LeCanadian

Top Menu

  • Login
  • Archives
  • Les Actualités
  • Advertising
  • Sexy Pages
  • Contact Us

Main Menu

  • Home
  • Business
  • Entertainment
  • Foodie
  • Headline
  • Health
  • Editorials
  • Lifestyle
  • Sports
  • UFO · Exopolitics
  • City
  • Sexuality
  • Dating
Sign in / Join

Login

Welcome! Login in to your account
Lost your password?

Lost Password

Back to login
  • Login
  • Archives
  • Les Actualités
  • Advertising
  • Sexy Pages
  • Contact Us

logo

Header Banner

LeCanadian

  • Home
  • Business
  • Entertainment
  • Foodie
  • Headline
  • Health
  • Editorials
  • Lifestyle
  • Sports
  • UFO · Exopolitics
  • City
  • Sexuality
  • Dating
  • 7 reasons why online casinos are so popular in Ontario

  • La Commission indépendante soutient le recours de la Cour suprême contre le déni des droits des non-francophones par le Québec

  • Independent Commission endorses Supreme Court of Canada challenge against Quebec’s denial of rights to non-francophones

  • Ottawa International Crafts & Book Expo 2023: An assembly of literary brilliance

  • Diane Descôteaux – Une haïkiste passionnée: Le Salon d’Ottawa

Headline news
Home›Headline news›The honeymoon’s over for Montreal Mayor Valérie Plante

The honeymoon’s over for Montreal Mayor Valérie Plante

By admin
December 29, 2018
2316
0
Share:

The year at city hall was bookended by tax hikes — the first caused outrage, protests and voter’s remorse; the second, a sigh of relief.

In between, there was endless complaining about late buses, overcrowded métros and ubiquitous traffic jams, and quarrelling over cars on Mount Royal. Then, a new premier sailed into the National Assembly and Mayor Valérie Plante was faced with a new set of problems.

Here’s a look at some issues Montreal city hall grappled with in 2018.

TAX IMBROGLIO

It took a year but Plante finally fulfilled her election promise not to raise average residential property tax bills by more than the rate of inflation.

In January, her tenure got off to a rocky start when she flubbed her first budget. After less than two months in office, Plante raised 2018 taxes by a full percentage point more than inflation, then used a convoluted explanation to argue she hadn’t broken her campaign pledge. Few taxpayers bought it and she squandered voter goodwill.

Plante tried to make up for the miscalculation in her second budget, tabled in November. In 2019, the average tax bill will go up by 1.7 per cent, matching Montreal’s projected inflation rate for next year.

But the tax hikes hit some much harder. In Côte-des-Neiges—Notre-Dame-de-Grâce, for example, landlords are expected to jack up rents due to average increases of almost six per cent in taxes on residential buildings with six or more units.

MOUNT ROYAL FRICTION

Under Plante, Mount Royal went from being a topic on which all Montrealers could agree — it’s a treasure — to one that sparked heated arguments.

For five months (June to October), Montrealers had to forgo driving across Mount Royal due to a Plante administration pilot project that banned through traffic on the mountain. She said she wanted to make the mountain safer for cyclists and pedestrians and more pleasant for all.

She did not seem prepared for the backlash. Many drivers hated it because it removed a travel route from Côte-des-Neiges to Plateau-Mont-Royal. And though you could still park on the western and eastern sides of the mountain, some mountain users said the temporary ban made it more complicated to reach Beaver Lake, the lookout at the Mount Royal Chalet, and the Camillien Houde belvedere.

The big question now: Will the city permanently prohibit crosstown traffic? Plante says she will await the results of a public consultation being carried out by the independent Office de consultation publique de Montréal, due early in the new year.

But her Projet Montréal administration pre-empted the OCPM with its own preliminary report with a rosy conclusion: the pilot project was a success because it made the mountain quieter and safer. “We are extremely satisfied, even joyful. In fact, it was more than we hoped for,” said Luc Ferrandez, the executive committee member responsible for large parks.

Some saw this as more evidence the Plante administration has already made up its mind.

URBAN IMMOBILITY

Plante campaigned on a mobility-focused platform, promising better transit and more fluid traffic. But a year after they turfed Denis Coderre’s team, Montrealers continue to gripe about AWOL buses, sardine-can métros and never-ending road congestion.

Plante did convince Quebec to help fund the purchase of 300 new hybrid buses but they’ll start arriving only in 2020. More subway cars have also been ordered but they, too, are years away.

Plante set up a “mobility squad” to deal with fixable traffic bottlenecks, but so far it has only made a dent in a problem exacerbated by major projects out of Montreal’s control, namely the replacement of the Turcot Interchange and the Champlain Bridge.

On the parking front, the city is eliminating 140 spots on Ste-Catherine St. by 2021 as part of a revamp of the commercial strip. And it recently emerged the city is also mulling removing another 340 or so parking spaces on Ste-Catherine in a second phase, angering some drivers and businesses.

Downtown driving may also be affected by Plante’s plan to turn McGill College Ave. into a public square, though she has so far not said how much of the street will be pedestrianized.

THE CAQ AND A HARD PLACE

The previous Liberal government saw climate change as a priority and was keen to cozy up to Plante, helping pay for new buses and agreeing to study the possibility of the new métro Pink Line that the mayor desperately wants. But the Liberals aren’t in charge anymore.

