JOSHUA ALLAN
The 1510 West
A decision by Quebec Superior Court this month giving the City of Beaconsfield the right to call current and former provincial and municipal officials to testify in its $20-million lawsuit against the City of Montreal over what have been alleged as inflated agglomeration payments has put a whole new spotlight on the court action.
“It’s very good news for the city,” said Beaconsfield Mayor Georges Bourelle, who has on several occasions accused the City of Montreal of treating the demerged municipalities as a “cash cow.”
On April 4, Quebec Superior Court Judge Éric Dufour ruled lawyers for the City of Beaconsfield can question the current and former minister of Municipal Affairs as well as Peter Trent, the former mayor of Westmount who led the municipal demerger movement in the early 2000s, in its attempt to overturn the provincial government and City of Montreal’s claims in how demerged municipalities are forced to fund Montreal Agglomeration services.
“There’s no doubt that the governance of the agglomeration is wrong,” Bourelle said. “We are paying way too much as demerged municipalities for the services we are getting.”
“We’re very confident that we’re going to win,” Bourelle added.
Beaconsfield will call Quebec Minister of Municipal Affairs Andrée Laforest and former Municipal Affairs Minister Nathalie Normandeau, who held the role from 2005 to 2009, to answer questions under oath. Numerous provincial deputy ministers and assistant deputy ministers will also be called to face questioning under oath.
Beaconsfield’s lawsuit, which was first launched in 2020, claims the demerged municipalities are being overcharged by Montreal for the services they receive, which include public transit, water treatment, social housing and police and fire services.
In an interview last Friday, Bourelle pointed out that a multilateral agreement was made in 2008 between the Quebec government, the City of Montreal and the 15 demerged suburban municipalities on the island on the equitable sharing of costs through agglomeration payments.
In 2017, a second agreement was meant to temporarily adjust the agglomeration’s funding schematic. But in 2019 that temporary agreement was renewed, and has been renewed multiple times since, making it, essentially, a permanent and ongoing deal. This, according to the City of Beaconsfield, has meant that obligations outlined by the original agreement reached in 2008 that outlined an equitable sharing of the cost of regional services are not being met.
“As a result, the contributions of the demerged cities are unbalanced in favour of Montreal,” the City of Beaconsfield said in a statement.
Indeed, demerged municipalities in the West Island regularly see more than half of the tax dollars they collect each year forwarded to the Agglomeration’s coffers. But these municipalities only represent 13 per cent of the vote on the regional body, which means that their say often is simply ignored by City of Montreal officials who hold the majority.
A calculation done by the City of Beaconsfield estimates that Montreal, by not respecting the 2008 agreement, has overcharged the demerged cities by more than $122 million since 2020.
No timetable has been set on when the testimonies will take place. Bourelle said the city’s lawyers will accommodate all who are being called to testify, adding that he expects the first testimonies to take place “in the next few months.”