Author name: Brenda O'Farrell The 1510 West

BRENDA O’FARRELL
The 1510 West

While hate mail sent to two Pointe Claire city councillors recently is being widely denounced as unacceptable, it is at the same time widening the polarized divide that has come to characterize the political climate in the municipality.

“This has to be development related,” said councillor Eric Stork, who along with colleague Kelly Thorstad-Cullen received the hand-written letters via Canada Post last week at city hall.

Although Stork admits he has no proof what prompted the anger-filled messages, which consisted of the identical five lines calling the elected officials names and, using profanity, telling them to “go to hell” and to “drop dead,” he is convinced they were prompted by council’s recent approval of a 367-unit apartment project. Although the two 13-storey project slated for the northwest corner of St. Jean Blvd. and Labrosse Ave. was approved unanimously by council in September, Stork believes he and Thorstad-Cullen were signalled out because they both sit on the city’s planning advisory committee.

Both Stork and Thorstad-Cullen also spoke publicly at the September council meeting supporting the project.

But in an interview with The 1510 West, Stork went one step farther, pointing to Pointe Claire Mayor Tim Thomas for “irresponsibly” making what he called “a false argument” in opposing the project.

“That creates fear-mongering,” Stork said, explaining that Thomas’s argument that triplexes on the site of the proposed project “is irresponsible.”

He offered similar comment to other media.

In response, Thomas issued the following statement: “As mayor, I join in condemning this and all threats, harassment and intimidation in our local politics and expressing my sympathy for the councillors and their families.”

Then added: “This kind of behaviour is, unfortunately, not new to Pointe Claire. Former councillor Erin Tedford was subjected to a long campaign of intimidation and harassment, which included trespassing and vandalism at her home.”

Although the harassment contributed to Tedford’s decision to resign her seat on council and she had reported the incidents to police, Thomas said, she opted to deal with it privately. This contrasts with Stork’s approach to make public statements linking the letters to his support for a development project, the mayor pointed out.

“Attempting to weaponize (the threats) for political gain is wrong and will only make a bad situation worse,” he said.

A complaint about the letters was filed with police, and Stock was interview by officers. The investigation is ongoing.

Thorstad-Cullen could not be reached for comment.

In June, the provincial government adopted a new law that allows fines of up to $1,500 to be slapped on anyone who intimidates or harasses a politician. The law also allows elected officials to seek a court injunction against a citizen who threatens, intimidates or harasses them.

The Coalition Avenir Québec government adopted the law in an attempt stem the rise in resignations of elected officials, particularly at the municipal level.

Since the last municipal election in 2021, at least 741 of Quebec’s 8,000 local politicians — almost 10 per cent — have quit.

In addition, a survey of mayors and city councillors in Quebec conducted by the Union des municipalités du Québec in the fall of 2023 found that 74 per cent reported experiencing harassment or intimidation.

The survey prompted Quebec Municipal Affairs Minister Andrée Laforest earlier this year to establish a telephone helpline to connect officials and members of their families with psychological aid.

BRENDA O’FARRELL
The 1510 West

It could be argued that the steady and consistent campaign to save Fairview Forest – with its weekly small-scale protests along the edge of the wooded green space for the past four years – has finally struck what might be a motivational chord, as two members of Pointe Claire council are now promising action.

Mayor Tim Thomas earlier this week requested a special meeting of council to vote on a motion to expand the formal consultation process the city has engaged in as it prepares its new urban plan to include an additional consultation session focused on privately and publicly held green spaces, including Fairview Forest.

The meeting for council to vote on the measure could be held as early as next Tuesday.

Meanwhile, councillor Eric Stork is planning to put forward a separate motion at the November council meeting to mandate the city to prepare a formal evaluation of the forest located just west of the Fairview Pointe Claire shopping centre, which is currently included in development freezes imposed by both the city and the Communauté métropolitaine de Montréal.

Both motions would require support of a majority of council to move forward.

“I would like to see an expression from the Pointe Claire community on green spaces,” Thomas said in an interview with The 1510 West.

The public consultation process designed to guide and inform updates of the city’s urban plan has side-stepped public discussion of the fate of the woodland, with Thomas calling that “a glaring omission.”

As for Stork, he said the first order of business should be to determine the value of the green space.

“I want a proper evaluation of the cost,” said Stork in an interview with The 1510 West. “What is it worth?”

Stork, who admittedly is skeptical of the financial viability of preserving the land from development as it is located at the doorstep of a REM light commuter rail station on the north side of Highway west of St. Jean Blvd., said it’s time for action. The evaluation, he said, should include an environmental assessment, the city’s legal options if it opts to expropriate, other options for financing and an assessment of opportunity costs of not developing the land.

Both moves by elected officials in Pointe Claire come weeks after members of the Save Fairview Forest group, a grassroots movement of residents from Pointe Claire and the surrounding area, launched an email campaign aimed at the city’s council urging them to pronounce themselves on whether they favour preserving the forest.

