Trent quits financial review commission
Westmount Mayor Peter Trent has decided to step down as vicechairman of the Montreal agglomeration council’s financial and administrative review commission, calling it ineffective and a sham.
Trent said he felt the same way about the commission before joining it in 2010, but as president of the Association of Suburban Municipalities (ASM), he thought it was important to be on it.
“But now my patience has worn thin,” he said on Friday. “I don’t want to lend my name to this anymore.”
The Agglomeration Finance and Administration Commission is mandated to convene public consultation meetings and review financial issues of interest to both the city and the agglomeration of Montreal, but Trent said the city’s executive committee often disregards its findings.
Trent’s resignation comes roughly a month before the commission will start to review the city’s draft budget, one of its main duties.
But Trent, who boycotted the budget review last year, says he’s resigning because of the executive committee “completely ignoring” the commission’s budget recommendations year after year.
“Every year, the draft budget and the final budget are one and the same: not a comma or number has been changed,” he said on Friday.
“It’s like critiquing the ingredients of a cake that is already baked.”
The Westmount mayor said for the commission to be useful in reviewing the budget, it would need to receive it earlier than the end of October — which is around the same time the budget is made public — and be consulted on its guiding principles much earlier in the year.
But he feels the city would never do that because it doesn’t want the opposition party members on the commission learning about the budget strategy that early in the year, which he said is understandable.
The other agglomeration cities do not have a similar process in place before approving their budgets, Trent said. “It’s not necessary to have a public process. But if you’re going to say you have one, don’t let it be a (charade).”
Asked if he feels Westmount loses a voice with him resigning, Trent said he’s comfortable knowing that Beaconsfield Mayor Georges Bourelle, another ASM representative, still sits on the commission.
In a statement on Friday, Bourelle said he agrees with Trent’s reasoning, but that he decided to stay on the commission “for the sake of continuity and to retain the ASM’s right of representation.”
Montreal executive committee president Pierre Desrochers acknowledged Trent’s resignation on Friday, and thanked him for his contributions.
“But as for following up on recommendations,” Desrochers said in an email response, “the administration has responded positively to many in the past or is already acting in line with some of the recommendations raised.”