Goverment Talking Corruption Free Turcot

To say I am behind the times on Turcot would be an understatement.  Seems I have drifted into focusing a lot of my online attention into relaying the ongoing tragedy that is our federal government under Stephen Harper via Facebook and occasionally Twitter in recent years. Of course it is all interconnected when you  follow the dots.

A non corrupt Turcot? It sure is an interesting concept, pretty much a fantasy actually. But all of us in Quebec owe the Charbonneau Commission a big tip ‘o the hat for showing us how corrupt the City of Montreal has been. Of course it was never a surprise to someone like yours truly who knew Olympic Stadium concrete was being poured as foundations for new housing developments on the South Shore and elsewhere, as just one odious example.

While a few weeks old this article is something of an update.

Quebec’s integrity test turns Montreal interchange into a symbol of clean dealings

INGRID PERITZ and RHÉAL SÉGUIN

Montreal and Quebec City — The Globe and Mail

Published Monday, Mar. 25 2013, 1:44 PM EDT

Companies hoping to snag a piece of the biggest roadwork contract in Quebec history will first have to prove they’re corruption-free, a major test for the province as it aims to fix its failing infrastructure while tackling graft in the construction industry.

Premier Pauline Marois’s government has set a $3.7-billion ceiling on the cost of rebuilding Montreal’s Turcot interchange, a critical and decrepit spaghetti interchange in the heart of the city that moves 300,000 vehicles daily. Soon, the roadway could stand as a symbolic challenge to Quebec’s promise to carry on business while holding the construction world to account.

Pushing forward with badly needed roadwork without benefiting firms tarred by corruption allegations has become a new dilemma for elected officials in Quebec – a problem sure to recur as the federal government pours billions into infrastructure spending across the country. Last week, Montreal Mayor Michael Applebaum asked Montrealers whether they wanted their city’s potholes plugged by some asphalting companies named before the Charbonneau commission into corruption and collusion.

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Richard Bergeron of Projet Montreal in Verdun on Sunday

How To Put Montreal Back On Track with Richard Bergeron

Sunday, March 24, 3pm

Centre culturel et bibliothèque de Verdun
5955, avenue Bannantyne
Verdun (QC) H4H 1H5
Canada

 

***English below

L’association Projet Montréal à Verdun a le plaisir de vous inviter à une conférence du chef de Projet Montréal, Richard Bergeron, le dimanche 24 mars 2013, à 15 h. Cette conférence s’intitule « Comment remettre Montréal sur ses rails ».
Dans le cadre de sa présentation, Richard Bergeron présentera le bilan qu’il dresse des dix dernières années de gouvernance à Montréal et les solutions proposées par Projet Montréal pour réaliser la relance durable de notre métropole. Projet Montréal propose de mettre en œuvre des projets concrets, tels que le tramway et l’entrée maritime, inspirés des meilleurs exemples de développement urbain durable.
Cette conférence s’inscrit dans le cadre de la Tournée des arrondissements qui mènera le chef de Projet Montréal dans chacun des arrondissements de la Ville d’ici aux élections municipales de novembre 2013.
La conférence se tiendra le dimanche 24 mars 2013, de 15 h à 16 h 30, au Centre culturel et bibliothèque de Verdun, au 5955, avenue Bannantyne. La conférence sera précédée de l’assemblée générale annuelle des membres de Projet Montréal à Verdun.
Entrée libre, mais inscription obligatoire. Conférence en français et période de questions bilingue.
Pour vous inscrire : http://ow.ly/jdGAY

***

The Verdun Projet Montréal association is pleased to invite you to a conference featuring the leader of Projet Montréal, Richard Bergeron on Sunday March 24th at 3 PM at the Verdun Culture Centre Library. The conference is entitled : How to put Montreal back on track.
Throughout the presentation, Richard Bergeron will unveil the results of his study of the last decade in Montreal and the solutions put forward by Projet Montréal to make our metropolis a sustainable city. Projet Montréal wants to implement feasible projects such as the tramway and the maritime gateway, inspired by the best examples of urban sustainable development.
This conference is part of the Borough Tour that will bring the leader of Projet Montréal to all of Montreal’s boroughs from now until the November 2013 municipal elections.
The conference will be held on Sunday March 24th from 3 pm to 4.30 pm at the Verdun Culture Centre Library, 5955, Bannantyne avenue. The conference will be preceeded by the annual general assembly of the Projet Montreal members of Verdun.

