PROVINCIAL AFFAIRS(For Canada's Election Day, Scandals Brew)

The municipal demerger referendums on Sunday mark the beginning, not the end of the process of defining local governments.

In Montreal, Quebec City, the Magdalen Islands, Gatineau, Cookshire-Eaton, and Longueuil, where some communities voted to demerge, and in Sherbrooke, Magog, Sutton, and Lévis, where residents decided to keep their merged cities intact, there is, in either case, a great deal of repair work to be done.

The old PQ government defied public opinion and forced mergers on an unwilling population. It created the same structure for the tiny communities on the Magdalen Islands as it did for the Montreal metropolitan area.

The new Liberal government seems unclear on the concept of local governance as well. With Bill 9, it strips demerging towns of any real voice in the new regional, or agglomeration, councils while taxing them anyway. It’s a clear case of taxation without proper representation.

It’s time, now that the dust is settling, for both major parties to take stock of the lessons they should have learned from this entire costly exercise.

You cannot create one single model of municipal government. You cannot force it upon people where there is clear resistance. You cannot tax people without giving them direct right to representation.

The old PQ government always argued that it tried its best to convince all those little towns to work together in a regional government, to end duplication and to promote economic cooperation.

But it always ran up against stubborn local politicians reluctant to give up power for the sake of the greater good. In the end, it lost patience and legislated.

So just as the PQ and the Liberals must learn their lessons, so too must local politicians understand that trivial parochial conflicts, those “guerres de clocher”, cannot be revived with their towns.

Everyone should now seize the chance to take the municipal model now in place, review it, refine it, and re-sculpt it, so residents will have the best of both regional and local governments, with full democratic rights.

The Charest government adjourned the spring session last Thursday, four working days before the usual date, the eve of St. Jean Baptiste Day.

The PQ didn’t mind. This gave its MNAs a full 10 days to campaign for their Bloc Québécois friends in Monday’s federal election – not that they haven’t been putting time and money into the Bloc campaign anyway.

Did you notice how many questions péquistes asked in question period about the Auditor-General’s report?

You know, the report which called the financial planning of the Laval Métro extension a “scandal”. And which scorched the SGF, the government’s financial agency, which last year lost $511 million on $2.3 billion of investment and which “on many occasions…did not manage expenses according to the rules of proper management”, and which paid its senior officials “inappropriate” salaries and bonuses.

It was under the PQ’s watchful eye that this occurred, and under the administration of Claude Blanchet, husband of then-PQ cabinet minister Pauline Marois.

It was also the PQ government that approved the subway project, on the very eve of the ’98 election campaign. The way the Auditor-General tells it, someone must have pulled a pricetag out of the hat because there had been no studies, not even a precise laying out of the route. The pricetag read $179 million. Once studies were done, the projected cost became $530 million. No matter, the government set the budget at $345 million.

And when contracts were signed, there was no provision to pay for such details as the de-contamination of lands once used as a dump, through which the tunnel would be dug. Details, details. What’s another $3.3 million.

The new government has no choice but to proceed. As Transport Minister Yvon Marcoux said, “the tunnel is dug”. At minimum, the line will now cost $809 million before it’s opened in 2007.

The millions that were mismanaged, badly spent, or otherwise poured down the drain on these two dossiers alone make the federal sponsorship scandal look like the work of amateurs.

He and his three seatmates have been given virtually no time to ask questions or participate in debate anyway. ADQ does not have official parliamentary status and the PQ in particular, which once wooed and courted ADQ when it suited its sovereignty strategy, sees no reason to be magnanimous now.

For a few minutes last week though, Dumont thought non-partisanship might prevail.

Jacques Dupuis, the minister responsible for parliamentary reform, introduced a bill that would, among other things, lower the threshold for third parties to get official status. If passed, it would give ADQ more speaking time and more research money, as befits a party which received more than 18 per cent of the popular vote.

Dumont proposed this specific measure be voted upon right away. Both the government and the PQ refused. So much for parliamentary reform. Mario is now going to court to find justice.

But at least the early adjournment gives Dumont time to offer free advice about Quebec politics to federal Conservative leader Stephen Harper who, if elected, would scrap official bilingualism, throw out the commitment to reduce greenhouse gases as called for by the Kyoto Accord, gut federal spending on Canadian cultural institutions, let the national airline disappear, toughen up the young offenders’ law, and support US military adventures.

His free advice could be to tell Harper that the National Assembly supported Canada’s non-intervention in Iraq, argued for less punitive young offenders’ legislation, contributed to building a vibrant culture industry, voted to follow guidelines to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, and preserved bilingual services in health and social services, even under the PQ government.

And of course, the Liberals didn’t mind either. The early getaway allowed them to avoid hostile questions about the 32 demerging towns. It also lets them deal quietly with other tough issues that are pending – Hydro Quebec’s proposed Suroît natural gas power project, Kanesatake, underwater seismic testing in the Gulf of St. Lawrence, and Alcoa’s major aluminum expansion project.

There are salary and pay equity negotiations with 550,000 public employees. Last week, Treasury Board President Monique Jérôme-Forget put her cards on the table. The money she’s offering is about half what the unions are looking for.

It’s moving ahead with analysis of a first wave of public-private partnerships (PPPs), and has tabled legislation to create an agency with the mandate to examine PPP possibilities for every government service.

Environment minister Thomas Mulcair re-opened a debate over bulk water exports, despite a ban imposed by a law adopted in 2001.

And come fall, the Premier will have to call three by-elections to replace Russell Williams, Marc Bellemare, and now Christos Sirros. Sirros will probably get an overseas appointment, but his departure, after 23 years as the MNA for Laurier-Dorion, leaves a void. He was one of the dwindling number of MNAs on the socially progressive side of the Liberal caucus.

This column is taking a summer break. Many thanks to all of you for reading and for sending me your comments. Have a healthy, happy and worry-free summer.

In light of the election today, I was searching through some Canadian media sites looking for editorials. This article struck a chord, my area is under similar pressure, and gives a quick insight to the adage "all politics is local.". The corruption is endemic, here's hoping the voters kick them all out on their boots.

Fat chance Canada will ever be rid of it, as long as people expect the state to do them one or another sort of favor in exchange for their vote.

2 posted on 06/28/2004 4:18:16 AM PDT by goldstategop (In Memory Of A Dearly Beloved Friend Who Lives On In My Heart Forever)

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