PLANTE HITTING HER STRIDE AS MAYOR
Second budget puts her stamp on the city, focuses on families, mobility, environment
The sun made a fleeting appearance Thursday as Mayor Valérie Plante strode up to the Grand Quai in the Old Port, the city skyline as a backdrop, to present her administration’s second budget. As she walked arm in arm with executive committee chairman Benoît Dorais before a phalanx of cameras for the big budget photo op, the spring seemed to have returned to the typically effervescent Plante’s step. After a long and sometimes difficult first year in office, the $5.7 billion 2019 budget signals Plante is putting her stamp on the city and hitting her stride as mayor. “This one is our budget,” she said during a question and answer period later. And indeed, it is one forged in Projet Montréal’s image. It focuses on matters like mobility, families and the environment. There is $89 million for bike infrastructure, including cycling lanes and the development of long-distance corridors. There is $10.3 million to fund affordable housing, extra money for Montreal’s home ownership program and more for renovation grants. There is more than $100 million for sprucing up parks, both big and small. There is $60 million to acquire green space. All of this is financed by an average 1.7 per cent hike for residential property taxpayer and an unprecedented reduction on the first $500,000 of assessed value for non-residential taxpayers. This means a much-needed break for the kind of mom-andpop shops that are the cornerstone of Projet Montréal’s vision for local economic development and vibrant neighbourhoods. The budget is exactly what you’d expect from Projet Montréal. Unsurprising no-brainer though it may appear, getting there was not so obvious. It came after what Plante recently admitted was a steep learning curve for her as mayor. Certainly it’s a long way from the political debacle of her administration’s first budget. The average 3.3 per cent tax hike for residential property taxpayers came with a disingenuous assertion that it was actually lower than it looked because the water tax portion should be split out. This bromide was made harder to swallow for a skeptical public by the fact that these increases were well above the rate of inflation, as Plante had promised on the campaign trail; higher than average for homeowners in many boroughs; and higher still for non-residential taxpayers like businesses. The failed spin landed with a loud thud. It also cast a huge shadow over the normally sunny Plante’s first few months in office. In one sense, this budget is like an act of contrition for last year’s rookie mistakes. The average residential property tax increase is hewn to inflation and there is even relief for beleaguered small businesses. But more notably, the source of 67.5 per cent of the city’s revenue is now more transparent. The increases will actually come from borough taxes, water taxes, a special road levy and a dedicated contribution to the Autorité régionale de transport métropolitain, which runs public transit in the greater Montreal area. In fact, the general residential property tax rate is not going up at all in Montreal. The spin doctors could have urged Plante and Dorais to crow about a zero per cent residential property tax hike, but they’ve clearly learned their lesson when it comes to clear communication. Now that Plante has vowed not to “play the mayor,” as she put it in a recent interview, she has freed herself to be the kind of mayor she’s always wanted to be. In that sense this budget pushes forward the Projet Montréal platform and plays to the party’s urban, progressive, environmentally conscious base. For instance, with $6.4 billion worth of capital investments planned for the next three years, Plante said when streets are torn up, they won’t necessarily be configured the same way they were before. Wider sidewalks, greenery and bike lanes will be installed in many cases, so that the city is transformed into a greener, safer, more modern space in the process. In keeping with the party’s belief in decisions being taken and services being delivered close to the population, borough budgets are also being boosted. And though the city no longer directly funds the Société de transport de Montréal (this is done now through the ARTM), there is money for major transit projects: $8.3 million for the Réseau express métropolitain; $6.5 million on preparatory work for the extension of the métro’s Blue Line; and $1 million for the new city bureau studying a new Pink Line, Plante’s signature promise. Budgets are, after all, as much about politics as they are about financial planning. And in that sense this one is a demonstration that Plante is getting into her groove as mayor.