Admission is free but registration is mandatory. Conference in French with a bilingual Q&A.

Register here.

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Corruption Probe Just Keeps Scoring

You don’t need a weatherman to know which way the wind blows – Bob Dylan

C’mon, tell us how you voted for Tremblay again and again and how much you thought he was a good mayor – Neath Turcot

Union Montréal manager was on engineering firm’s payroll

CBC News

Posted: Mar 12, 2013 2:52 PM ET

Last Updated: Mar 12, 2013 3:11 PM ET

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Christian Ouellet told the Charbonneau commission that his role with a engineering firm that he maintained while he worked for Union Montréal was minimal. (Charbonneau commission )

Full coverage of the Quebec corruption inquiry

The former general manager of the Union Montréal said he saw no problem with accepting $5,000 a month for consulting work with a civil engineering firm while working for the municipal political party.

Christian Ouellet worked for Union Montréal from 2004 to 2008. At the same time, he maintained a contract with Roche Ltée, one of the largest engineering firms in the country.

He told the province’s corruption commission this morning that his contract with Roche pre-dated his time with the party. His role was to help the firm move into the Montreal market by arranging meetings with elected officials and preparing a communication plan for the firm, which was aggressively trying to raise its profile on the island.

Ouellet said he did not tell the mayor or the party’s executive when he took the job with the party in 2004 that he was still on Roche’s payroll.

“You’re the general manager of a municipal political party. You [are involved in] party financing and political organizing. You know you’re receiving a sum of money from a civil engineering firm on the side and you don’t see a problem there?” Commissioner Renaud Lachance asked Ouellet.

“No,” he responded, his arms crossed in front of his chest.

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Tremblay Resigns!

One of the things that stands out in my mind regarding the merger of the cities on Montreal island involves former Verdun Mayor, Georges Bosse.  After the merger Bosse became a key player on Montreal’s notoriously secretive Executive Committee. Soon after he was the City’s main shill for the massive, and awesomely ill conceived, Devimco project for Griffintown (connecting some dots, anyone?). At one point he actually said that the Devimco project would be great for Verdun businesses on Wellington Street. Now that took quite a stretch of the old imagination to picture a bunch of nouveau condo owners for some strange reason deciding to trek to Verdun to do their important shopping. My point here is that politicians, and developers, will say just about anything, make the wildest speculations possible, in order to make their projects more attractive, and people will buy it simply because it promises positive economic development.

And so it was with the merger, an entity that was supposed to solve a lot of economic issues for all the former Montreal Urban Communities. But there was a choice as to who would lead the city after the merger between Pierre Bourque and Gerald Tremblay. I was at a debate on the West Island and watched Bourque and Tremblay debate before a very hostile audience. Bourque, who was terrible in English,  did not connect with what was bugging people at all as he promised great things for the merger.  Tremblay, who was definitely not a separatist (nudge nudge wink wink), made promises about fighting the merger and that seemed to provide some bitter satisfaction for the audience, there was a faint light at the end of the merger tunnel.  Montreal was going to be a great city again, that was the bottom line.

The merger was wrong, a universally acknowledged failed project, and so was voting for Gerald Tremblay. For some of us corruption at Montreal City Hall was painfully obvious. But the voters who put Gerald Tremblay in three times need to rethink why they supported him, why they decided to continue to support such an incompetent and corrupt administration, and why they feared any and all alternatives.

Henry Aubin: Corruption rise mirrors city’s growth

MONTREAL — Gérald Tremblay is gone as mayor, but a major reason for the upsurge in corruption remains intact and unchallenged: the merger.