As recently as this summer, few were predicting that François Legault and his Coalition Avenir Québec would sail into the National Assembly with a big majority. Working with him will be one of Plante’s biggest challenges.

Legault, who barely mentioned the environment during the campaign, wants to expand and build highways, while Plante wants to spend billions on a new métro line that Legault is skeptical of.

The two may also continue to clash on immigration: Legault wants to cut it; Plante says Montreal already faces a labour shortage.

And religious symbols: Legault wants to bar some public employees, including police officers, from wearing them; Plante, the mayor of Quebec’s multicultural metropolis, is on the record as favouring allowing Montreal cops to wear religious symbols.

THE HONEYMOON’S OVER

Plante lost her lustre over the past year. Elected with 51 per cent of the vote when she unseated Coderre in November 2017, she would now only manage 42 per cent of the vote, according to a recent Léger survey. That’s four percentage points less than Coderre garnered last year.

Anglophone Montrealers seem particularly perturbed by Plante. Only 35 per cent of anglophones said they would vote for Plante today, compared to 53 per cent among francophones. More than half of anglophones surveyed said municipal taxes are too high, compared to 44 per cent among francophones.

The two language groups do agree on one topic: 70 per cent of francophones and 60 per cent of anglophones say Plante has not done enough to improve traffic flow on Montreal roads.

Post Views: 2,363
Previous Article

The Top Complaints About Dining Out in ...

Next Article

Food Writers Name Montreal’s Biggest Dining Surprises ...

0
Shares
  • 0
  • +
  • 0
  • 0
  • 0
  • 0

Related articles More from author

  • Headline news

    As medicine rediscovers magic mushrooms, a Montreal clinic says there’s no time to waste

    November 25, 2020
    By admin
  • Headline news

    The Canadian Air Force Spent $2 Million Flying Fighter Jets Over Sporting Events

    March 2, 2016
    By admin
  • Headline news

    Amazon has made a fortune selling counterfeit products… and today it might cause thousands to lose their eyesight

    August 22, 2017
    By admin
  • Headline news

    Brownstein: Have a little heart for Montreal’s cabbies

    March 27, 2019
    By admin
  • Headline news

    Controversy Over Fake Meat Burger Heats Up as Documents Reveal FDA Safety Concerns

    August 22, 2017
    By admin
  • Headline news

    Valérie Plante tells Coderre to ‘bring it on,’ participate in more debates

    October 2, 2017
    By admin


AWeber Smart Designer




Popupar Articles

  • Week
  • Month

Week

Sorry. No data so far.

Month

  • 7 reasons why online casi... In the ever-evolving landscape of entertainment and lei...

Popular on The Le Canadian

  1. The Independent Canadian Commission on Civil and Human Rights
  2. Ottawa Winter Fest
  3. Ottawa Market
  4. Salon du Livre d'Ottawa
  5. Ottawa Book Expo
  6. AgoraCosmopolitan
  7. Agora Publishing Consortium
  8. Le Journal Canadien
  9. Dominion: Food News
  10. LeCanadian.com
  11. The Ottawa Star
  12. Capitalistocracy.com
  13. Agora Books Author House
  14. First Nations Press
  15. Toronto Digital Flog Newspaper
  16. The Etiquette Show
  17. Ontario People's Front
  18. COVID-19 unvaccinated singles

Recent Posts

  • 7 reasons why online casinos are so popular in Ontario
  • La Commission indépendante soutient le recours de la Cour suprême contre le déni des droits des non-francophones par le Québec
  • Independent Commission endorses Supreme Court of Canada challenge against Quebec’s denial of rights to non-francophones
  • Ottawa International Crafts & Book Expo 2023: An assembly of literary brilliance
  • Diane Descôteaux – Une haïkiste passionnée: Le Salon d’Ottawa
  • Diane Descôteaux – Une haïkiste passionnée: Le Salon d’Ottawa
  • How Canadians can access online casinos through mobile phones
  • Comment gérer un retard de vol ?
  • 5 ways sudoku boosts brain health
  • 10 tips to successfully market your law firm

Most Viewed Posts

  • Automated China –Mass-Producing the Future (61,386)
  • Health: Shampoo Helps Hair Loss Sufferers (57,955)
  • Citizens of Italy unleash mass protests against mandatory vaccination law (39,213)
  • Why Investors are Putting Their Money on High-End Real Estate (37,248)
  • Montréal : le cœur battant de la génération Y (37,092)
  • Une Autre Facette de Richard Lipman : Le Soutien d’un Psychologue à la Fondation Fauna (32,515)
  • Introduction To How And Where You Can Trade CFDs (30,171)
  • Canada’s Property Values Rise, In Spite of Signs of Market Slowdown (21,170)
  • “Not Gonna Write Poems” A Poetry Book by Dr. Michael Lee: Could He Be The Next Shel Silverstein? (17,367)
  • Smoking is Still a Problem in Society – But it’s a Problem That’s Being Addressed (16,166)

Visitors

  • Home
  • Business
  • Entertainment
  • Foodie
  • Headline
  • Health
  • Editorials
  • Lifestyle
  • Sports
  • UFO · Exopolitics
  • City
  • Sexuality
  • Dating