Ville-Marie wants a mayor and council
The borough of Ville-Marie never had a mayor for long. In 2008, Gérald Tremblay persuaded Quebec to ordain that the city’s mayor was automatically also the mayor of Ville-Marie, and could appoint two of its councillors as well. Now some of its residents want to undo that clause and give Ville-Marie a council and mayor like other boroughs – Projet Montréal has even promised this in the past.
It’s undeniable that residents of that large and central borough have measurably less democratic participation in the city’s governance than the rest of us, so I hope they can get this sorted before next year’s election.
I was just recalling: Tremblay removed Ville-Marie’s status as a normal borough purely to spite Benoît Labonté, remember him? It wasn’t from any theoretical view that the city’s central borough should also be the fief of the city mayor. Which is also a good argument for undoing the clause and returning the borough to normal operations.
Dominic 19:36 on 2020-08-19 Permalink
It really does suck, because there are a few times living downtown it would have been nice to reach out to my borough mayor for hyper-local issues, but its the actual mayor, so it would have been a waste of time.
Kate 19:51 on 2020-08-19 Permalink
That’s almost like having Justin Trudeau as your MP!