Parties wither, rules change
Minorities urged to participate more
Montreal’s city council is amending its rules to accommodate a surge in the number of independent councillors, as the city’s political landscape experiences major shifts in its topography spurred by corruption allegations.
At the same time, the city’s only black councillor has presented a motion encouraging the participation of more people of colour in municipal politics. Only four out of 208 councillors serving Montreal and its demerged suburbs are members of a visible minority.
On Thursday, city council announced it is amending its rules of procedure following last month’s changes. Once composed almost exclusively of three political parties, there are now 17 independent city councillors, representing nearly 30 per cent of council. The exodus occurred after Gérald Tremblay was forced to resign as mayor on Nov. 5 once allegations of corruption involving his Union Montreal party surfaced.
Just under half of Union Montreal’s councillors left the party soon afterwards to sit as independents. Since councillors have until the end of this year to quit their party in order to have research budgets in the range of $10,000 delivered directly to them, it’s predicted there may be more defections.
Under the changes, each party leader will be accorded equal time for interventions and more time will be allotted in Question Period for independent councillors. Harmonious until now, independent councillor Marvin Rotrand said Monday’s council meeting will serve as the litmus test to whether the new coalition-style government can get along.
Meanwhile, Frantz Benjamin, who is of Haitian origin and one of only two visible minorities on Montreal’s 63-member city council (the other is Alan DeSousa), has presented a motion to council asking it to reflect on the small number, given that census data shows 25 per cent of Montrealers are visible minorities. Benjamin noted as well that only three out of 103 of all the city and borough councillors are visible minorities, and only one out of 105 councillors from the demerged suburbs is a member of a visible minority.
“More must be done to attract and recruit candidates from visible minority communities,” Benjamin said. “Council must reflect its population and give hope to new communities that have established themselves on our territory.”