Segacs's World I Know

Posts Tagged ‘demerger’

The megacity mayor will debate the former Westmount mayor and demerger activist this Sunday.

Should be interesting, if only because the whole merger/demerger campaign so far has been run on emotions and passions, manipulation tactics, misinformation, and dirty tricks. Citizens were deprived of any kind of chance to debate the issues when the mergers were forced upon us in the first place. So there’s been inadequate focus on the real facts.

I’ll try to watch… hopefully it’ll be over by the time the Sopranos season finale begins.

CTV News is reporting that the proposed extension of Cavendish Boulevard might finally go ahead.

Yeah right.

They’ve been saying that since before I was born. This is nothing but a thinly-veiled attempt by the megacity to swing votes in the demerger referendum. Which is all the more ironic, because pro-megacity councillor and former CSL mayor Robert Libman is one of the key reasons that the extension hasn’t happened all these years.

It’s an idea that’s long overdue. But there’s no reason that this time will be any different than every other time they make the announcement.

Update: According to the news report, the route will not be the direct, common-sense solution, but the “compromise” of linking the Northern part of Cavendish to Royalmount, and the Southern part to Jean-Talon. So people will still have to go East to Decarie to get around, and the traffic problems won’t be solved at all.

The city is openly admitting that this is a campaign ploy against the demerger. As though we needed to be told. I thought having Robert Libman, who fought for years against any kind of extention, making the announcement was a particularly nice touch, considering. *Sigh*.

I’ve maintained all along that one of the strongest arguments against the megacity – and, consequently, best reasons for demerger – is that the major unions would have less power and therefore wouldn’t be able to negotiate contracts that are ridiculously costly to the city.

Now it seems that the City of Montreal is trying to remove that incentive by hurrying to sign union contracts with city employees:

After all the delays in settling on new contracts, why the sudden rush now? At a minimum, any contracts signed in this uncertain period before demerger referendums should contain a clause exempting any boroughs that vote for independence on June 20.

Anything else risks locking any demerging boroughs into costly contracts that could, if city hall weakens, even include wasteful minimum-staffing clauses or the expensive four-day week.

[ . . . ]

The temptation to hog-tie any breakaway boroughs by trapping them into onerous contracts must be formidable. But if Tremblay thinks suburban voters are angry now, then he really doesn’t want to see their reaction to open-handed, hastily-signed new contracts.

I’ve lost count of the number of dirty tricks that the pro-mergerites have employed so far. Outdated registration lists containing names of people who’d been deceased for a decade, no door-to-door registration but door-to-door verification of list deletions, scare tactics and overly-biased campaign materials… not to mention the way the merger itself was carried out in the first place, as a steamroll over democracy.

Given all that, I find it hard to be surprised at this latest tactic. If Tremblay wants to cut off his left foot to avoid allowing citizens to demerge, then he’s a bigger fool than I thought. Unfortunately, it will once again be Montrealers who will pay.

The Demerger register tallies are in.

22 of 28 former municipalities in Montreal have obtained the requisite minimum 10% signatures to force a referendum, as have 12 of 13 Quebec City region boroughs, and a number of South Shore and other former cities as well. All will get the opportunity to reclaim their cities that were stolen from them (at least somewhat) on June 20th.

The specific municipalities that will hold referendums are posted. They include virtually everywhere on the island of Montreal, 5 of 8 former municipalities in Longueil (South Shore), and in former municipalities in the Shawinigan, Sherbrooke, Gatineau, and Beauharnois regions.

Still think it’s a language issue?

So Knave thinks I’m wrong about the demerger issue:

Of course, I don’t think that suburbs have the right to exist in the first place, especially since they spent their time screwing over the downtown core.

Today’s Gazette contained an op-ed about the myths on demergers, including pretty much what Knave just said:

On the other hand, demerger backers need to understand that support for the new big cities is rooted in a concern for equity and social justice.

This is the “greedy suburbs don’t want to share” idea, and it is, to say the least, incomplete. It ignores the fact that old urban structures, such as the Montreal Urban Community, entailed a fair bit of “sharing.” And in the case of Montreal, it also misses the point that if it’s sharing with the suburbs we want, we need to bring the prosperous sprawl of off-island suburbs into the mix.

As a suburbanite at heart (if not by current address), it irks me a little to hear well-worn stereotypes about the “rich suburbus” screwing over the “poor city”.

It’s an easy myth to believe: blame all of downtown’s problems on the “rich, English west island” and everyone’s happy. It’s like the eternal leftist popular solution of taxing the rich more. Nobody likes the stereotypical Westmount millionaire, and most voters will warm to any idea that seems to make that guy pay more and them pay less.

However, the gripes are pretty baseless when you get down to it. Suburbanites use the roads? Sure we do. But we don’t have the advantage of wonderful public transit like you downtown folk. And off-island suburbans use the city’s facilities just as much as on-island ones. So why should the on-island suburbs foot all the bills?

If it’s financial sharing that everyone wants, fine, sharing is easy to implement without steamrolling over democracy and forcibly merging cities against the will of over 95% of populations of certain former municipalities. What next? Toronto has more prosperity than Montreal so let’s forcibly merge them? The United States has more cash than Canada so let’s forcibly merge them?

If certain municipalities were managing their local services and funds more efficiently than Montreal, that’s no reason to punish them. And creating larger levels of bureaucracy only ever creates problems. As it has here. The main one of course being that suddenly, the unions are huge and are wielding enormous amounts of power. More union power equals higher wages which leads to higher taxes. It doesn’t take an economist to figure this out.

