I had the chance to work with Dominique Ollivier in the past, and I subsequently became one of his friends. She is an intelligent, competent woman who is dedicated to the advancement of public affairs. His personal and professional life is a model of integration into Quebec society. I have no doubt about his intrinsic honesty. But no one is perfect: she made mistakes that she herself recognized and said she regretted. She also personally assumes the consequences with dignity.
There is, however, something very unfair and disproportionate in the relentlessness with which some have posed as redressers of wrongs in this affair: unfair to the person of Dominique Ollivier, and disproportionate in the treatment of the issues raised. .
The media certainly have a responsibility to examine the actions of our leaders, to question the relevance of our institutions and to act as a watchdog of the public interest. But the treatment given to this affair has too often resembled the expression of easy populism, if not a pretext for an indirect cabal against certain of the orientations of the municipal administration in place.
Thus, certain management problems at the Office de consultation publique de Montréal (they are real and must be corrected, but what organization of 20 years of existence has not encountered them…) become, without further analysis, a reason to some simply loudly demand that we put the key on the box.
The OCPM is given the name of thing and it is declared peremptorily useless. However, there is nothing further from the truth: he did, under the presidency of Dominique Ollivier, an excellent job. Many citizens and civil society organizations come to the public consultations; their comments are taken into account and improve many projects.
Certainly, the municipal administration chose in the matter of the redevelopment of the Camillien-Houde route not to follow the recommendations of the OCPM and to instead retain a redevelopment more in line with the natural character of the park and the growing concerns. more shared in favor of the preservation of biodiversity. We can of course have a different point of view, but that was his privilege and a perfectly legitimate choice.
Reducing public consultation to a strict referendum exercise is to misunderstand the diversity and role of the different democratic public consultation mechanisms. Before advocating a little too quickly the end of public consultation in Montreal, perhaps it would be prudent to recall what the era of Mayor Jean Drapeau’s administration was on a democratic level and its otherwise serious consequences. on municipal expenditures than those raised in this case.
The former president of the executive committee is responsible neither for the deterioration of the City of Montreal’s funding sources nor for its very real budgetary limits in the face of the growing challenges faced by all major cities in Quebec.
Rather than recognizing it, we seem happy in certain circles to have found in his person a convenient pretext to act as a diversion, to destabilize the administration in place and, above all, to avoid any serious reflection on the most burning subjects. The exercise is too demanding. Scapegoating is so much easier.