Geneviève Lussier, a spokesperson for the Save Fairview Forest Group, said she is pleased with the moves being announced, adding that the recent flurry of emails sent to elected officials were meant to remind them of the promise they had made to protect 30 per cent of the city’s territory as green space, a target set by all levels of government, including the CMM, provincial and federal.

Currently, only 9 per cent of Pointe Claire’s territory is protected green space. Preserving the 43-acre forest would still leave the city with a green space deficit, well short of the 30-per-cent target. In fact, Lussier said, if all the natural spaces left on the island of Montreal were saved, it would still fall short of the target.

“There is very little social acceptability to cutting down a forest in an urban setting, even half a forest, especially in a place that is going to see such an influx of people” Lussier said, referring to the proposed development for the parking lot area of Fairview mall.

“Downtown West Island needs a central park,” Lussier added. And there is no better place for it than Fairview Forest.”

Stork said he will present a resolution directing Pointe Claire’s administration to commission an evaluation of the land, as well as an environmental assessment of the woodland, an outline of the implications of expropriation and the related opportunity costs of not moving forward with development. As Stork put it: “an assessment of all the variables.”

He called the city’s inaction to date on this issue “Irresponsible,” pointing to Thomas’s support for preserving the forest, without taking any steps to determine the viability of the option.

“It’s irresponsible to say ‘I want to save it, I want to save it,’ and not do anything about it,” Stork said.

“We can’t just stick our head in the sand. I am coming clean on this issue,” he added. “We have to address this.”

Earlier in the week, councillor Bruno Tremblay expressed his views on how the discussions about the fate of the woodland always focus on the purely financial issues.

“I am disappointed with the narrow focus of the question, which is unilaterally economic,” Tremblay said during the Oct. 1 Pointe Claire council meeting.

“That perspective is an old one,” he explained, adding: “It’s the way we used to think about things. We used to think strictly about the economics of these matters.

“As the storms that are ravaging the east coast – from Florida up to us now – this is becoming a societal issue. It’s becoming a problem.

“The federal government has maintained that we are undergoing a climate emergency. You act when there is an emergency,” Tremblay continued.

“There are legal avenues that are taking shape in this province that allows cities to be able to protect some of the green heritage that they have. That has to be included in the discussion.”

Tremblay issued a call to action: “I think it’s time – here at this table and in the audience and in Pointe Claire generally – those of us who make up the social fabric of this particular city, that we get together and start thinking creatively about how we are going to have to be able to save these kinds of areas.”

Lussier said any evaluation of the forest should also include a briefing on how recent amendments to Quebec’s Bill 39, which gives municipalities greater powers to protect natural environments, can impact moves to save the forest.

BRENDA O’FARRELL
The 1510 West

For 201 Saturdays, Pointe Claire resident Geneviève Lussier and a group of supporters have convened on the sidewalk that traces the limit of Fairview Forest with one goal in their sights – save every inch of the treed area from development.

After all these weeks – just short of four years of protests – the question of whether the Save Fairview Forest group is closer to its goal all depends on how you measure the advancement.

“We are not celebrating,” Lussier said in an interview with The 1510 West, referring to the group’s 200^th milestone protest held Sept. 14. “The forest is not saved. But we’re celebrating our resiliency.”

The 43-acre woodland just west of the Fairview Pointe Claire shopping centre is owned by Cadillac Fairview, which still plans to develop a large multi-phased residential project in the area. But the land is currently under the protection of two temporary development freezes –  one by the city of Pointe Claire and another by the Communauté métropolitaine de Montréal.

“We are going to keep pushing for this as long as we have to,” Lussier added, explaining that her group recognizes that persuading all stakeholders to get on board will take time.

The forest is the last unprotected wooded area in Pointe Claire, a city that only has 9 per cent of its territory designated as protected green space or parks, Lussier claims.

“Pointe Claire has a responsibility to do better,” she said.

The weekly protests since November 2022 have helped raise public awareness for the push to save the woods from development among residents, but it still has not translated into support from the city. Although, she acknowledges that Pointe Claire Mayor Tim Thomas and councillor Bruno Tremblay have publicly stated they endorse saving the entire forest.

Yet, calls to hold public consultations to gauge the level of public support for saving the forest among residents of Pointe Claire have so far gone unanswered.

In June, more than a year since the city launched its public consultation process following the adoption of a development freeze in key areas in the municipality, including the forest, to allow the public to weigh in on how development should take shape, Lussier put the question directly to elected officials. The answer she received was far from clear. And, three months later, no consultation touching on the fate of the forest – what many have come to recognize as one of the biggest development issues in the municipality – has yet been scheduled.

“It’s a glaring omission in our consultation process,” said Pointe Claire Mayor Tim Thomas in an interview yesterday, explaining the city’s administration shied away from the topic due to a lawsuit against the city filed by Cadillac Fairview.

