Montreal City Weblog

Kate 13:18 on 2019-12-17 Permalink Reply  

• LJ 19:43 on 2019-12-17 Permalink

  I will not bet against you since you have a great nose for these things, but unlike almost everything Ensemble Montreal complains about, there are some very legitimate beefs here:

  Taxation without representation: Approximately half of the taxes Beaconsfield collects goes directly to Montreal, yet the citizens of Beaconsfield have no vote there.

  Double paying for services: For example, Beaconsfield residents pay tax for services like water to the City of Montreal, yet do not receive any water from there. Instead, water comes from Pointe Claire for which they are separately taxed through meters installed in every home.

  Paying high amounts for services that are practically non-existent or at least much less that paid for: This would include things like bus service, which is scant in Beaconsfield compared to just about anywhere else on the Island except perhaps for the east end, police (one can go weeks without seeing a police car and there is no police station in the City of Beaconsfield…which is OK if were not paying so much for it), and so on.

• Ginger Baker 20:37 on 2019-12-17 Permalink

  @LJ

  1. They do have a voice on the agglomeration council though, their mayor. That’s the representative. If they want more representation, their people should vote to join the central city.

  2. I don’t think the water systems are isolated from one another; I think it’s all part of one big integrated system that supplies the whole island; could be wrong though.

  3. Station 1 is literally just over the line in Kirkland and is also close to the highway. Station 3 and Station 5 are both relatively close by. There are 19,000 people in Beaconsfield and they’re all well within range of the SPVM’s West Island cop shops.

  Bus service could be ameliorated everywhere, but Beaconsfield has access to at least two principle bus lines and two train stations, as well as at least one express bus heading to Lionel Groulx.

  Thirty years ago Beaconsfield was mostly middle-class. Today it’s mostly upper-middle and upper class. It got rich, they live in a primo area, and they should pay more into the common pot. It’s not just what they directly get out of it; they can afford to pump more money into the system than what they may need from it.

  In so doing, Beaconsfield residents help maintain the social and societal equilibrium. They might not think much about who else they’re helping, but what they put in comes back in the form of maintaining their status as an elite suburb. Without the safety net provided by the city, provided by a broad tax base, they’d lose their advantage.

  And besides, they’ll be benefitting quite directly from the new West Island national park. Villeray doesn’t get that the way the West Island will.

• LJ 21:06 on 2019-12-17 Permalink

  1 – Mayors are a small minority on the agglomeration council and are routinely outvoted, their concerns never addressed. Thus it is not democratic in that sense and not a replacement for a real vote. The end result is taxation without representation.

  2 – I believe they are separate systems, and in any case, why pay twice for the same service?

  3 – Right, there is one in Kirkland, but there is no station in the City of Beaconsfield.

  For the other points, the trains as well as the express buses run essentially only during rush hour, and last train is at 9:15 PM. For many living there, walking to the nearest bus stop can easily take over half an hour, and a trip from say the Plateau back home can easily run 2.5 hours.

  I do not necessarily disagree that those more able should be paying more in taxes, but that is already taken care of with all sorts of taxes, including income taxes and yearly taxes on the value of residences, both of which are progressive taxes. I am less sure about your assessment of the wealth of those living there, it is clearly a generalization not true of everyone, for example, many retired seniors live in the area.

  Overall I believe the mayor of Beaconsfield has a strong case for over-payment of taxes, which is unfortunately unlikely to change given the unfairness of the way the agglomeration council works, which gives Montreal free rein to soak other municipalities who then have no political recourse. Hence the law suit.