Montreal City Weblog

Kate 18:44 on 2020-02-04 Permalink Reply  

• Dominic 19:10 on 2020-02-04 Permalink

  This seems like a big escalation. I hope we get more details on this story, cause its putting two of my favourite local politicians at odds.

• DeWolf 19:44 on 2020-02-04 Permalink

  Montgomery was saying the NDG/CDN civil service has a problem with corruption and now the city is telling her to shut up. Sounds fishy.

• Spi 19:58 on 2020-02-04 Permalink

  Well you can’t go around insinuating that the civil service is corrupt based on nothing more than overlapping years of employment. That is damaging to morale and probably opens you up to lawsuits.

  What I find interesting is how decisive and strong the actions from city hall/Projet Montreal have been in regards to harassment both in the Fumagalli and Montgomery’s Chief of Staff, the same can’t be said about their general handling of local affairs. Makes you wonder if there isn’t a deeper problem with harassment that they’ve managed to bury that they really want to stamp out.

• Ian 21:12 on 2020-02-04 Permalink

  Sounds like Montgomery is onto something Plante doesn’t want made public. Does anyone really think corruption ended just because Applebaum finally got called out? One can at least hope under the new administration that the brown envelopes are recyclable.

• walkerp 22:45 on 2020-02-04 Permalink

  This is outrageous. Montreal is corrupt as hell. Now Plante is pulling the lawyers out if anybody says it? I am really disappointed.

• Tim S. 22:45 on 2020-02-04 Permalink

  I’m willing to believe that there’s still some corruption in Montreal. I’m not ready to believe that Valerie Plante, Lionel Perez, Marvin Rotrand, Peter McQueen, Magda Popeanu, Christian Arseneault, the comptroller, and all the borough employees are part of it, and only Sue Montgomery and Anna Lisa Harris have stumbled upon the truth. I suspect the truth is that this is a dispute among employees that has been unnecessarily personalized by Sue Montgomery, who, let’s remember, had no political or even management experience before being elected borough mayor.
  I should say, that having followed local NDG politics fairly closely, I’ve been fairly unimpressed with Sue Montgomery. In all the events and stump speeches I’ve attended, I’ve never heard her articulate a specific policy or ideological position, beyond an extremely vague and ill-defined feminism. Even during this whole episode, she hasn’t some up with any intention or project that’s been thwarted by these bureaucrats, apart from some hand waving about the Empress theatre. If she could articulate a specific policy or project that she wanted to get done but was being prevented from doing so, I might change my opinion.

• Tim S. 22:49 on 2020-02-04 Permalink

  That said, if anyone has a more positive take on Montgomery’s vision, I’m happy to hear it.

• Ian 18:32 on 2020-02-05 Permalink

  This isn’t about vision. Montgomery was a star candidate despite her lack of experience. She and Plante were good old pals right up to this point, there are lots of media appearances over the last 2 years with them grinning side by side like old buddies.

  We will probably never know what happened but saying somehow Montgomery’s lack of political platform is the real reason she is now persona non grata is ludicrous. I do hope you aren’t attempting misdirection, Tim, because that’s pretty heavy-handed.

  This is clearly a cover-up of something – what, exactly, we may never know.

• Kate 19:27 on 2020-02-05 Permalink

  I can see from the commentary here just how murky this business has become.

• Tim S. 20:10 on 2020-02-05 Permalink

  Hi Ian, I don’t think I’m trying to misdirect anything, I’m just trying to articulate the idea that, based on my observation, there’s a good chance this crisis occurred because, well, maybe she’s not very good at her job and mishandled the situation. But it’s just my guess, you can take it or leave it. As you say, we’ll probably never know.