The neutrality and limited capacity for action of the Office de consultation publique de Montréal (OCPM) raise questions 20 years after its creation. To remedy this situation, voices are being raised to force the City to respond to the organization’s recommendations and to systematically entrust it with certain files requiring the gathering of the public’s opinion.
From the construction of the McGill University Health Center to the redevelopment of the site of the former Montreal Children’s Hospital, through real estate projects in the Griffintown district and a consultation on systemic racism in the city: the OCPM has looked at many key issues in Montreal’s recent history since its first public consultation was held in October 2002.
“The whole genius of the consultations carried out by the Office is that we have created a space where people can deliberate before a body that has no bias”, the commissioners who oversee the consultations of the OCPM being neither elected officials nor municipal employees, underlines the secretary general of the organization since its beginnings, Luc Doray. “It’s completely neutral ground,” says the man who will retire at the end of the year.
These some 180 consultations, which have brought together more than 80,000 participants over the years, have enabled the OCPM to draft numerous recommendations that have, in many cases, helped to guide the city’s actions over the past 20 years. A public consultation held in Griffintown in 2012, when some twenty real estate projects were being analyzed in this South-West district, notably encouraged the municipal administration at the time to plan the creation of green spaces and social housing in this area, says urban planner Richard Bergeron. The latter was at the time the leader of the Montreal Project party, then in opposition to City Hall.
“In the end, it’s a hell of a nice neighborhood,” even if a school is slow to see the light of day, as well as an efficient service by public transport, says Mr. Bergeron.
More recently, the consultation report submitted in 2020 concerning systemic discrimination and racism forced the City and its police force to recognize the existence of this phenomenon in their ranks. In the months following this consultation, the City also appointed Bochra Manaï as commissioner for the fight against systemic racism and discrimination.
The OCPM has also played an important role in informing the public over the years, particularly on issues concerning the protection of heritage, indicates the policy director of Heritage Montreal, Dinu Bumbaru. “There are documents that would have remained internal to the City until the end of time if the OCPM had not existed,” he argues.
” Drift “
However, Richard Bergeron wonders about the organization’s neutrality, which he says has deteriorated in recent years. “I have the impression that the OCPM is too close to the administrations in place” at City Hall.
The town planner emphasizes in particular the fact that the organization relies mainly on documentation provided by the City to analyze the projects submitted to it. Mr. Bergeron also points out that the former president of the OCPM, Dominique Ollivier, became president of the city’s executive committee in November 2021. “It’s not trivial,” he said.
Thus, in recent years, “I have seen a drift, an excessive closeness to the administration, coupled with an inability [de l’OCPM] to generate its own information,” he adds. According to him, “the OCPM must be able to be critical, and it does so less and less”. An analysis rejected by the secretary general of the OCPM.
“We don’t have the impression of being very complacent with the City,” says Luc Doray, who recalls, among other things, the highly critical report of the municipal administration made by the OCPM at the end of August, concerning a draft by-law planned for tower 6 of the real estate project planned on the site of the former Montreal Children’s Hospital. The City wanted to reduce the number of floors of the said tower from 20 to 4. The final report particularly deplores the lack of information provided by the City to help the OCPM carry out this consultation. “The consultation did not take place under the conditions of transparency, serenity and trust that the participants would have been entitled to expect”, can we read in this vast document.
A “credibility” to maintain
Mr. Doray recognizes, however, that improvements are needed to improve efficiency and maintain the “credibility” of the OCPM. In this sense, he proposes that the City be obliged to respond in writing to the organization’s reports, specifying which of its recommendations it intends to implement.
“We would like the City to follow up and tell us why it is making a recommendation or not,” summarizes the president of the OCPM, Isabelle Beaulieu, in office since last February.
Currently, the municipal administration has the freedom to decide, in the majority of files, whether or not they deserve to be the subject of a consultation led by the OCPM. “And that is a weakness,” believes Luc Doray. The latter therefore believes that Montreal should draw inspiration from Longueuil, where its new public participation office will be called upon to systematically consider all development projects requiring a modification to the urban plan of this city of South Shore.
If an increased number of files are entrusted to the OCPM, however, its budget will have to be increased accordingly, says Ms.me Beaulieu. Its last annual report showed a budget of $2.35 million.