Green Party has best platform for Montreal Island

It wants tolls, taxes on sprawl and kilometres of tram lines

HENRY AUBIN, The Gazette
Published:  Saturday, March 24, 2007

Now that the provincial parties are done pitching their ideas, it's time to focus on a key question: Which party would do the most to move Montreal Island forward?

I'm not suggesting this matter should necessarily be uppermost in local voters' minds. Still, it's a useful question.

In answering it, let's ignore each party's electability and focus only on its record and stated intentions. The answer might surprise you. It did me.

Let's proceed by elimination, starting with the Liberals. Their government deserves credit for maintaining political stability here, which has helped the local economy. But it is also intimately linked to the island's dismaying immobilisme.

The government has delayed construction of the two big hospitals. It has committed itself to maintaining the public-transit system only, not to improving it (aside from the Laval metro). It has flouted the spirit of Kyoto by allowing car-dependent urban sprawl, and it plans highways that would boost that trend.

As well, the Liberals' new budget gives the island, which has 24 per cent of Quebec 's population and more than its share the province's poverty, just 17 per cent of the $825 million assigned to economic-development projects across the province. Finally, the government has responded only tepidly to Mayor Gerald Tremblay's desperate request for new revenue sources.

As for the Parti Quebecois, give it credit for more sensitivity to Montreal . PQ leader Andre Boisclair said this week he'd give Montreal taxing powers to rival those that Ontario gave Toronto on Jan. 1. While Tremblay, a Liberal, did not formally endorse the PQ, he hailed Boisclair for his "courage" and for his "understanding" of the city.

The PQ also speaks of improving public transit. However, the only specific project it supports is a train from Brossard to downtown via the ice bridge. This would be of slim benefit to the island. Like the Liberal Party, the PQ is also big on Highway 25, which would spur sprawl in Laval and the North Shore .

What counts most against the PQ is its referendum on sovereignty. Experience shows it would repel investments, lower property values and deter immigration. So scratch the PQ from the list. Same for goes for Quebec solidaire because of its economically toxic sovereignist and left-wing agenda.

Action democratique du Quebec caters more to rural regions than the city. Still, the ADQ would take two positive steps. First, it would replace the island's agglomeration council (as well as Longueuil's) with a democratic structure. Second, it would give Montreal new sources of revenue, perhaps part of Quebec 's sales tax.

What argues against the party is its desire to to seek a constitution for the "autonomous state of Quebec " and negotiate "equal to equal" with Ottawa to gain undefined powers. This could produce enough turbulence to harm investment and jobs.

That leaves us with the Green Party of Quebec.

Isn't it sovereignist? No. Its leader, Scott McKay, is, but the party itself is neutral on constitutional issues. Were the National Assembly to vote on holding a referendum, each of the party's MNAs would vote according to the prevailing opinion in the MNA's riding. For example, the candidate in Westmount-St. Louis, Patrick Daoust, says if federalist sentiment in the riding were as intense then as it is now he'd vote against.