Earlier in the spring, criticism of the consultation process in Pointe Claire flared when residents openly questioned why key issues, including the forest and the parking lot surrounding the Fairview Pointe Claire shopping centre where Cadillac Fairview has proposed building a 20-storey seniors complex and two 25-storey apartment buildings, have not been raised in the consultations to gauge residents’ views on these topics.

And last fall, several outraged citizens demanded to know who had imposed what they called a “gag order” on discussing the future of the forest during a consultation meeting that had been touted to deal with environmental issues.

“Green spaces and the height (of buildings) are two of the most important issues and, ironically, neither have been sufficiently broached,” Thomas said, referring to the consultations.

Lussier says despite the city of Pointe Claire’s development freeze, there is no clear indication what the city’s new development plan will included.

As for the CMM’s development freeze, it has allowed the regional authority time todraw up an urban plan. The preliminary draft of that plan identifies wetlands within the forest and proposes to impose a 30-metre buffer around them, restricting development in those zones. This would effectively leave about half the forest intact, Lussier said.

“This is just one layer of protection,” she explained.

Lussier also points to the provincial government’s Bill 39, which gives municipalities the ability to ensure the protection of natural environments without fear of being sued by owners for what has been labelled “disguised expropriation.”

“I am hopeful changes will be made,” Lussier said. “We know that it’s the right thing to do,” she added, referring to saving the forest.

Cutline:

Members of a the environmental group Mères au Front lent their support to Save Fairview Forest as the group marked its 200^th weekly demonstration Sept. 14.

Credit:

Courtesy Geneviève Lussier

BRENDA O’FARRELL
The 1510 West

Motorists travelling along Highway 40 last week caught the first glimpses of REM trains travelling along the elevated rails as the West Island branch of the new commuter line entered its initial testing phase.

But the beginning of the testing phase does not mean the launch of the rail service is near. In fact, the date when the commuter rail line will be put into service, which had originally been set for the end of 2024, has now been pushed to some time in 2025, said Francis Labbé, a spokesman for CDPQ Infra, the consortium building the rail network.

There is still no precise date as to when the first commuters will be welcomed aboard the trains, Labbé said in an interview with The 1510 West on Monday.

“These tests will dictate the next steps,” Labbé said.

The first phase of tests last week saw two-car trains sent along the tracks between the Anse a l’Orme station in Ste. Anne de Bellevue and the Des Sources Station in eastern Pointe Claire. Testing is also being conducted simultaneously on the Two Mountains line of the network, with trains being run along the tracks through Pierrefonds-Roxboro.

The test saw the trains travel at very slow speeds along the track. Officials are now reviewing the data. Trains will be returned to the tracks in two weeks, Labbé said. In this next phase of trials, the trains will travel at higher speeds, between 30 and 60 kilometres an hour. Conductors will man the trains, ensuring that all stopping mechanisms at the stations are performing with precision. Communications systems will also be tested, he said.

In October, a third phase of testing is scheduled, where the trains will travel along the tracks at what Labbé described as “commercial speeds” in their fully automated mode, meaning without conductors. These test will last several months.

Currently, there are 40 kilometres of rail line being tested, Labbé said, including the spur that leads to Two Mountains. Officials are also assessing the noise of the trains.

As the tests progress, CDPQ Infra will be able to announce when the train service will open for public use, some time in next year. The original 2024 launch date has been moved due to delays in completing work through the Mont Royal tunnel, Labbé said.

Cutline:

The REM train used to test the service runs along the elevated track by Parc des Benevoles in Kirkland.

Credit:

Courtesy CDPQ Infra

BRENDA O’FARRELL
The 1510 West

Like a hornet’s nest poked with a stick, the debate over the rate and breadth of development in Pointe Claire erupted into a swirl of barbs being exchanged among members of Pointe Claire council last week as elected officials gave final approval to the construction of two 13-storey apartment complexes to be built on St. Jean Blvd. north of Highway 40.

“There is no need to put 13 storeys on St. John’s,” said Pointe Claire Mayor Tim Thomas as he put forward his argument against allowing a proposal that would include 367 residential rental units in two towers on a lot on the northwest corner of the boulevard at Labrosse Avenue, just north of the Fairview shopping mall.

Pointe Claire has added more residential housing units in the last seven years “than all our neighbouring cities and boroughs put together,” Thomas said. “We have just been on steroids,” he added, referring to the rate of housing units added in the municipality compared with other cities in the West Island.

Thomas claims that more than half of all housing units built in the West Island in the last seven years – or 56 per cent –  have been in Pointe Claire. And in 2023 alone, despite a building freeze having been imposed on many parts of the municipality, 955 residential units were started and/or completed, with the mayor describing that figure as “more than all 14 demerged suburbs on the island of Montreal put together.”

Pointe Claire’s residential sector, he continued, has grown by 27 per cent since the 2016 census.

