JOSHUA ALLAN
The 1510 West
The Montreal Agglomeration council is “a joke” that siphons money from demerged cities without giving them a voice, according to officials in several demerged cities.
“The demerged municipalities are really there to rubber stamp what’s on the agenda because we have absolutely no power,” Beaconsfield Mayor Georges Bourelle told The 1510 West. “The agglomeration council meetings are a joke. They’re an absolute joke.”
The comments come as towns across the West Island are in the throes of wrestling their municipal budgets into submission, attempting to juggle the increasing financial burden imposed by the city of Montreal for shared services, inflationary pressures that are pushing the cost of local services upward and the need to keep taxes increases from overburdening homeowners.
These monthly council meetings are designed to adopt bylaws and authorize expenditures on shared services across the island of Montreal, including public transit, social housing and emergency services. The council is made up of 15 Montreal city councillors and the mayors of the 14 demerged cities.
However, the council’s voting system reduces the weight of the demerged cities significantly, allotting them only 13 per cent of the votes compared with the city of Montreal’s 87 per cent.
Kirkland councillor Domenico Zito sat in for Mayor Michel Gibson during the Nov. 15 and Nov. 23 agglomeration meetings, and offered a bleak report at the Dec. 4 Kirkland town council meeting.
The demerged cities had “nothing to say because we’re outvoted all the time,” Zito told council. “Whatever we would like to say, we are always being outvoted. Nothing really happened that really we could do anything about.”
This is not a new phenomenon, Zito said. “It is the same story every month.”
Gibson agreed: “We are not being heard and we cannot stop any agglomeration item on the agenda,” he stated in an email.
The mayor of Kirkland went on to suggest that the agglomeration council be abolished and replaced with what he called a “ special-purpose board.” He explained that this step would be the “only way to have justice and a say for what we are paying for.”
As for the Montreal councillors who sit on the agglomeration council, “they really don’t care,” Gibson added.
In 2019, the city of Beaconsfield launched a lawsuit against the agglomeration for what it claims is unfairly high taxation on Beaconsfield residents for public services. Bourelle said Beaconsfield residents pay about 60 per cent more for services compared with Montreal residents.
“We’re paying through the nose, and we’re not getting an equivalent service for the money we’re paying,” Bourelle said. The case is still pending.
The demerged cities are “a cash cow to the City of Montreal,” Bourelle added.
A recent report by Montreal’s Commission sur les finances et l’administration – on which Bourelle serves as vice-chair – highlighted the taxation inequity between residents of Montreal and the demerged cities.
The report states: “Most of the agglomeration’s services are provided on the territory and for the primary benefit of the population of the city of Montreal alone.” This report is set to be presented at the next Agglomeration council meeting, which takes place tomorrow, Dec. 14.