One of the significant things to come out in testimony before the Charbonneau inquiry is the linkage between the growth of corruption and the creation of the megacity.

The chronology that three witnesses — Lino Zambito, Gilles Surprenant and Luc Leclerc — have given for illicit activities sheds light on how corruption and collusion existed at a relatively low level in Montreal during the 1990s, then boomed in the years following the enactment in 2000 of the law for the merger of all municipalities on Montreal Island.

Almost no one in the political class talks about this correlation. The merger is still a sacred cow for most provincial and municipal politicians of all parties. The merger enjoys immunity from criticism, too, by most media commentators. Yet the merger is the elephant in the corruption room.

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Montrealers Getting Screwed By Tremblay

C’mon, tell us how you voted for Tremblay again and again and how much you thought he was a good mayor. Tell us you had no idea that there was corruption at City Hall. And tell us us how you figured out that voting for a guy who was “not a separatist” actually did the city any good. The corruption at City Hall has been point blank obvious to anyone paying attention for the last, say, 30 years. The game is over and they want you to kick in 3% on your property taxes. But it’s not likely you will see the irony.

Montreal taxes up 3.3 per cent in 2013 proposed budget

Montreal property taxes would go up an average of 3.3 per cent under the city’s proposed 2013 budget, presented this morning.

The increase would translate into about $100 more for the average homeowner.

Residents of the Plateau Mont-Royal would see the biggest increase, with their tax increasing by 5.7 per cent. Tax increases would be the lowest in Anjou at only 0.5 per cent.

Mayor Gérald Tremblay said the $4.9 billion budget marks a major change, offering for the first time a new structure for financing the boroughs that he says will provide them with more autonomy.

A new tax transfer in the budget plan would allow boroughs the flexibility to make more financial decisions without city approval.

From this Gazoo article.

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Pimento #45: Montreal Cityscape

Another excellent Pimento Report shows how  Tremblay’s City Hall doesn’t actually play by any rules, let alone their own, when it comes to development in the city. The Tremblay era has been erratically destroying the fiber of the city, diffusing it’s intangible spirit, crushing it’s unique architectural heritage, while creating a system of scattered embarrassing errors that will satisfy no one except those that stand to make huge profits.

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City Fining Homeless Counterproductive

What possible motivation could a homeless person have for getting off the streets when the first thing getting an apartment does is make you eligible for jail time for unpaid fines which themselves are an inevitable fact of homeless life? And when does the City actually get it’s act together on the issue and realize that perhaps 50% or more of the homeless in the city have psychiatric issues?

A stupid practice

 Expecting the homeless to pay fines for tickets is foolish and inhumane

By HENRY AUBIN, The Gazette

Man, does the system look foolish when it comes to dealing with homeless people who create nuisances in the métro or Montreal’s streets. It treats them exactly the same way as it would ordinary citizens: It gives them tickets that carry fines.

That makes sense in theory. As Mayor Gérald Tremblay says, “We can’t have two classes of citizens.” Granted, it would be wrong for authorities to give a ticket to Joe Commuter who smokes in the métro but to look the other way at a homeless person doing the same thing. The smoke is just as objectionable regardless of who’s puffing.

But in practice this even-handed approach is nonsense.

An eye-opening study published this week shows that these tickets burden destitute people with fines that they can never pay. Authorities every year issue about 6,000 tickets (about a quarter of the total) to homeless people for breaking city bylaws or Société de transport de Montréal rules. (Most offences are for drinking alcohol in a public space, loitering or doing such things in the métro as sleeping, smoking or not paying a fare.) 

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Griffintown Development Full Of Tremblay’s Hatred Of Good Urban Planning

Henry Aubin: City’s approach to Griffintown shameful

“This is what Tremblay’s improvisation has begat: An emerging area that, with cranes swinging overhead, still has no coherent sense of direction. Who knows if future development will aim to make Griffintown a highrise extension of downtown, a heritage-enhancing extension of adjacent Old Montreal or a family-friendly neighbourhood with a school and plenty of space for recreation. If the OCPM comes up with sensible advice this spring, let’s hope that if it is applied it wouldn’t be too late to determine the dominant character of the place.”

