“I can handle it”: Plante on criticism
Valérie Plante says she can handle the criticism being dumped on her by the likes of Mathieu Bock-Côté.
I heard Lionel Perez on CBC radio Wednesday morning pontificating on how he was happy the Terrebonne bike path was being removed and how this was a lesson to do a lot of surveys and studies before making changes, yadda yadda. He, like other commentators lately, may be having wilful amnesia, or simply be making hay over an unprecedented situation, because let me remind everybody:
1. Mid-March, we realized we were faced with a pandemic
2. The implications of this, for public life, were extreme
3. City and boroughs had to make quick pivots to ensure public life was safe and livable for residents. Not all the choices made were going to be popular or effective – this is inevitable given the situation. A degree of improvisation had to be expected.
Journalists need to grasp this progression and ask critics of Plante what they would have done differently, faced with the same scenario.
I don’t think any mayor or city administration could come out of this situation without accruing some blame for a situation that was not of their making.
Spi 11:15 on 2020-09-09 Permalink
Except that not consulting local actors and residents has been a constant theme with PM from the very beginning.
Let me remind you of:
Closing of Camilien-Houde
Parking reform in Outremont
Parking vignette surtax on SUV’s in Plateau and copied in other PM boroughs.
The street closures and bike paths are simply the newest addition.
david59 11:41 on 2020-09-09 Permalink
Her mistake was not doing it early in the term so that people forgot about it by the next election.
Ian 12:07 on 2020-09-09 Permalink
If you actually live in any of the places affected it doesn’t matter – I for one will never forgive bagelgate, especially when all the demerged boroughs still get fireplaces… and that is just one of many screwups that were committed long before the pandemic.
That aside, though, I see where you are coming from, Kate but there are some pretty bad optics here. For instance on St Denis punishing merchants just coming out of long-term construction and now facing pandemic retail markets with 5 weeks of the main commercial strip being closed down on the southbound side to install the bike path? I’ll tell you one thing that could have been done differently – just paint in the bike lanes for now instead of closing the street for 5 weeks.
I get that a lot of things are unavoidable and these are also exceptional times but autocratic inflexibility being used to excuse doctrinaire agendas is transparent at best.
Joey 12:10 on 2020-09-09 Permalink
Fair enough, Kate, but the idea that Terrebonne needed unidirectional bike paths on either side to help manage the pandemic is a little far-fetched. It’s a mostly residential street in a mostly residential neighbourhood. As cycling infrastructure, it’s welcome, but it’s not really in the same category as pedestrianizing Mount-Royal or adding the corridores sanitaires on busy commercial streets. I think a lot of folks are taking issue with the use of the pandemic to accelerate the implementation of PM’s wishlist. Has anyone actually reported on whether that path is used? I’m in that hood fairly regualrly and haven’t seen much activity on it…
That being said, clearly Perez et al are using the idea of “consultations” to ensure things never change. Montrealers gave Projet an big mandate – the idea that people are stunned that *they are implementing bike lanes* doesn’t pass the smell test. If you had asked any prospective voter to name one priority for a Projet administration on election day, I doubt you’d find anyone who wouldn’t say “bike lanes.” So spare us the pearl-clutching…
@Spi I would add the egregious lying to the JMP softball community (we will restore your field, we will restore your field in a few months, we will restore your field imminently, we are destroying your field, your field is not safe, we will hold consultations on the field, oops we told the consultants leading the consultation not to speficially address the field, we will release a report on the park soon, etc.).
Jonathan 12:50 on 2020-09-09 Permalink
I had to watch 4 full ads in order to watch that interview.
walkerp 14:11 on 2020-09-09 Permalink
Mathieu Bock-Cote is a straight-up white supremacist. Trying to understand how his voice has any validity in this issue.
Jack 15:25 on 2020-09-09 Permalink
walkerp you are dead right. When I hear this guys “concerns” … immigration, multiculturalism, religious symbols, fear of a non white nation, etc. I say holy crap this guy has exactly the same “concerns” as Richard Spencer, with one key difference.
He has the entire backing of the Quebecor nation that supplies french speaking Quebecers with 70% of their media. He is a personal friend of PKP who even attended his thesis defence at UQAM. He is more important than any opinion maker in Quebec.
As for Valerie Plante , line up our last 5 mayors , including the ones that didn’t go to jail….are you serious.
walkerp 15:58 on 2020-09-09 Permalink
Thanks, Jack, for adding some substance that I was too lazy to write about.
I honestly think there is an active attack by the media right now to undermine PM. And a lot of you here are buying into it. What changed between the last election and now to change the outcome of the vote? Maybe not enough. I think what we are getting here is a conservative backlash, amplified by too powerful voices in the media. It was the same thing with Ferrandez in the Plateau and he was far more outspoken and non-consultative than Plante has been and yet he won with big majorities several times. I really don’t know enough about the mechanics of municipal elections but I will be very surprised if Plante does not win again and handily.
Ian 17:28 on 2020-09-09 Permalink
While I agree with you and that is very likely true, it doesn’t make Plante or by extension PM above criticism – nor should it!
Agreed that MB-C is a reliably ethnofascist hack with no relevant opinion and that every mayor before Plante was obviously on the take …
… still and all, it doesn’t mean that Plante should be tolerated in feeding Montrealers a line of bullshit and telling us that not only is it chocolate cake but that it’s also chock-full of vitamins.