A holiday wish: longer library hours

The holiday season is a time when residents have more time for leisure and want to take advantage of borough facilities.

Last December and January, our borough libraries were closed for most of the two-week holiday period. Worse, the schedules provided on different communication platforms were contradictory.

My borough counts many low-income families who don’t buy books or have a chalet to go to during the holiday. If they want to read a newspaper or a magazine, most cannot afford the subscription.

Sometimes they are isolated seniors, single-parent families, people earning minimum wage or on welfare, and who cannot afford Internet services.

We are the most populous borough in Montreal and yet our weekly library hours are among the shortest on the island. Kudos to Côte-St-Luc and St-Laurent for having much longer opening hours for libraries during past holidays.

Our money is being spent for Montreal’s 375th celebration, but shouldn’t it be used for greater accessibility to libraries and other facilities? We paid more than $24 million for the Benny Library, which is part of the new Notre-Dame-de-Grâce Cultural Centre that opened in 2016.

This holiday season, I would like to suggest the borough show greater consideration to its taxpayers. The borough mayor needs to show leadership on this. Michelle Chartrand, Notre-Dame-de-Grâce