“Our poor city has been under deluge and has built like crazy,” he said as he read from a prepared statement. “Rents are not going down. We have not made more affordable housing. We do, however, have a lot more potholes, a lot more cars, a lot more housing, a lot more citizens, and a lot more stress on our infrastructure.

“Why isn’t anyone else on the West Island building like this?” he asked. “And why are we obliged to keep going at the rate we’re going at?”

In response, several councillors pushed back.

Councillor Brent Cowan highlighted how the project has already received approval for a grant from the Canadian Mortgage and Housing Corp. guaranteeing the rental units will be offered at 10 to 20 per cent below the average market rate for the area and include 5½-room units for families.

“This particular project is balancing the issue of affordable housing,” Cowan said. “Yes. It is not going to be cheap,” he admitted, “but it is going to be cheaper than if we did nothing.”

“It may not be perfect for everyone,” councillor Kelly Thorstad-Cullen added. “It may be scary that we have change. But we must move forward, because it’s much better to move forward than sit and do nothing because it may not be perfect.”

Councillor Eric Stork also admitted the project is “not perfect,” but added it is the only project where the city has a signed deal with a private developer that guarantees lower rental rates.

“This deal is the best we are going to get,” Stork added.

But Thomas pressed his case, particularly against Cowan’s assertion that higher residential density rates will be imposed on Pointe Claire by the Commaunté métropolitaine de Montréal, the regional authority that sets development guidelines for 82 municipalities on and around the island of Montreal.

“A big myth about development,” Thomas said, “is that current development has all been pushed by higher levels of government and we have no choice but to accept it.”

The CMM’s density targets “don’t have the same legal weight as zoning bylaws,” the mayor asserted, before pointing out that the current residential density target for areas of Pointe Claire that are within one kilometre of the future REM light rail stations is 60 units per hectare, which is the minimum.

To put that in context, he went on to explain, the three-storey apartment buildings across the street from Pointe Claire city hall on St. Jean Blvd. at Douglas Shand Avenue include 258 units on 2.3 hectares of space, along with parking and green space. That represents a residential density of 112 units per hectare, nearly twice the minimum prescribed by the current CMM target.

Thomas conceded that new density targets that are currently being proposed and are undergoing consultations, where they are being met with fierce resistance, would set a new minimum of 200 units per hectare within a one-kilometre radius of the REM stations. That, he said, could be met with developments of no more than six storeys in height.

“The reality is that city council – not other levels of government – has chosen to develop Pointe Claire more than all our neighbours combined and with no overall plan,” Thomas said.

All members of council except Thomas voted to approve the project at St. Jean and Labrosse. In July, the council put forward a motion to remove the lot from the city’s ongoing development freeze. Last week’s vote ratified the move, effectively giving the developer a green light to build.

First imposed in February 2022, Pointe Claire’s development freeze – which is often referred to by its French name – Règlement de contrôle intérimaire, or RCI –  put a halt to building projects in several key areas of the city, including the parking lot area of the Fairview Pointe Claire shopping centre, where a massive development comprised of three high-rise towers has been proposed.

In April 2022, a majority of council voted to exclude the Fairview parking lot from the freeze only to reverse course a month later, and re-introduce it back into the development freeze.

RCIs are a relatively new tool provided to municipalities by the Quebec government to allow them to pause development in order to recast their planning bylaws to reflect the scope and scale of development within their territories. Pointe Claire’s development freeze had been slated to be lifted at the end of this summer, when it was scheduled to adopts its new planning bylaws. With that deadline now passed, there is still no firm date as to when the freeze will be lifted.

BRENDA O’FARRELL
The 1510 West

“What do I do?”

That was the single, simple question one Pierrefonds homeowner posed to a home-renovation expert Saturday morning on a popular radio phone-in show, explaining she had eight inches of water in her basement, and was at a loss as to how to deal with the disaster.

The homeowner has lived in her house for the past 38 years and never had any flooding issues. But that, of course, was before last Friday’s devastating storm, the remnants of Hurricane Debby that swept through the Montreal region dumping a record-setting amount of rain in just a few hours.

She spoke for a lot of West Islanders last weekend. Although there are no official statistics, The 1510 West interviewed several West Island mayors in the last few days, each estimating the number of homes damaged by flood and sewer water in each of their towns to be in the hundreds. Perhaps the hardest hit was Île Bizard, where borough Mayor Doug Hurley estimated about 1,200 homes in his town had been swamped.

“Streets had a foot-and-a-half, two feet, in some cases five feet (of water) in the middle of the road,” Hurley said on Monday. “Imagine what it was like in the houses.”

Navigating the streets in the north end of Ste. Anne de Bellevue was best done by kayak on Friday evening.

Some homes, Hurley said, had up to seven feet of water in their basements, extending the damage to the ground floor.

