The City of Beaconsfield estimates that, since 2019, it has been paying $2 million too much per year to the City of Montreal for expenses common to the agglomeration. It is therefore relying on the courts to settle its dispute and has increased the lawsuit it has already filed against the City of Montreal to $6 million.
“In 2006, when there were demergers, the related towns paid for their divorce. The alimony we’ve been paying since has never changed. It makes no sense,” argues Beaconsfield Mayor Georges Bourelle.
The frustrations of the mayors of the linked cities with regard to the contributions that they must pay each year to the City of Montreal for common services, including the police, the water service and waste management, do not date not yesterday.
In 2021, the City of Beaconsfield went to court to claim from Montreal the 4 million that it deemed to have overpaid for the years 2020 and 2021, an amount that it is now increasing by 2 million to take into account of the year 2022.
Formula found to be unfair
Georges Bourelle considers that the method of calculating quotas, based on a “single tax potential coefficient”, leads to distortions and disadvantages municipalities with a high residential proportion like his. He believes that the agreement reached in 2008 for the sharing of expenses after the demergers has not been respected and that the Plante administration is closed to any questioning. “Citizens of linked cities pay 56% more for the same services, and even get less. It is completely unfair and inequitable as a formula. »
Beaconsfield representatives met twice with the Minister of Municipal Affairs, Andrée Laforest, but without succeeding in obtaining changes to the method of calculation, says Mr. Bourelle.
Beaconsfield therefore went to the Superior Court to try to recover an amount of $6 million. But other cities have not followed suit. “We are surprised that other cities, such as Westmount, Mont-Royal, Hampstead, Kirkland, Dollard-des-Ormeaux and Montreal West, have not joined us. They too are essentially residential,” points out Georges Bourelle.
“No related city supports Beaconsfield’s request,” the Duty Vincent Robidas, director general of the Association of Suburban Mayors, who is betting more on negotiations with the City of Montreal. “The objective is to obtain a satisfactory agreement for all the related municipalities. »
For his part, Georges Bourelle does not believe that, despite the openness she has shown, the president of the executive committee of the City of Montreal, Dominique Ollivier, will obtain the support of the administration to grant concessions to the cities linked . “The chances of negotiation are nil, in my opinion. »
Urban sprawl
Emeritus professor in the Department of Urban Studies at UQAM, Luc-Normand Tellier believes that linked cities cannot really complain about their fate. “With the demergers, they succeeded in freeing themselves from the central city, but now they want to act as if the central city did not exist,” he says.
According to him, Montreal is weakened by the phenomenon of urban sprawl, which has been accentuated by the pandemic, and it cannot count on the CAQ government, which elected only two deputies in Montreal, for the support, he adds. “Faced with a government that is doing nothing to counter urban sprawl, the mayors of the suburbs say to themselves that it is time to free themselves even more. »
The City of Montreal is “fiscally taken by the throat”, maintains Mr. Tellier. “The problems are at the center and everyone washes their hands of them,” he explains. The less the suburbs assume the costs of the centre, the more it promotes urban sprawl. In my opinion, the problem must be posed, not in a court of law, but on the scale of the whole metropolis. »
Budget to adopt
On Thursday, elected officials will have to approve the City of Montreal’s 2022 budget as well as the Ten-Year Capital Assets Program (PDI) at City Council. Friday, it will be up to the agglomeration council to decide.
By then, on Wednesday, the Finance Committee, which has reviewed all services over the past two weeks, will submit its recommendations. Georges Bourelle and the mayor of Dollard-des-Ormeaux, Alex Bottausci, who are members of this commission, intend to table a minority report to express their disagreement with the budgetary decisions of the Plante administration.
The opposition party at City Hall, Ensemble Montreal, has already announced its intention to table its own minority report.