A veritable tsunami has hit the world of public consultation in recent days, throwing disarray into the small community of craftsmen who, for two or three decades, have been busy demonstrating, even in town planning classes, the close correlation between public participation and the common good.
If the Auditor General of Montreal confirms the abuses revealed by The Montreal Journal, municipal authorities will have no other option than to act firmly to restore the credibility of the Office de consultation publique de Montréal (OCPM). However, shutting down the OCPM, as some columnists have called for, would be a serious error.
In terms of territorial planning, civil society actors, like journalists, very often act as guardians of democracy and the common good. Vélo Québec, Héritage Montréal, Équiterre, like the journalists, are the canaries in the mine. They reveal blind spots, they have recognized expertise and they disseminate it in various forums, among which the OCPM public hearings occupy a prominent place.
Without the multiple interventions of Vélo Québec, particularly before the independent commissioners of the OCPM, it is a safe bet that the Express Bike Network would still only be a dream. It would be difficult to add up the alerts launched by Héritage Montréal to the OCPM to ensure the protection of built heritage. The submissions submitted to the OCPM by Équiterre have continued to raise awareness of the importance of increasing the availability of public transportation in order to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.
What would the entrance to the town of Bonaventure, a park that is the pride of Montrealers – notably during Greta Thunberg’s visit in 2019 – look like today if the OCPM had not held hearings on the first version of the project, submitted by the Société du Havre in 2010? Probably a mega real estate complex made up of a dozen towers of several dozen floors, as shown in the images filed by the developer in 2009 in the OCPM archives.
The recognition of the principle of the limited capacity of Mount Royal to accommodate new constructions is also to the credit of the OCPM. Otherwise, large institutional owners would have continued to implement their real estate projects to the detriment of natural environments and landscapes.
Finally, we would be making a false step here if we ignored the hundreds, even thousands of interventions by citizens who came to get information and express their concerns to the OCPM. It would be the same if we ignored the consultation work carried out by the promoters ahead of its hearings. Knowing that they will have to submit their projects for consultation, promoters must therefore ensure that their plans meet the aspirations of the integration community. Otherwise, they are likely to return to the drawing board after their visit to the OCPM. The Bassins du Nouveau Havre project, in the South-West, offers a very good example of the work carried out with the population during the development of the master plan subsequently submitted to the OCPM.
Pretending that in 20 years of existence, the OCPM has only had influence on a SINGLE project, as we have read in recent days, is a device that some would describe as an anger factory. If the Auditor General’s review confirms the worrying information from the Newspaperthe temptation will be great to throw the baby out with the bathwater.
Will we collectively have enough maturity and concern for the common good to avoid falling into this trap? We must hope so. Otherwise, the threats weighing on participatory democracy today risk being confirmed. However, Montrealers need, more than ever, healthy and well-supervised spaces for deliberation so that the development of their city can take place on a human scale. But not at any cost. Obviously.