In all, according to Environment Canada, 157 millimetres of rain had fallen at Dorval airport last Friday, surpassing the previous record of 93.5 mm set in November of 1996, while a whopping 173 millimetres of rain was recorded in Ste. Anne de Bellevue, which not only set a new record, but ranked as the second-highest deluge recorded in the province during last Friday’s storm. The most intense rainfall in the province was recorded in the town of Lanoraie in the Lanaudière region, north of Montreal, where 221 mm of rain overwhelmed the tiny municipality of less than 5,000 residents.

“We used to be ready for some flooding, but this was – never did we expect this,” said Ste. Anne de Bellevue Mayor Paola Hawa in an interview Sunday.

“What’s scary about this is that we know it’s going to happen again. We don’t know when, but it’s going to happen again,” Hawa added. “This is not going to stop.”

Hawa was not spared from the hardship, explaining the basement of her home was flooded.

The north end of Ste. Anne was the most affected by the cascades of rain, she said, with some residents pulling out their kayaks to navigate the streets on Friday evening.

In Beaconsfield, few residents on Elm Street were spared damage as the flood waters rose, said Mayor Georges Bourelle.

“In 37 years, I’ve been living here, my sump pump has never gone on,” Bourelle said, explaining that his house was not spared either.

He could not say how many homes in Beaconsfield were affected, but said some suffered from sewage backup into basements, while others were inundated with runoff water. Damage was also suffered at Centennial Centre and the Beaconsfield Recreation Centre.

In Pointe Claire, homes throughout the municipality were impacted, with the areas around Westcliffe and Alstonvale particularly hard hit, said Mayor Tim Thomas.

The basement of Pointe Claire city hall took in water, with Thomas saying Monday that temporary space for the municipality’s archives and IT services will have to be found.

As the cleanup is ongoing, with homeowners removing soggy furniture, carpets and other household items, most West Island towns will be providing extra curbside garbage pickups this week and next to clear away debris and construction material.

BRENDA O’FARRELL
The 1019 Report

In an unexpected move, Pointe Claire council has proposed a motion to remove a lot from the city’s ongoing development freeze with the aim to allow two 13-storey residential buildings to go up on St. Jean Blvd. north of Highway 40.

Citing the need to move quickly to address the widespread housing crisis that has seen the price of homes and rents rise rapidly across the country in the last few years, Pointe Claire councillors said it could not wait for the city’s urban development plan to be completed, effectively approving a proposal that would see 367 rental units be built at the southwest corner of Labrosse Ave. and St. Jean Blvd., north of the Fairview Pointe Claire shopping centre.

“There is a housing crisis in Canada that we have to respond to,” said councillor Kelly Thorstad-Cullen as the motion was put forward at the July 2 council meeting.

“It is not an option for us to say we are going to do no more development,” Thorstad-Cullen continued.

The move sparked harsh criticism from Pointe Claire Mayor Tim Thomas, who condemned the action before the city has had a chance to put forward its development plan following an extensive public consultation process.

“I oppose this amendment,” Thomas said, reading from a prepared statement during the council meeting. “I don’t believe we should be taking any more properties out of the (development freeze) until public consultations and the revisions of our urban plan are completed.”

“For the past eight years, our urban planning has been decided for and by developers,” Thomas continued. “Changes to our bylaws have been driven by those who have best access to city hall and have gotten what they want on a case-by-case basis.

“There has never been an overall plan that takes account of our housing needs, our infrastructure capacity or the quality of life of our entire community,” he said.

“We can all see the strains on our infrastructure ­– from the traffic on St. John’s, to the brown water and reduced water pressure in Valois, to the frequent blackouts in Cedar Park,” Thomas said. “We can also see neighbourhoods which have failed to live up to our planning programs with regards to green spaces and first-floor commercial spaces for residents. This has to change.”

In response, Thorstad-Cullen said the majority of council has listened to what citizens have said during the consultation process, claiming: “And there are many aspects in this project specifically that are responding to what we’re being asked for.”

“It is in line with what we are planning to do with our planning bylaws,” Thorstad-Cullen added. “It is checking all the boxes of what citizens have told us.”

Thomas took issue with Thorstad-Cullen’s reasoning, arguing that it is not up to council members to interpret what they have heard via the consultation process in a haphazard manner. Rather, they should wait for the consultants hired by the town to convey the results of the consultation process to the city’s urban planning professionals, who will, in turn, formulate an overarching urban planning proposal, which could then be approved by council and applied to all proposals submitted to the city.

“What we have to have is a coherent organized plan that reflects what the citizens have told us, and then use that plan in its application to subsequent projects,” Thomas said during the council meeting.

Councillor Eric Stork added his voice in support of removing the lot from the building freeze, saying all 367 units in the two buildings planned will be rental units, which will be priced at 15-per-cent below the average market rate for the area, determined by the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corp.

The building will include 3½- and 5½-room units to accommodate families, with rents for smaller units receiving 10-per-cent rental rate reductions, while larger units receiving 20-per-cent rental subsidies, for a minimum of 16 years.

Stork added that council was merely putting forward a notice of motion to remove the lot from the development freeze, and that public consultations on the project will be held in either August or September, after council votes next month to ratify the move.

