Quebec wants to redistribute decision-making power from Montreal to suburbs

Montreal Mayor Valérie Plante at a news conference. (CTV)

François Legault’s government is going ahead with a promise from its 2018 campaign to give suburbs more power within the Communauté métropolitaine de Montréal (CMM), and away from the metropolis.

Minister of Municipal Affairs Andrée Laforest tabled a bill to this effect Wednesday.

The CMM groups 82 municipalities around Montreal. Its council currently has 28 seats, 14 of which are held by the metropolis. Under the bill, Montreal would hold 12 of 26 council seats and three executive committee seats out of seven (instead of four out of eight).

The mayor of Montreal automatically heads the council and holds the deciding vote in case of a tie – which will not change if Bill 104 is adopted.

The Legault government said the bill reflects a demographic change in the Montreal-area as the proportion of voters dropped in the metropolis and increased in suburban cities.

Suburban mayors have been asking for more power in the agglomeration for years, saying it was “undemocratic” that Montreal held the majority decision power.

Laforest told journalists that she hopes the new seat distribution will push the cities to further collaborate.

Montreal Mayor Valérie Plante took to social media to denounce the proposed changes, saying that in the last eight years “Montreal has never used a deciding vote.”

“The government must explain its true motivations for changing the governance of the metropolitan region today,” she wrote on X.

“Instead of reforming democratic institutions without notice, the government would benefit from working on the fundamental issues that are concentrated in its metropolis.”

Luc Rabouin, Plante’s successor as head of Projet Montréal, said on Instagram that the City of Montreal always worked in collaboration with suburban cities at the CMM “to the benefit of the entire Greater Montreal Area.”

“While we face major challenges in hospitals, schools, housing, public transit, infrastructure, the government changes democratic structures,” Rabouin said.

Ensemble Montréal, the city’s official opposition, said the current administration should have had more foresight.

“How did you not see this coming and what did you do to prevent it? When did you go to Quebec and make sure we didn’t have this decision today?” said leader Soraya Martinez Ferrada at a news conference Wednesday.

She said people are leaving Montreal because of a lack of housing, particularly single-family homes, mobility issues and affordability. She also said the metropolis is being penalized for having many non-voting residents due to higher immigration levels.

Ferrada, who wants Bill 104 to be dropped, is worried Montreal’s loss of voting power will include a loss of funding, which would lead to a decrease in services.

“Services aren’t only for voters,” she said.

Suburban mayors, however, see the sunny side of the proposed changes.

“Bill 104 marks a significant step towards more equitable governance of the metropolitan region. By recognizing the structuring role of the municipalities of the southern crown, it better reflects the current reality of Greater Montreal,” said Delson Mayor Christian Ouellette in a news release.

He also said the bill will “lay the foundation” for ongoing consultation between districts regardless of who is elected to the CMM.