The Auditor General (AG) of Montreal, Michèle Galipeau, criticizes the City for delaying in implementing the recommendations it has made in recent years. According to her, a majority of her recommendations have still not materialized, a finding that the administration of Valérie Plante rejects.
In her annual report tabled on Monday Michèle Galipeau maintains that of the 471 recommendations examined by her office in 2021, only 47.1% of them have been implemented so far. And as of December 31, 2021, more than 75% of unresolved recommendations were behind schedule. “I find that this situation is not acceptable and I recommend, for a fifth year, that general management adopt indicators for monitoring the commitments of business units,” insisted Michèle Galipeau on Tuesday.
The AG specifies that it is the City departments that draw up the action plans to apply the recommendations that she submits in her reports. “The timeline is never imposed by the Auditor General. All action plans go through the general management,” she argued.
A different observation
The president of the executive committee, Dominique Ollivier, affirms that the City does not make the same observation as the VG regarding the follow-up of the recommendations made to it. “The auditor and we don’t count exactly the same things. Clearly, it has a percentage of actions that are implemented whereas we, when we ask for our services, we have 78% that have been carried out. »
The elected official indicated that she intended to sit down with the VG to determine common criteria on which to base herself to ensure the follow-up of the files.
In its report, the VG also severely criticized the planning of construction sites by the City, which prides itself on coordinating the work in such a way as to reduce the impact on traffic. Michèle Galipeau noted major shortcomings in communications that mean that the City’s road network infrastructure department does not have an overview of all the upcoming projects, namely those of the city centre, the boroughs , the Ministère des Transports du Québec, public services and private promoters, which hinders proper coordination of the work.
Dominique Ollivier maintains that the City has, for two years, set up a site coordination plan whose implementation must be spread over four years. “We are in year two of our deployment,” she said. “It is certain that certain measures, it takes longer to see the effect. But we should see improvements this year. […] That said, tomorrow morning, will the boroughs, Hydro-Quebec, developers, all talk to each other and that, by magic, it will be resolved? No. »
Upcoming tree plan
The VG also deplored that 17 years after the adoption of the Tree Policy, the City still did not have a single computer platform for drawing up an inventory of public trees or an urban forest management guide intended for boroughs. Without proper maintenance and watering, many trees wither and die. Moreover, their condition is not sufficiently documented, according to the VG.
Dominique Olivier ensures that the City still aims to plant 500,000 trees by 2030. But while the VG indicated that the City had planted 100,000 trees since 2012, the elected official mentions that according to the most recent data compiled by the City, it is rather 230,000 trees that the City has planted. “But, clearly, there is still work to be done to help the boroughs adopt a tree plan. The City intends to propose a tree maintenance guide to the boroughs by 2024.
The opposition to the town hall believes for its part that the report of the VG is “devastating” for the Plante administration. Regarding the rate of application of the recommendations of the VG, Aref Salem considers that the administration should rely on the report of the office of the VG, an independent body, to have a reliable portrait.
As for the construction sites, the head of Ensemble Montreal believes that since the Plante administration has been in power for five years, it should have implemented the measures required to better coordinate the work a long time ago. “It is worrying to see the administration absolve itself of responsibility for this situation. »