What Montreal can do for Quebec …

“The future of Montreal concerns all Quebecers. ”

It is with these words that the journalist Patrice Roy opened the debate of the candidates for mayor of Montreal, Monday, on the airwaves of RDI.

This is all the more true as the future of Montreal does not depend only on Montreal: immigration thresholds, number of police officers at the SPVM, social housing, public transport, infrastructure… Several decisions concerning the metropolis are made in Quebec City. and in Ottawa.

However, what was called the “Montreal reflex” seems to have weakened considerably on the Quebec side.

Last week, during his inaugural speech, Prime Minister François Legault did not once use the words “Montreal” or “metropolis”. We understand: Montreal does not have the largest number of CAQ electors, but it remains the metropolis of Quebec. We could have expected that Mr. Legault would slip a word or two on its importance, especially in this exit from the pandemic.

However, if some of his ministers are very involved in issues affecting Montreal, the Prime Minister shows worrying indifference to his metropolis.

Note, the misunderstanding between Montreal and the rest of Quebec is not new. The magazine The news has just devoted a whole file to it in which the professor at the Department of historical sciences of Laval University Martin Pâquet recalls that at the time of Jeanne Mance and Sieur de Maisonneuve, the first Montrealers were perceived “as exalted” .

This gap of misunderstanding between the regions and their metropolis has never stopped growing. From the outside, it seems that we are looking at the metropolis with more and more mistrust and resentment.

However, Montreal needs Quebec to be behind it in order to move forward and achieve itself. The city may have obtained its metropolis status in 2017, its powers remain limited. It is therefore essential that the next mayor succeed in creating alliances with the mayors of other Quebec cities if he or she wants to convince Quebec to play on its side of the ice.

As Denis Coderre did when he was mayor, in particular by supporting the mayor of Trois-Rivières in the pyrrhotite issue. And like Valérie Plante did by supporting the Quebec City tramway project to be able to get her pink line project through.

The next tenant of the town hall should also put on his shoes as president of the Montreal Metropolitan Community (CMM). A strong metropolitan voice in certain contexts – MWC represents 4 million people! – can become a decisive lever for advancing issues that will benefit the entire region. The aspiring mayors of Laval and Longueuil, Stéphane Boyer and Catherine Fournier, understood this. They announced the holding of a possible pan-Quebec housing summit if they were elected. This kind of alliance should not be made without Montreal. The metropolis should not only be part of it, it should be the one that should exercise leadership in this area.

The next mayor will also have to cross the bridges that surround the island to build new ones, with all Quebecers.

We have to explain the reality of Montreal. And show interest in the reality of other cities and regions of the province. In his inaugural speech, François Legault paraphrased the former President of the United States John F. Kennedy by telling Quebecers: “Do not ask what Quebec can do for you, but what you can do for Quebec. ”

The same request can be addressed to Montreal: that the metropolis does not content itself with asking what the province can do for it. That Montreal also wonders what it can do for the rest of Quebec. And it starts with a real dialogue.

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