In an interview Monday, Thomas said the city’s administration brought the proposed project to council for approval with concerns about possible legal action from the developer against the city, claiming the project, which had obtained subsidies from the CMHC, had already passed a number of hurdles in the approval process when the development freeze was imposed, putting it on hold.

First imposed in February 2022, Pointe Claire’s development freeze – which is often referred to by its French name – Règlement de contrôle intérimaire, or RCI –  put a halt to building projects in several key areas of the city, including the parking lot area of the Fairview Pointe Claire shopping centre, where a massive development comprised of thee high-rise towers has been proposed; the adjacent Fairview Forest; Pointe Claire Village; Valois Village; as well as at Pointe Claire Plaza at St. Jean Blvd. and Highway 20; and various stretches of Lakeshore Rd. and Hymus Blvd.

In April  2022, a majority of council voted to exclude the Fairview parking lot from the freeze only to reverse course a month later, and re-introduce it back into the development freeze.

RCIs are a relatively new tool provided to municipalities by the Quebec government to allow them to pause development in order to recast their planning bylaws to reflect the scope and scale of development within their territories. Pointe Claire’s development freeze is slated to be lifted once council adopts its new planning bylaws, expected to be unveiled some time later this year.

BRENDA O’FARRELL
The 1510 West

The city of Pointe Claire last week issued a $2.2-million contract to a Canadian engineering firm to design plans for a pedestrian and cycling overpass across Highway 40 just west of St. Jean Blvd. that could cost more than $20 million to build.

But there is no commitment as of yet to actually build the infrastructure, according to city officials.

“This is just to create the plans,” said councillor Brent Cowan at the July 2 Pointe Claire council meeting as he explained why he was voting against the contract. “The actual pedestrian-cycling overpass would be up to 10 times that and more,” he added.

The city has opted to commission a design for the structure that would link the south side of the city, near Alston Avenue, to the REM commuter rail station next to the Fairview Pointe Claire shopping centre, north of the highway, with the promise of federal funding that would cover part of the cost of construction. Land on either side of the highway would have to be acquired for the project to move forward.

But Cowan said delays in getting provincial approval to allow the city to accept the federal funds has meant that it is not quite clear if Pointe Claire would be able to count on that contribution. Then, there is the unknown final cost of such a project, he added.

“In my mind, that’s too many uncertainties,” Cowan said. “So I will not be supporting this motion.”

Councillor Claude Cousineau also voted against the contract, which was finally approved by a majority of council.

“We are not ready for this,” Cousineau said. “It can wait. There are other priorities.”

Cousineau confirmed the final bill to build the structure could go as high as $20 million or more, adding there is no information on how many pedestrians or cyclists would actually use it.

In an interview earlier this week, Pointe Claire Mayor Tim Thomas said the federal government had offered the city an $8-million subsidy for the project back in 2022. But it is difficult to measure the significance of the grant, he conceded, without knowing the final cost of the plan.

Thomas said the design contract would propose options for the structure – like whether it would be covered to protect users from the elements, especially in winter. The final cost of the project would depend on the design selected.

“It’s a cool project,” Thomas said. “But it’s going to be costly. It’s going to be substantial.”

At the meeting, Cowan said this is the type of project that should be, in part, shouldered by the agglomeration. At this time, however, there is no financial commitment from the regional administrative body.

BRENDA O’FARRELL
The 1510 West

Will the residents of Pointe Claire have the opportunity to participate in a public consultation meeting on the future of the wooded area commonly known as Fairview Forest?

It is a question without an answer.

At least that is how it appears in the wake of the June council meeting in Pointe Claire – more than a year since the city launched its public consultation process following the adoption of a development freeze in key areas in the municipality to allow the public to weigh in on how development should take shape.

At the meeting on June 4, Geneviève Lussier, the spokesperson for the Save Fairview Forest group, put the question about the forest consultation directly to elected officials. The response she received was far from clear.

Mayor Tim Thomas turned to the city’s director-general for an update.

“We have to have a workshop … with the council before … for (council) to decide what the next steps for that,” said Pointe Claire director-general Karina Verdon.

Taking that information, Thomas then turned to Lussier and said: “Apparently, it’s still in the works.”

But then the mayor, who has repeatedly stated publicly he is in favour of seeing the woodland preserved from development, cast the prospect of a consultation session on the subject under a shadow of doubt: “My concern is whether it happens,” he said.

In an interview earlier this week, Lussier summed up her frustration with the lack of clarity on whether the residents of Pointe Claire will get a chance to weigh in on what she described as “the biggest issue in Pointe Claire right now.”

“I’m a little bit perplexed that this has not moved forward,” she said in an interview with The 1510 West.

“We’re flummoxed,” Lussier said, referring to her group which has been holding weekly demonstrations at the forest for the past 186 weeks, just more than three years, urging the woodland be preserved as a natural space.

