a new primary school to be built on Nun’s Island (here’s a link to the study prepared by Projet Montreal). In effect, the press release and its adjoining study are both a proposal for an alternative location inasmuch as a condemnation of the previous Union Montreal borough government for their insistence on such a poor initial location – a school located on what was once a part of a park, between two major thoroughfares.

For those who don’t know, Nun’s Island is a planned community occupying Ile des Soeurs, formerly Ile Saint-Paul, an island in the Saint Lawrence River connected to the Island of Montreal via the Decarie and Bonaventure Expressways and to the mainland via the Champlain Bridge. Nun’s Island is one of the most modern residential communities in Montreal (the island has several buildings designed by Mies van der Rohe, including an iconic former ESSO station, itself to be converted into a community centre), and has rapidly grown to be home to some 20,000 people. Development over the last decade has been particularly significant, with many new condo towers built, in addition to the head office campus of Bell Canada.

Nun’s Island is a particular part of the city of Montreal; it is a mature Modernist planned community, and while not exactly emblematic of the city as a whole, certainly fully encapsulates the aesthetic and living vision of modernist urban living as conceived by city planners some fifty years ago. It’s too bad there’s nothing to do there (i.e. no restaurants, bars, venues etc – or at least none you’d make the trip out for), because from what I’ve heard it’s a dream to live there. Nun’s Island looks good and feels good, the parks and greenbelt doing an excellent job offering a more suburban lifestyle despite being so close to the guts of the city.

But as you can see in the aerial perspective above, Nun’s Island is beginning to fill out, and if there’s any desire to maintain the natural aesthetic that has sustained so much development here over the last two decades, then it would be wise to develop a Nun’s Island specific master plan. Such a plan should aim to manage residential development while also stimulating new poles of attraction on the island (such as the location of a new school), all the while doing as much as possible to retain as much green space as possible.

The construction of a new school is immensely beneficial, not only for current and prospective residents, but further as a key element of a master plan for the island and attraction driver. Which is why, in my opinion inasmuch as Projet Montreal, the currently favoured location is deeply flawed. Aside from being too close to major streets with heavy traffic (and, for that reason, in the middle of an urban heat zone), the current plan has the school occupying a small strip of an existing park.

Though Nun’s Island is pretty green, a lot of what you see above is land waiting to be developed – the park in question is in the midst of an already heavily populated area, one that needs all the park space it can get.

Projet’s recommended alternative location is further south, adjacent to the small man made lake. From what I gathered in the press release, Jack L. Kugelmass, Projet Montreal city councillor candidate for Nun’s Island, has been vocal about this issue for some time, and has met with a fair bit of opposition from the former Union Montreal government in Verdun borough hall. Kugelmass’ proposal has been countered with an argument the land is contaminated, but Projet Montreal’s own research has confirmed methane present in the ground is not in fact sufficient enough to be a health concern. In sum, it seems that the current borough government has been doing everything it can to prevent this alternative site from even being considered. What’s worse is that the current location is too small for anticipated future needs, likely resulting in expansion of the school into the park.

This is unacceptable according to Kugelmass and Projet Montreal, and I see their point – though it strikes me that their alternative location would be a good spot for yet another condominium tower.

Makes me wonder what was really driving Union Montreal’s proposal…