Full story

Tremblay’s love of  condo development over heritage has already damaged Griffintown. This city desperately needed a real urban development plan in place by 2007 at the latest. It’s been a farce ever since with projects revamped, heritage and public transport dismissed,  and the left hand continues to not have a clue what the right hand is doing as we create an urban mess from Turcot through Griffintown to Old Montreal and in scattered pockets across the city,  sterilizing lived in neighborhoods with “evocations” of what city life can be like – looks good in brochures and sucks badly at street level.

Tremblay continues working hard at completely destroying that intangible invisible “spirit” that has always made Montrealer’s so passionate about their city. Take a walk along The Main and head over to Place Des Arts, but don’t look so much as “feel” your way along. I can guarantee you that something, and you might not be able to put your finger on it, but something will be missing, something will just seem wrong.

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Montreal Failure To Fight Sprawl Is A Corrupt/Inefficient City Hall

“It’s odd. City hall has the power to determine a condo building’s number of floors, its number of units and even its number of parking spots. But it doesn’t have the power to set its number of bedrooms.”

So building thousands of one bedroom condos is how the Tremblay administration fights sprawl?  This is how the city believes it will keep and attract young people planning families will stay in the city? It is really difficult to believe that there is any intelligent life forms making decisions in this city. Unless, of course, this is all part of a grand design to fill the bank accounts of developers who will, of course, be very grateful indeed. There simply can be no other  explanation as it is highly unlikely that our city is run by people who are mentally incapacitated, is there? In the meantime Montreal’s potential looks more like Buffalo North all the time.

Henry Aubin: Island opportunity goes off the rails

 Attracting families is an important key to the city’s continuing success; so why isn’t this administration using key land for suitable housing?

MONTREAL – The new census this week showed that the off-island suburbs have finally surpassed the Montreal Island in population. What can Montreal city hall do to attract and retain more people?

Most of the people who leave the 514-area for the 450 do so reluctantly. They are often young people with children (or who hope to have children). They enjoy the city’s stimulation and its proximity to workplaces, shopping and entertainment. But they leave because there’s not enough suitable housing in their price range. The taxes are also high and services spotty. Not the greatest place to to raise a family.

Let’s acknowledge straight off that the city can never compete with the off-island on the basis of real-estate costs or taxes.

But the availability of suitable housing is another problem – one on which city hall can act much more strongly than now.

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Artists Being Evicted At 4000 Saint Patrick and Cote Saint Paul Eco Centre To Close

Bad times when city parking lots get priority over heritage, culture, and environmental responsibility, let alone a real consultation process with citizens.

Artists evicted in favour of city vehicles

 4000 St. Patrick St. Site is an incubator for painters, designers

By LINDA GYULAI, The Gazette February 8, 2012

Paul Machnik, a tenant of Studio PM at 4000 St. Patrick St., says he’s invested at least $50,000 to renovate his studio over the seven years he’s been in the building. The city has evicted him and 15 other tenants.

Photograph by: PIERRE OBENDRAUF THE GAZETTE, The Gazette

Montreal’s pledge to value culture and history should be working to save a landmark industrial building along the Lachine Canal from the city’s plan to expropriate and demolish it so it can relocate a public works yard to park municipal vehicles.

Yet despite the rarity and historical significance of the former Second World War shipbuilding factory at 4000 St. Patrick St. and the cost to taxpayers to expel 15 cultural businesses and artists that have not yet found another place to go, the expropriation process is moving ahead.

The printers, designers, furniture makers, framers, painter, set designer and other cultural entrepreneurs who work out of the building began receiving official notices of expropriation from the city and the Sud-Ouest borough on Monday, part of a bureaucratic chain reaction that was triggered by the Quebec transportation department’s plan to rebuild the Turcot Interchange. 

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Tremblay’s City Hall Corrupt? Wow, Surprise, Surprise!