She could only speculated that the acrimonious climate on council might be behind the lack of action on this question.

“There has got to be reasons,” she said. “I would like to know what those reasons are.”

In an interview earlier this week, Thomas said: “It seems to be a very cumbersome, slow-moving, almost stalled process.”

“I, too, would like to see where it’s going,” said councillor Bruno Tremblay in an interview.

Tremblay is clear he would like to see all of the remaining 43 acres of Fairview Forest preserved from development.

“I can only voice what I think should happen,” Tremblay added.

Councillor Eric Stork said the potential for a public consultation on the forest “is in the hands of urban planning  and the mayor. I have yet to see any proposal.”

“The administration is aware of the public interest in the topic,” said councillor Brent Cowan.

Given that the fate of the forest is one of the mayor’s priorities, Cowan added: “The mayor should have a significant role to play. It’s not my priority.”

So far, the city has hosted five public consultation meetings with the help of a consulting firm. Adding a session would require issuing another tender to engage a consultant to lead the process, Thomas said. There is no record of a tender being issued by the city, according to the Système Élecronique d’appel d’offres du gouvernement du Québec.

“It needs to happen since it was promised to us,” said Lussier, referring to a consultation on the forest. “It’s a matter of responsibility and ethics on the part of the council and administration.”

A session held by the consultants last October that touched on environmental issue, which included references to what homeowners could do on their lots and allowing chicken ownership, did not look at topics of development on a broader scale within the city, Lussier said.

Referring to preserving natural spaces and other issues touching on climate change, she said, “This is the issue of our times and there is very little action. Why is there such silence?”

Fairview Forest, she said, “is perfectly placed to be the Central Park of the West Island.”

This is not the first time criticism of the consultation process in Pointe Claire has surfaced. Earlier this spring, a resident asked council why key specific subjects, including the forest; the parking lot the Fairview Pointe Claire shopping centre, where Cadillac Fairview has proposed building a 20-storey seniors complex and two 25-storey apartment buildings; areas along St. Jean Boulevard; and the Pointe Claire and Valois villages have not been raised in the consultations to gauge residents’ views on these topics.

The process, said resident David Johnston in April, has not given “citizens the opportunity to talk about what everyone wants to talk about.” Nor has it touched on issues like the height of high-rises, the redevelopment of commercial zones or what would be the cost of possibly acquiring Fairview Forest, he said.

Last fall, a number of residents were outraged when they were informed at the consultation that dealt with environment issues when they were informed there would be no discussion of the forest. The topic was off limits due to what was referred to by the consultatnt as “judicial considerations,” one resident claimed to have been told at the meeting.

In the meantime, councillor Tara Stainforth in April has opted to revert to Facebook where she has posted a survey asking residents about how much money they would be willing to pay extra in taxes to see the forest purchased by the city. The initiative has sparked criticism as to methodology in gauging opinion.

BRENDA O’FARRELL
The 1510 West

As Quebec Municipal Affairs wraps up this week its inquiries into how the city of Pointe Claire is being run, it will not issue a report, The 1510 West has learned.

“The process does not provide for the writing of a report,” said Sébastien Gariépy, a media spokesperson for the ministry, in a written response to inquiries from The 1510 West.

Officials in Pointe Claire have been meeting with the representative of the provincial government in a series of meetings throughout the last few weeks. The sessions were organized following a vote in April by a majority of the city’s council requesting help from the Ministry of Municipal Affairs to restore order in the city.

Some, but not all, members of council have met with a Municipal Affairs official in one-on-one meetings, with some meetings scheduled for this week. At least one meeting has been held with a ministry representative and council as a whole, it has been confirmed. Meetings have also been held that brought in top administrators with the city, including the director-general, the assistant director-general and the clerk, it has been confirmed by a source.

Pointe Claire director-general Karina Verdon and city clerk Caroline Thibault have also met with a provincial official, according to one source.

But without a report on the provincial findings following the meetings, it is not clear what information will be shared with residents.

Asked what actions the ministry could take after completing its interviews with city officials in Pointe Claire, Gariépy said: “The framework provides for other possible actions, but this not currently planned.”

“The city is running well,” said Mayor Tim Thomas, when asked to comment earlier this week.

He would not share the details of the questions he was asked, but said that if anyone looks at how the city is run, they will see that services are being delivered, its finances are in order, it has a budget surplus.

During a special meeting of council in April, all elected representatives except councillor Bruno Tremblay and Thomas voted to approve a motion requesting help from the provincial ministry to restore what was characterized as order in the municipality.

Although the wording of the resolution adopted on April 16 states that deterioration of the climate at city hall cannot be attributed to “a single person, nor a group of elected officials,” councillors have since made it clear they blame Thomas for an acrimonious climate.

“The problem is our mayor, plain and simple,” said councillor Eric Stork in an interview with The 1510 West last month. “Everybody is done,” he said in frustration.

“The mayor doesn’t know how to be a mayor,” said councillor Brent Cowan in a separate interview last month. “He only knows how to be against things.”

