This is called not knowing how to choose your moment.
Published at 2:30 p.m.
As more families struggle, roads are in deplorable condition and many retailers wonder whether they will have to close their doors, the city of Montreal has decided to pay its executives a double bonus this year.
Not one, two!
It was my colleague Philippe Teiscera-Lessard who revealed this information on Friday, which the city had obviously not announced (1).
The city’s 1,873 executives, already among the highest paid in Quebec municipalities with an average annual salary of $164,000, were therefore entitled to two additional checks in 2023.
The amounts are not huge: we are talking about an average first bonus of $3,700 paid at the beginning of the year and another of $3,150 in May, for a total of around 6 million.
But the year in which such a bonus is paid out is extremely poorly chosen.
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A look back, just a few weeks, is necessary here.
In early September, the mayors of all the province’s largest cities gathered for a summit in Montreal’s Old Port. On the agenda: negotiating the next fiscal compact with the Quebec government.
The cities’ claims amount to hundreds of millions, even billions.
At this event, the President of the Executive Committee of the City of Montreal, Dominique Ollivier, spoke about the difficult decisions the metropolis will face in finalizing its next budget (2).
PHOTO ROBERT SKINNER, LA PRESSE ARCHIVE
President of the Executive Committee of the City of Montreal, Dominique Ollivier, photographed in June 2023.
I quote them: “What do we have to cut? (…) We are currently finalizing our budgets. We will have to make decisions. We will make these decisions as we have always made them, that is, by paying attention to solvency, by trying to maintain services as much as possible and by acting consistently so as not to hinder the growth of our economy . ”
The tone was dramatic and the prospect of cuts very real.
Six days later, Valérie Plante’s administration announced its major project to rehabilitate the Camillien Houde route on Mount Royal.
Bill to taxpayers: $91 million.
We have seen the same type of inconsistency on the question of public transport funding.
The Société de transports de Montréal (STM) announced last November that its deficit for 2023 would be 78 million and that it would have to reduce its services to balance the books.
Montreal has been clamoring for the Legault government to provide more money to replenish its transportation company’s coffers.
A few months later, the Plante government announced free public transportation for seniors… a measure that will cost Montrealers 40 million a year.
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The anger of Montreal taxpayers is growing with the city’s many expenses. They wonder – and with good reason – whether every dollar of public money is well spent.
One could certainly argue that asking the question also means answering it.
The government of Quebec, an important financier of the cities, is also skeptical about this double discourse of the metropolis, which on the one hand constantly demands more resources and on the other hand increases spending, which raises eyebrows.
The worst part is that Montreal and other major cities have several valid reasons for demanding more transfers to the province. Their limited tax base means they are having to take on more and more new responsibilities, particularly in relation to homelessness, social housing and climate change. The needs are urgent and glaring.
This whole story made me think of a typical Quebec expression that a good friend often says to me: “If you don’t help, don’t do any harm.” »
These days we can’t say Montreal is helping his cause.