CODERRE’S BILLION-DOLLAR DREAM
Bill Browstein asks: Will mayor be waking up in a cold sweat before November vote?
It was a dream. Actually, it was a nightmare. I blame the tequila.
Mayor Denis Coderre was holding a press conference atop Mount Royal. Not far from the famed cross.
Beaming from ear-to-ear, he announced that he and his advisers were so buoyed by public reaction to the city’s 375th birthday bash that they decided another party was in order for 385.
Why 385? Simple, the mayor said: When you add all the numbers together, it comes out to 7 — his lucky number.
As for the plans, he pointed out that while the recent microburst had wreaked havoc on trees in parts of the city, the granite stumps on Mount Royal had emerged completely intact. Therefore, he and his peeps had decided to go beyond stumps and erect granite trees on the mountain.
But what about the real trees, one reporter meekly asked. They would have to come down before another storm brought them down for good, the mayor said. In the long run, he added, it would be a huge cost savings to the city as there would be next to no maintenance with these granite facsimiles.
The mayor wasn’t finished yet. He also announced that, based on popular demand and consultation with at least three restaurant owners, the Formula E race would run from one end of Ste-Catherine St. to the other, and it would only cost the city $50 million, not counting the concrete dividers with ‘Montreal’ embossed on them.
The mayor still wasn’t finished. While mentioning that a release was imminent about a Major League Baseball team coming to Montreal, he was also going after NFL and NBA franchises for the city, and that all the teams would play in a massive stadium to be built on Fletcher’s Field. Depending on the weather, the stadium roof could be open or closed. Cost would be a mere $3 billion, but he was certain the federal and provincial governments would help defray most of the costs.
I woke up in a cold sweat. The scary thing was that until the business about constructing a multi-purpose stadium on Fletcher’s Field, the dream — nightmare — didn’t seem so far-fetched.
Face it, fellow citizens, this 375th anniversary year has been utterly bizarre and surreal. Where to begin? Where to stop, more likely, because this party ain’t over yet. Then again, it could come to a screeching halt for the mayor in November with the municipal elections.
Not that citizens need reminding, but this 375th bash will come in with a price tag at close to a preposterous $1 billion. That sum would be way out of whack even for a normal anniversary like a 350- or a 400-year milestone. And who celebrates threequarter century anniversaries anyway?
Even that’s a joke. According to Louise Pothier, the chief archeologist at the Pointe-à-Callière Museum, humans have been around Montreal for anywhere from 4,000 to 5,000 years.
One of the best lines to emanate from July’s Just for Laughs fest came from Mohawk Girls star Brittany LeBorgne: “375 years — how adorable. My people have been here thousands of years. Thank you for saving us from our utopian nightmare.” So what did $1 billion beget: Granite stumps. The lighting of the Jacques Cartier Bridge. Extreme snowmobile stunts downtown. A walkway from the mountain to the river, with Adirondack chairs in which to rest our wearied butts along the way. The Formula E race. The NomadFest Urban Rodeo, which is so much part of our cultural heritage. And other spectacles too numerous to mention.
Forget the lunacy aspect to some of these events, it’s the outrageous cost factor. We paid $24 million for a Formula E race that other cities got gratis. Plus, there was the added millions of concrete dividers with ‘Montreal’ embossed on them — which, apparently, explained why the city couldn’t use existing dividers. Not only did the race disrupt business and traffic in parts of the city, it would appear that attendance was much bolstered by free tickets doled out to those inconvenienced.
Although there has yet to be an announcement on actual ticket sales or, for that matter, the final cost of the event, the mayor has already made it clear the race will take place on the same site for the next two years. This in spite of the fact that an E race on Circuit Gilles Villeneuve would seem to make far more sense and be far less disruptive.
But Coderre won’t back down. Despite protests from many quarters, he was hell-bent, too, on holding the urban rodeo — whose attendance on the weekend was also much bolstered by free tickets given to city employees.
Suffice to say, there is a lack of transparency or accountability coming out of the mayor’s office. He does it his way. Much like another Montreal mayor, Jean Drapeau, who also dreamt rather grandly. But in spite of excessive cost overruns and corruption, Drapeau did put the city front and centre on the world stage with Expo 67 and the 1976 Olympic Games. It was his vision that also brought about our métro system and Place des Arts.
It’s also highly doubtful Drapeau would have gone for granite stumps.
Yet regardless of the mountains of criticism he faced, Drapeau was a nearly unstoppable force of urban nature and ended up serving 29 years as mayor. As one pundit would note back then, everybody hated Drapeau — except the voting public.
In spite of his billion-dollar gamble and constant criticism, Coderre is counting on a similar reaction when citizens go to the polls in November. We shall see soon enough.
It seems that some folks’ notion of delusional behaviour is seen as populist by others. Look no farther than to the land mass to the south of us for proof of that.
Suffice to say, there is a lack of transparency or accountability coming out of the mayor’s office.