From Montreal to Saguenay via Quebec, the cities of the province intend to make themselves heard in anticipation of the general elections on October 3. “Astronomical” amounts that they have to pay to offer land to build schools to funding programs “ vintage of municipal infrastructures, their grievances are numerous. But will they be heard?
The Mayor of Montreal, Valérie Plante, set the tone in mid-August by unveiling her list of demands in anticipation of the election of the next provincial government, this fall. In particular, it calls for more social and affordable housing and financial assistance for public security, but also for better “fiscal equity” between the provincial government and the cities, which suffer, like the wallets of their residents, from a inflation rate which remains high.
She’s not the only one either. A five-hour drive from Montreal, the mayor of Saguenay, Julie Dufour, faces the same financial challenge.
“Cities are like normal citizens. And so everything increases. With inflation, snow removal is more expensive and our work is more expensive,” says M.me From the oven. She observes that “municipal taxation is a bit vintage in relation to the challenges we have today”.
“We are talking about increases in Saguenay of 200 to 300% on the cost of snow removal while the provincial government is currently benefiting from very interesting revenues,” adds the mayor, who believes, like Mme Plante, that Quebec must financially help cities “to cope with inflation”.
Julie Dufour also considers it important that the next government of Quebec take into account the specific challenges of the regions in relation to large urban centres. The city of Saguenay, she illustrates, has as much water and sewer infrastructure as Montreal. However, Quebec allocates subsidies to cities to maintain their infrastructures according to the demographics served by them, which is much lower in Saguenay, having less than 150,000 inhabitants, than in Montreal, which is 10 times more populous.
“So, clearly, there is a lack of capital to finance our infrastructures,” adds Mme Dufour, who calls for funding “based on needs”, and not on the population served.
An expensive law
The mayor of the City of Laval, Stéphane Boyer, for his part, criticizes the repercussions of “Law 40” on school governance. Adopted in February 2020, it placed on the shoulders of the municipalities the burden of finding and selling land to build new schools on their territory. “Most cities that have schools to build are pulling their hair out to find land,” laments Mr. Boyer.
“It doesn’t make sense to impose that on municipalities,” also insists the mayor of Gaspé and president of the Union of Quebec Municipalities, Daniel Côté, according to whom this legislative change entails “astronomical” expenses for cities. of the province.
The mayoress of Longueuil, Catherine Fournier, for her part, is taking up the labor recruitment challenges faced by the city that she has been leading since last November. “There’s a lack of incentives to convince people to stay at work longer and retire later because right now, tax-wise, it’s not at all beneficial for them to do that,” raises the mayor.
The latter also hopes that the various political parties will make firm commitments in terms of financing social housing, at a time when approximately 1,500 people are on a waiting list to have access to a unit of this type in Longueuil. Because, currently, “funding is so thin that we are not even able to give the go to small-scale social housing projects” in Longueuil, she points out.
The shadow of Eric Duhaime
In Quebec, the foot on which the City must dance during the campaign has been bothering the town hall since the spring. Even today, a few days before the official start of the election season, Bruno Marchand admits to having many more questions than answers.
“The ideal objective is to let the parties discuss among themselves their social project for Quebec. If we intervene every day in the campaign, I think that we are interfering in a debate from which we should stand a little further away, ”advances the mayor.
On the northern outskirts of the national capital, a certain Éric Duhaime has a good chance of winning the county of Chauveau by betting, in particular, on the promise to derail the tramway defended by the City. The temptation to intervene, concedes the mayor of Quebec, is strong.
“There is a party this week—that of Éric Duhaime, not to name him—which said that the support [au tramway] are down This is false, pleads Mr. Marchand. It burns my lips to say: we are going to correct, we are going to get involved in the campaign. But how do you do it so as not to interfere in a democratic debate? »
Prime Minister François Legault himself succumbed to the temptation to interfere in the last federal election, casting his sights behind the Conservatives — the better to watch the Liberals regain power. “Mr. Legault himself took that risk,” observes Mayor Marchand. I don’t know if he would do it again today; you would have to ask him. »
At the same time, he continues, certain issues affect cities and require solutions that are too urgent to ignore. “A mayor who turns a blind eye to climate change, well, he wouldn’t be a good mayor. »
The challenge, for him as for his counterparts, will be to be present during the campaign, without being everywhere. “We are going to be on a tightrope, concludes Mr. Marchand. This debate must take place without us, but at the same time we cannot be absent when there is an emergency. »