Vote as if your future depends on it...because the future is here by Beryl Wajsman, Publisher facebook/BerylWajsman There is no hiding the fact that Decision 2013 is one of the most difficult in decades. There is no hiding the fact that there have been disappointments leading up to this election. But there is one message for you today about the Montreal mayoralty race. Your vote counts, more than ever. This may be the most important Mayor’s race since Jean Doré replaced the retiring Jean Drapeau. The priorities of the new Mayor may very well determine Montreal`s viability for a generation. This election is not about language or culture. It`s about economics. Yes it is important that we elect a Mayor capable of championing Montreal`s diversity at the bargaining table with Quebec. But just as important will be the ability of the new Mayor to attract money back to this city on the national and international stages. This year Montreal achieved two sad firsts. Dead last out of the twenty-two largest North American urban centres in economic growth. And, along with Detroit and Sacramento which have both had their dates with bankruptcy, Montreal is now paying more civil servants not to work (retired) than to work. Retired civil servants are now receiving their pensions at an age younger than ever before. It is no longer tenable. Three consecutive rounds of the largest percentage business and property tax increases in North America attest to that. It must be fixed and fixed quickly. Small business can’t survive. Downtown`s average $50 a square foot business tax has led to more empty storefronts in the heart of Quebec`s economic engine than at any time since Doré. In some areas vacancies are over 20%. A few are over 30%. Property tax increases have ruined retirements of seniors from Montreal`s east-end through to the West Island. Hard-working, honest people who thought they`d have a roof for the rest of their lives after paying off mortgages, now find they have a new partner. The municipalities. It`s not right, nor justifiable. Not when a quarter of our budget goes to institutionalized vote-buying through the `Loisirs et culture`budgetary envelope and the waste of money at the Agglo council as detailed by TMR`s Mayor Philippe Roy in this past week. Getting people their lives back must be job one for the new Mayor. If the new administration does not get this issue under control, Montreal`s current sub-poverty line population of 34% will skyrocket and homelessness will become a pandemic. It is also true that almost a decade ago the island of Montreal became majority allophone and anglophone. The city of Montreal is more than 45% allophone and Anglophone. That reality too must be reflected in the purposes and priorities of the new Mayor. Particularly so in negotiating with Quebec. This city is some 60% of Quebec`s GDP. That point must be driven home like a battering ram to Quebec over and over again. For Montreal to achieve economic progress, we need a Mayor who will make it clear to Premier Marois to a certainty, that Montreal is no longer available as a battlefield for renewed separatist or cultural conflict. A Mayor with the courage to withdraw this city`s consent to the enforcement of banal law and legislation. Economic renaissance also requires the next Mayor to stop the war on cars and stop cutting pedestrian promenades and bicycle paths into our commercial arteries. The new Mayor must also realize that the two hour parking meter limit allows for little commercial activity to be concluded. We need it raised to at least three. And above all, the new Mayor must instill a pro-development and pro-growth culture at City Hall where “Yes” becomes the default setting for zoning and development requests instead of “NO.” Montreal’s new Mayor must recognize that statocratic rule and regulation has gone too far and is criminalizing this city’s population and threatening its future. Vote as if your future depends on it. Because it does. The future is here. And its success is by no means assured. This time, finding the upside involves not so much voting for someone who you are totally confident in, as voting for someone who can best be trusted to follow the path that is right and just. And has the resolve to follow it to the end.
Posted on: Sun, 03 Nov 2013 05:09:29 +0000
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