The municipal merger question resurfaces
Words like amalgamation, merger, fusion or unification can cause some to be nervous whenever they are uttered around here. By around here, I speak of the four municipalities that span north, south, east and west on the island of Île-Perrot, namely the municipalities of Terrasse-Vaudreuil, Pincourt, Notre-Dame-de-l’Île-Perrot and Île-Perrot itself.
Why? Because the mere mention of any potential municipal merger between these towns draws comparisons to examples of failed and failing merged communities elsewhere.
Agree or disagree, even nearby Montreal might provide enough proof that bigger does not always mean better when it comes to municipal reorganization. After the forced mergers of municipalities on that island in 2002, a number of communities later demerged yet exist under an agglomeration council whereby some services are still shared, such as Montreal’s police and firefighting departments.
Whether you agree with the concept of potentials for cost sharing and for possible cost savings between towns, the fact is what actually occurs under mergers is a loss of autonomy and a loss of local decision-making authority where and when it truly matters. You understand then that any talks of losing the ability to control ones destiny might cause unrest and that any notion of one island, one city for the towns of Île-Perrot would likely have most citizens running scared.
Having lived through and witnessed a merger of three smaller municipalities in the Eastern Townships in the 1990s myself, I can attest to the potential for failings in terms of how services can be negatively affected, and how, despite promises, better economic stability and economic growth were actualized. In fact, ever since, the merged town continues to decline.
At a recent annual supper gathering of L’Association des gens d’affaires de L’Île-Perrot, or AGAIP, local mayors of the four towns of Île-Perrot were in attendance to offer insight into future and ongoing local area projects and programs.
While being questioned about important issues such as economic development, tourism and transport, the subject of mergers resurfaced via a local citizen who wanted to know when a municipal fusion might occur.
Notre-Dame Mayor Danie Deschênes responded by saying that a collaborative model under the Vaudreuil-Soulanges regional county umbrella is favoured and that any municipal merger would carry significant costs for individual towns.
She later noted that she is opposed to the idea of mergers, which she considers to be an outdated option.
Another potentially contentious issue for anglophones is that Pincourt has official bilingual status under Quebec’s language charter while the other three towns don’t.
Does the notion of a potential merger of the four towns on ÎlePerrot worry you, as it does me? How would you vote if a referendum on the issue were to be held today?