In voicing his opposition to the resolution in April, Tremblay accused the majority on council who oppose the mayor of turning to Quebec merely as a political move to discredit the mayor, describing it as “a cannon shot to end political opposition and affect the 2025 election.”

Quebec Municipal Affairs has carried out 141 interventions in municipalities across the province similar to its engagement in Pointe Claire between April 1, 2019, and March 31 of this year, according to information obtained by The 1510 West.

This type of provincial intervention includes “support in conflict management, municipal management and intermunicipal cooperation.”

When asked for examples of the results of these interventions, Gariépy said the ministry does not keep statistics on the service.

BRENDA O’FARRELL
The 1510 West

An official with the Quebec Municipal Affairs Department is currently scheduling meetings for later this month with members of Pointe Claire city council to discuss next steps in the wake of council’s approval of a resolution seeking help from the provincial ministry to restore order in the municipality last month.

Yet, it is still not known how long and what will result of the intervention, according to members of council.

“I don’t know where this will lead,” councillor Bruno Tremblay said last Friday.

Tremblay is the only councillor, along with Mayor Tim Thomas, who voted against the resolution at a special meeting on April 16.

On Monday, a spokesperson with the Municipal Affairs office in Montreal refused to comment when contacted by The 1510 West, while questions submitted to the ministry have gone unanswered.

However, one motivation for the resolution that has been driving seven councillors who voted in favour of the move is coming into clearer focus – their frustration with the mayor.

Although the wording of the resolution adopted last month states that deterioration of the climate at city hall cannot be attributed to “a single person, nor a group of elected officials,” councillors have since made it clear they blame Thomas.

“The problem is our mayor, plain and simple,” said councillor Eric Stork in an interview with The 1510 West. “Everybody is done,” he said in frustration.

“The mayor doesn’t know how to be a mayor,” said councillor Brent Cowan in a separate interview. “He only knows how to be against things.”

During the special meeting April 16 councillor Cynthia Homan, who also voted in favour of the resolution, pointed to a “lack of leadership” when answering a resident’s question on the need for the resolution.

Thomas, however, is pushing back.

“If I hold blame, it’s because I’ve defended what my supporters elected me to do,” Thomas said in an interview with The 1510 West on Monday, which was to slow down development to give the city time to revise its planning bylaws, a process that continues since a development freeze was imposed in 2022.

When questioned about his obligation to represent the interests of all residents, including those who did not vote for him in the last election, he added: “So you have to compromise, which I am willing to do.”

But finding compromise has been elusive.

According to Tremblay, one of the reasons for the lack of agreement is that it is not clear what the majority of council is pushing for, except undermining the mayor in the eyes of the public.

“Having lived in this environment for more than two years, I simply can’t believe this resolution’s being tabled for the sake of peace, love and understanding,” Tremblay said in explaining his opposition to the resolution at the April 16 meeting. “This is brute force given the sequence of events that I’ve witnessed and seen in the past. It’s a cannon shot to end political opposition and affect the 2025 election.”

In an interview last week he elaborated: “I was getting tired of these kind of moves – every few weeks, every few months,” he said, referring to a list of events that have punctuated public discussion, including members of council publicly rebuking former councillor Erin Tedford before she resigned in early 2023, councillors walking out of public meetings, calls for the mayor’s resignation and what he has described as “non-stop chirping on Facebook.”

“All of these things have come in a sequence,” Tremblay said. “I see this as an extension of this continuum,” he added, pointing to the call for Municipal Affairs to intervene, which he described as “a political manoeuvre hiding behind a ‘let’s be friends gesture.’”

Tremblay added that the majority of council has the votes to do what it wants on council. “They could take anything out of the RCI,” he said, referring the development freeze. “They didn’t have to vote for it.”

When questioned about the climate of political discord, he said there were a variety of options to seek dialogue other than asking the provincial government to intervene and create uncertainty. But none of his council colleagues ever reached out to him to discuss the topic.

“I see this whole thing as a political move to make sure Tim Thomas is crippled for the next election,” he said.

To the councillors who oppose the mayor he said: “They don’t stand for anything. They are too busy electioneering.”

As for Stork, he claims one of the biggest issues that needs to be addressed is how council meetings are conducted, pointing to the mayor, as chair of the meeting, allowing residents to criticize and, what he claims, “insinuate things.”

“It’s turned into a charade,” Stork said, referring to public meetings.

Stork admits he has spoken to officials with Municipal Affairs on several occasions, and claims the city’s administration is not receiving guidance from council, a function, he claims, should be handled by the mayor.

“Hopefully, this will all come out,” he said, referring to the report that he anticipates will result from Municipal Affairs’ intervention.

Cowan echoed the complaints levelled at the mayor, saying the city lacks what he called “senior high-level decision-making,” and said question period during public council meetings “has turned into a complete cockup.”

“It’s not supposed to be a debate,” he added.