Mayor blames social services for urban decline
During a presser Wednesday, the mayor blamed a lack of social services for the noted decline in the area around Ste‑Catherine and Berri, where Archambault is closing its original, flagship store.
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Kate
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Ian 22:10 on 2023-02-15 Permalink
Always somebody else’s fault.
DeWolf 00:56 on 2023-02-16 Permalink
What would you have our all-powerful mayor do, Ian?
Ian 08:32 on 2023-02-16 Permalink
Something other than pass the buck?
When the mayor or any other elected official opts to voice their sympathy but blame others for the lack of action – or my personal favourite, their claims of powerlessness – that is just virtue signalling. They get to look like they are on the right side of the history, but “unable” to take any real action. This is the same tactic they use in “dealing” with gentrification, homelessness, AirBnB, police profiling, etc.
What would I have our our all-powerful mayor do? Either take concrete, meaningful action or shut up.
DeWolf 12:12 on 2023-02-16 Permalink
None of the issues you mention are unique to Montreal, and they’re all complex problems that require coordination between multiple levels of government and public institutions. Every major city in North America is dealing with precisely those issues and I’m not aware of any having success. Police abuse, housing unaffordability, gentrification, homelessness – it’s happening in Toronto, NYC, Chicago, Vancouver, LA, SF, Seattle, etc. etc. etc., and they’re all struggling as much or more than we are.
Which means you’re holding the mayor to an impossibly high standard. Either that or your blind hatred of Projet Montréal and Plante is leading you to overlook the basic truth of politics, which is that talking is what politicians do. The mayor of Montreal literally doesn’t have the power to solve this on her own, so she needs to make statements blaming the provincial government if she expects anything to get done, because the provincial government holds all the cards. It’s not passing the buck, it’s how politics are done in the broken Canadian system.
Ian 19:26 on 2023-02-17 Permalink
Ok so let’s look at things directly in the city’s power, like enforcing the bylaws that AirBnB can only be on commercial streets. No enforcement.
Idling trucks are illegal let alone parked at every corner in mixed residential neighbourhoods.
No enforcement.
Defunding the police and funding groups that support the homeless especially downtown? Record police budget increases instead.
Fighting gentrification by introducing a vacancy tax? Nope, scared of developer lawyers (or maybe just paid off).
I could go on if you like. I’m not expecting Plante to fix the world’s problems but the “my hands are tied so accept my empty sympathies” routine is beyond disingenuous at this point and fully into dishonesty if not outright evasive lying.
Ian 21:11 on 2023-02-17 Permalink
Addendum:
I am a leftist progressive. When they first came on the scene, PM appealed to me on that level in a very obvious way, especially compared to Coderre & his crew that appeared to just do what they wanted, catering to business. It felt like more of the same brown envelopes business.
Despite my misgivings about how Piper Huggins got hustled out & the already evident bullying behaviour from Norris & Ferrandez, I voted for PM – and in the next election they cleaned up in the Plateau. I voted Plante for mayor when she ran. Only in this last election, seeing how they have squandered their momentum and time in office did I realize that Projet Montreal are seriously full of crap and we have been utterly betrayed by them.
PM also just does what they want. If it coincidentally fits within your worldview, congrats – but they won’t try to do anything that is too complicated, requires studies, puts them at risk politically, or steps on anyone’s bureaucratic feet. When I asked on Facebook about traffic studies in the Plateau for street closures vs bus routes Rabouin gleefully informed me that they don’t do studies at all, they go with popular consensus – meaning what they think is right and what their core supporters think is right. They literally subscribe to Richard Florida, are shooting from the hip, and do not care at all about you if they do not perceive you as a core voter – especially as voter turnout is ridiculously low.
They know that if they can cater to that sweet 19% (52% of the 36.87% turnout) they can do what they want. That said, in several boroughs even though they still won, it was by a smaller margin than last time. If everyone got out and voted, the politicians would actually have to put some effort into defending their platforms, advocating for their electorate, and actually enacting change.
Claiming that the mayor doesn’t have power to enact change so we should give her a free pass to talk shit and do nothing contributes to voter disenfranchisement. I don’t think it’s true! Even if our mayor & her crew has been dialling it in for a couple of terms knowing nobody will bother to vote them out as long as they talk a good game, municipal politicians can do all kinds of stuff if they put their mind to it – not just low-hanigng fruit like bulb-outs and bike paths.