May 27, 1999 

Louis Roquet, a little more than five years ago, was the Director-General of the MUC. And a good one, I might add. He was lured away by Jean Doré to become the Director-General of the City of Montreal. Next thing you know, Doré was turfed out as mayor. In comes Bourque, who promptly dumps Roquet, saying Montreal doesn't need a Director-General, anyway. He'll simply have all the department heads report to the politicians directly. That's a bit like the vice-presidents in a company reporting to the board of directors. In this case, the chairman. Now, just about every city in North America has a D.G., except they (correctly) call them city managers. In fact, Westmount was the first city in Canada to hire one - in 1912, I think.

Under increasing pressure - possibly from Quebec - Bourque finally decided to re-establish the position of Director-General. But where to get one? Why, back at the old hunting ground, the MUC. By that time, the MUC had promoted Gérard Divay to D.G. So Bourque does a Doré by poaching Divay from the MUC and installing him as D.G. of Montreal. Well, that, too, didn't last too long. Divay had the misfortune to take his new job seriously and in November 1998 wrote a scathing report on the state of management at City Hall. He called its organizational vision dysfunctional, archaic, and sclerotic. So Bourque dealt with the problem, right enough. He fired Divay.

Divay is not alone in his views. Even the city's auditor recently sent off rockets. The Bédard report also raises serious questions about Montreal's management, but that doesn't stop the authors from recommending annexations to Montreal. By the time you read this, Bourque will have given his formal reaction to the Bédard report. I'm sure he'll once again plump for "one island, one city". Now, even Agnès Gruda, herself a fan of amalgamation, has written in La Presse that annexations should not proceed until Montreal gets its house in order.

How bad are things? Well, for starters, Montreal spends 35% more per capita to provide local (that is, non-MUC) services than the rest of the Island cities. If you think that's worrisome, how about this: Montreal has about 11,000 employees. (They don't really know for sure. And a whole bunch are paid to do nothing.) Now, that's 10.9 people per 1000 citizens. The rest of the cities have 6.9. Therefore, Montreal has 60% more employees per citizen! And I'll leave you to judge whether we're talking the same quality of services.

"One island, one city" means folding the MUC and all Island cities into the City of Montreal. Montreal would see its budget expand from $1.8 billion to $4.1 billion. The number of employees would grow to 23,000 - all reporting, naturally, to Bourque. If the MUCTC were counted in, that's 30,000 all told.

Many studies, some even quoted by Bédard, confirm there are no economies of scale following municipal mergers. In the case of amalgamation with Montreal, there would not only be diseconomies of scale, but mismanagement of scale. God help us.

13 May Menu page

• Menu of Trent's Stories
  
  
• September 3, 1998 SOUND BEGETS FURY
  
• 2 Oct TAXATION BY MISREPRESENTATION
  
• 12 OCT on $500,000,000 TAX GRAB Tax grab turns into burlesque
  
• 16 OCT A MEETING WITH BOUCHARD
  
• Apr 8 MEGACITY MANIA - PART II
  
• March 21, 1999 GAZETTE EDITORIAL
  
• May 13 PARTS OF IT ARE EXCELLENT