Provincial and city politicians -- led by Robert Lussier, municipal affairs minister in the Union Nationale government -- were working overtime in late 1969 to prepare Bill 75, which created the Montreal Urban Community and upset many residents of the suburban municipalities in the process.
"Bill 75 is a monster," the North Shore News wrote in a December 1969 editorial. "If this legislation is adopted as it now stands ... all power on Montreal Island will be vested in the Minister of Municipal Affairs, seven members of the City of Montreal's Executive Committee, plus three members of the 'Public Security Council' -- none of them elected... .
"Even a blind man should be able to see the primary intention of this Bill is to bail the City of Montreal out of the hole it has fallen into as a result of Mayor Drapeau's 'dreams.' The Government, obviously fed up with bailing Montreal out from the Provincial treasury, has decided to pick the pockets of the suburbs, many of which are infinitely more prudently managed than the City of Montreal."
A half-baked job it was. The island cities should have been merged all along back then, to insure that everyone paid their fair shares of taxes. There is simply no reason that small ghettoes of more expensive houses ought to enjoy lower tax rates while they got all the benefits of the center city (how much the shacks in Beauconsfield would be worth if there was no nearby Montréal?) without contributing to it.
ReplyDeleteThere are even anglos who have made that exact argument. But you fail to address the fact that Montreal rules by decree without adequate public input. And what about this: the expensive metro goes everywhere except the West Island.
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