Anyone paying even a little bit of attention over the course of the Tremblay administration can see corruption all over the place. Time and time again stories come out how the city made idiotic real estate deals – losing money on purpose because they aren’t the ones that are that stupid, Mr and Ms Taxpayer. But every time Gerald Tremblay gets caught with his hand in the cookie jar or just simply being monumentally incompetent, he claims that he “didn’t know”. Hey, it’s worked so far because the dumbed down masses keep voting for him. And English Montrealers should know better by now – voting for a mayor primarily because he is “not a separatist” is stupidity defined in the year 2011, or 2009, or 2005, etc…

The big picture part of this latest news is that the whole Quartier du Spectacle development is a mediocre piece of crap that does not in any way reflect the dynamics of Montreal. It is not something you proudly walk your visiting out of town relatives and friends through with a mischievous grin on your face. The Tremblay administration has bent over backwards to devalue Montreal, to take away the magic. And we have given him permission to go for it!

City of Montreal took real estate bath: auditor-general

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Gerald Tremblay Ultimately Approved Turcot Disaster

Turcot : La balle est aussi dans le camp de la Ville de Montréal

MONTRÉAL, le 14 avril /CNW Telbec/ – À la suite d’une série de rencontres avec le ministère des Transports du Québec, l’Agence métropolitaine de transport, les villes de Montréal et de Westmount, les arrondissements Le Sud-Ouest, Lachine et Côte-des-Neiges-Notre-Dame-de-Grâce, ainsi que de l’analyse d’une carte du nouveau projet Turcot, le Comité de vigilance Turcot constate que la Ville de Montréal a la possibilité d’intervenir pour bonifier le projet et ainsi respecter ses propres plans de transport, d’urbanisme et de développement durable. Le Comité de vigilance Turcot interpelle donc le maire de Montréal, M. Gérald Tremblay, pour qu’il revoie certaines de ses décisions dans le cadre du projet de réfection du complexe Turcot, notamment en ce qui a trait à la capacité routière du projet Turcot.

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“Wash-Basin Politics” at Montreal City Council

From Westmount Watch

Jan. 24, 2011 — The New Year opened badly for Montréal Mayor Gérald Tremblay and his Union Montreal party at City Council on Jan. 24, 2011.
Veteran observers noted that negative press stories, the financial squeeze, and the drying up of stimulus spending have all created a new and unpleasant climate at Montréal City Hall.
A sure sign of this atmosphere came when the council President – the normally dapper and courtly Claude Dauphin – refused permission for a woman in a wheelchair to enter the council chamber with her companion who was going in to pose a question. A year ago Monsieur Dauphin would never have acted so ungraciously.
Montréal’s Executive Committee, for the moment, seems to have adopted a stance: get tough, circle the wagons.
On Monday night the most dramatic issue was the future of Montreal’s famous John Redpath mansion in the city’s Golden Mile. Dinu Bumbaru of Heritage Montréal sought assurance that the city would protect this key part of urban history. He received no such commitment, despite the 2002 pro-preservation decision by the Commission d’Arbitrage pour la protection du patrimoine.
The real issue at City Hall, Bumbaru told Westmount Watch, “is a vacuum of trust.” And he added: “Many of these people see numbers, data, and they forget we live in a real city.”

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Tremblay Assumes The Position

and seems to like it. City gives the go ahead to MTQ’s Turcot plan.
Story in La Presse
Mayor Dorais of the SouthWest borough wonders what “concessions” Tremblay may have received from Quebec. Indeed, what can you buy the man who sells his city out, a mayor with a vision so dull and corrupt that doing the right thing is an embarrassment to him?

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Snowdon Committee Ready To Fight City Hall

Yet another part of the city has been promised to condo developers who plan to rip the heritage right off an important block on Queen Mary in Snowdon. Being near broke is great for the Tremblay administration because they can justify anything by claiming they need the money, and will not have to raise your taxes! Wake up, people, you are getting screwed to begin with and this administration is slowly part and parcel destroying the Montreal you love! This one just makes no sense at all.

Here is an article by Andy Riga on the situation.

Snowdon Committee

And you can sign the petition.

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