So there’s my rant on the demergers, for anyone who was interested. And while the road ahead is still long and challenging, I hope that merger foes can pull this off and win back the cities that were stolen from them.

For more info, visit Democracite. And sign the register by Thursday!

As a current resident of the former limits of the city of Montreal, my signature on the register this week will probably be pointless. But if you’re living in the former municipalities of DDO, Côte Saint-Luc, Hampstead, Pointe-Claire, TMR, Westmount, Montreal-West, Kirkland, Beaconsfield, Baie d’Urfé, or any other municipality that was forcibly merged into the Montreal megacity disaster, then this is your one and only chance to right the wrong and restore democratic principles.

I’ve ranted about the mergers before. I know the deck is stacked against the demerger. Biased studies making it seem like the demerger will be more costly are funded by the supposedly-neutral referendum committeee. The lists for each municipality include names of people who have been dead for ten years. The lack of door-to-door registration means that people who are immobile can’t come out and sign. The 10% requirement is going to be a tough nut. Though early reports are encouraging for some municipalities, others are still missing a lot of signatures before a referendum will even be able to be held.

But I think that people are angry enough, and committed enough, that they may just pull it off despite all that. So if you’re reading this and you are eligible, make it your business to sign the register in your local city hall or designated location by Thursday. It’s a small action but it could mean a lot.

Excuse me for not putting too much stock in these supposedly-independent impact reports that say that tax bills would go up in the event of a demerger. After all, these are the same folks who published reports swearing that tax bills would go down because of the merger.

The city of Montreal is clearly biased to the “no” side for the June 20th demerger referendum. If you – like me – want the demergers to go through and for people to get their cities back that were stolen away from us, here are a few more roadblocks, courtesy of our “friends” in city hall:

First of all, the register padding has gotten ridiculous. Names of people who haven’t lived here in over a decade are still showing up on the lists. And there were only 4 days to get a name struck from the list… and you had to go in person.

I dutifully went in person to register my change of address. I was the only person in the room. I guess the large number of people who were elderly, working, out of town, living in another country or overseas, or simply unaware of the complicated procedure stayed home. So their votes now count automatically FOR the megacity. Great system.

But while the city apparently has no money to go door-to-door to do a proper enumeration, they DID have the money to go to my old address to check to make sure I really did want to take my name off the register from my old municipality. They don’t check additions but they sure check subtractions. Cause guess who’s in charge of the whole thing: the City Clerk’s office. The same people who will be out of jobs if the demerger goes through. Conflict of interest, maybe?

And you want your city back? You have to sign a list. 10% of people on the voter register in each former municipality have to sign the list, or else there won’t even be a referendum. And guess what: there’s only 4 days to do that… and no, they won’t ring your doorbell, you have to go in person.

Even if that 10% magical number is reached, the referendum itself is no picnic. There won’t be roving polling stations for the elderly or the hospitalized. There’s one day to vote and it’s in the middle of summer, when a lot of people are away. You can’t send in your vote if you’re out of town. And 35% of people have to vote to demerge… not 35% of people who vote, but 35% of all people on the list.

Now, with all those hoops to jump through, if any municipalities actually manage to get a demerger vote through, it’ll be pretty decisive. But at that, with the PQ’s promise to overturn any demerger votes, should they win the next election, it may all be for nought anyway.

So with the deck stacked against, why bother? Well, because the deck is stacked against. These smug assholes think they can steal our cities, screw up our services, kowtow to the now all-powerful unions, and get away with it. They need to be taught a lesson.

Je me souviens des fusions forcées.

If the PQ wins the next election, they will overturn any municipal demergers that citizens vote for this June, Landry said today:

The Parti Québécois leader said that it is the Quebec government that is responsible for municipal borders and not the citizens. Landry’s comments provoked murmurs in the audience.

Landry said that to demolish the megacities would be one of the worst things to ever occur in the political history of Quebec.

I lost track of how many double-negatives there are in that one.

Not that this surprises me too much, of course. It was the PQ that merged the municipalities in the first place, without consulting the people and while steamrolling over democracy. They’ve done it once; they can do it again. It wouldn’t shock me.

And the Liberals are allowing demerger referendums as promised, but they’re not exactly making it easy. Today is the last day to revise the electoral list, in a procedure that’s so unclear that 9 out of 10 staunch demerger activists have no idea what they’re supposed to do. Then, 10% of the people in each sector have to sign a register calling for a referendum, in order to have one. Most people don’t know how to go about that, or even what the steps involved are.

No, Mr. Landry, the demolishing of the megacity wouldn’t be one of the worst things to ever occur. That honour goes to the creation of the megacity in the first place.

The whole thing drives me nuts. Why is 50%+1 enough to take Quebec out of Canada, according to the PQ, but not enough to win back our cities that were stolen from us in the first place? I’d love to see Landry’s reaction if the Federal government were to tell him that the Federal government is responsible for provincial borders and not the citizens.

Nobody ever said Quebec politics make sense. But the blatant disregard for the will of the people is just getting worse. And with Charest’s approval rating in the toilet, Landry can pretty much say whatever he wants and still get elected next time around.

As I drove through Côte St. Luc on my way into work this morning, I saw them: dozens – even hundreds – of blue demerger ribbons tied to tree trunks, flapping around in the wind.

The other thing I noticed was how much better the roads had been salted on the Côte St. Luc side of the road, as opposed to my side, technically in N.D.G.

Yep. The demerger battle continues. May it succeed.

And to all the municipal workers who felt it so very necessary to “clean up” the ribbons, how about starting by “cleaning up” your trucks by removing the “Défusion = Confusion” stickers that you’ve stuck all over them?