The administration of Valérie Plante is celebrating the first anniversary of her second term as head of the City of Montreal. In its election program, Projet Montréal wanted to increase investments in parks to create new parks and playgrounds, giving priority to neighborhoods where they are lacking, and adopting a policy of participation and civic engagement. The administration was able to keep its promises, in particular thanks to the support of Montrealers who submitted opportunities in the neighborhoods.
The year was marked by several successes that can be directly attributed to the active participation of citizens, in particular with developments at the foot of the Saint-Jacques cliff, the protection of part of the Steinberg woods in Mercier–Hochelaga-Maisonneuve and the reappropriation of a former railway wasteland by creating the Parc de la Traversée in Rivière-des-Prairies–Pointe-aux-Trembles. Obtaining humanized landscape status on Île Bizard is also based on collaboration between the City and citizens. The Grand parc de l’Ouest project is also progressing rapidly and part of its success is linked to citizen mobilization against real estate development in Pierrefonds-Ouest.
Large and small parks still mobilize Montrealers
Montrealers are mobilized within the framework of public participation initiatives. First of all, participatory budgeting and consultation processes are an opportunity for park lovers to be heard and to demand concrete changes. For example, 20,000 citizens took part in the first edition of Montréal’s Participatory Budget and initiatives related to the improvement of public spaces and greening are among the projects selected: one of the winning projects is the creation of seven mini- forests in local parks. The consultations concerning the parks are very popular: nearly 3,000 people took part in the activities for the revision of the Jarry Park Redevelopment Plan. Also, local groups help Montreal meet its biodiversity protection targets through their environmental stewardship work.
Facilitate the development of fruitful collaborations with citizens in the boroughs of Montreal
A survey conducted as part of Canada’s most recent Urban Parks Report1 demonstrates that in Quebec and in Canada, the population and citizen groups mobilized for a park wish to invest in helping their municipality to maximize the potential of parks. However, only 22% of city dwellers across the country feel they have a say in decision-making about their parks.
In Montreal, with a municipal administration that cares about parks and is committed to protecting biodiversity, attention is increasingly turning to the boroughs so that they further intensify their exchanges with their citizens. Governance, management and varied typologies, different legislation and regulations depending on the type of green space: citizens admit having difficulty finding their way around. However, a study conducted by the CÉRSÉ reveals that while some parks and green spaces involve a very wide variety of players, the vast majority of Montreal parks are managed by the boroughs. They manage 1,703 parks and public spaces out of the 1,767 owned by the City of Montreal.
However, practices may vary from one borough to another in terms of participation. The boroughs must therefore do more to help citizen groups take care of their parks and green spaces, whether from an environmental point of view (biodiversity management, nature protection), community (activation of to make them active, accessible and dynamic public living spaces) or urban planning (transforming urban wastelands and unused alleys into parks and urban and dynamic green spaces).
Already more than 80 groups to animate, maintain and reclaim the parks
Montreal Parks Friends Network was created in 2021 to support and document the efforts of Montreal parks stakeholders, volunteer groups, non-profit organizations, resident associations and park professionals. A whole host of activities are offered to Montrealers who want to give back some love to their parks. Clean-up chores, educational activities, environmental stewardship actions to restore ecosystems and many social, sporting and cultural activities, which in particular make it possible to integrate and include more vulnerable communities, are back through the neighborhoods of Montreal. Activities in the parks are also a vector of social inclusion: 63% of the Friends of the Parks groups surveyed in Montreal work in underprivileged neighbourhoods.
Find an active group in your neighborhood and get involved. 2
* Co-signers, founding members of the Friends of Montreal Parks Network: Véronique Fournier, Executive Director of the Montreal Urban Ecology Center; Emmanuel Rondia, Director General of the Regional Council for the Environment of Montreal; Hélène Panaïoti, Executive Director, Friends of the Mountain