Chelsey St. Pierre – The Suburban LJI Reporter
The City of Beaconsfield is suing the City of Montreal for $15 million due to an alleged breach in the 2008 agreement of expense sharing that was set up by the provincial government. Since 2020, Montreal has increased the share that demerged municipalities pay for island-wide services, now at 65 per cent more per capita than residents of Montreal for the same services. “There is no justification for that,” Beaconsfield mayor George Bourelle told The Suburban.
Beaconsfield is one of 15 cities that demerged from Montreal in 2006. As part of that agreement, an agglomeration council was set up to manage island-wide services like police and fire protection, arterial roads and water management. Bourelle says Montreal is running a tab of unjust expenses that it has passed on to the demerged municipalities.
The 2008 agreement established the relative weight for each city for the sharing of Agglomeration expenses based on the 2007 evaluation roll. According to Bourelle, this relative weight was to remain constant for future evaluation rolls except for future new development, which would tip the scale up or down for each city. He explains that it was also agreed that a new calculation algorithm would ensure that neutrality be maintained for future evaluation roles.
“There was no new agreement signed by all 15 demerged municipalities, the City of Montreal and the provincial government and the 2008 agreement was never rescinded and/or annulled,” Bourelle explained. “The 2008 agreement should have been applied for the 2020 and 2023 evaluation rolls.” Bourelle says that Montreal uses demerged cities as “cash cows.”
What tipped the scale for Bourelle is that since 2020, Montreal decreased its share while increasing the shares for demerged municipalities. “The financial impact for the 2020 and 2023 evaluation rolls would be over $122 million. Montreal’s share of agglomeration expenses will be reduced by over $122 million and the demerged municipalities will go up by over $122 million.”
The $15 million lawsuit covers the period from 2020 to 2024. “That number will go up every year until the lawsuit is resolved. As a result, for the period starting in 2020 to 2024(inclusive), our lawsuit is now up to $15 million plus interest and it will go up every year until the lawsuit is resolved. n