Saint-Leonard residents fed up with city for not protecting borough from flooding

A borough city council meeting in Saint-Leonard got heated as residents responded to Montreal’s response to persistent flooding in recent years.

Residents shouted at Saint-Leonard city councillors and Ensemble Montréal borough mayor Michel Bisonnet throughout the meeting.

“You got to spend money on what is necessary to support 92-year-old people that are living on that street, Belmont, that have the backflow,” resident Mark Anthony Cerello said at the microphone. “The cost-benefit analysis is inertia. You’re not doing anything.”

Belmont Street has been particularly hard hit and residents again suffered serious flooding on July 13.

Saint-Leonard West city councillor Dominic Perri said a study from the engineering firm CIMA+ found that the main water collection station on Langelier Boulevard needs to be increased two to five times, and that he was successful in getting $151 million earmarked for the project, but that it is “not acceptable” that he has been told the project won’t start for five years.

“We have succeeded in getting the money, but we cannot touch for five years,” said the opposition councillor. “This is not acceptable. It is most likely these people will be flooded again. The project eventually has to be done because climate change is here to remain. The costs will be higher.”

Montreal Mayor Valérie Plante said after the July 13 flooding that the city is investing in underground infrastructure, sponge parks, and other solutions.

She said the situation is more complicated and her team is considering everything that can be done.

The opposition party does not agree.

“This administration has shown not to prioritize this collector and I’m going to do that,” said Ensemble Montréal leader Soraya Martinez Ferrada. “I’m going to give the mandate to execute it.”

The city told CTV News on Tuesday that it has earmarked $599 million in the 2025 budget to improve water infrastructure and wants to increase the water retention capacity by more than 100,000 m3.

“It is important to remember that no network is designed to capture such large amounts of rain in such a short period of time,” said spokesperson Hugo Bourgoin.

“That is why the City of Montreal is implementing several measures to become more resilient to climate change and the increasing frequency of rainfall that exceeds the capacity of any municipality’s sewer system. These measures include the creation of sponge parks, which divert street runoff and, during heavy rains, absorb large volumes of water, thereby reducing the risk of flooding in buildings in the area.”

In addition to the 17 sponge parks which are being developed, the city said 14 more projects are planned.

Cerello blamed “the green scam” for aggravating the situation.

“The city of Saint-Leonard, where I grew up, in 1963, has been suffering from the same issues, and the politicians are not addressing the same issues of why we have sewage back up every storm that we have, whether it’s a big storm, a medium storm or a horrific storm,” said Cerello.

“I’m directly blaming Mrs. Plante. Her administration does not care about the young people. They care about sustainability and the green scam.”

RE/MAX real estate broker Mario Conte has lived in the borough for more than three decades and is tired of hearing the same concern being voiced without solutions from politicians. He said the problem dates well before Plante was in office and has spanned multiple mayoral terms.

“The residents are fed up,” he said. “I mean, it’s years. It’s about 25 to 30 years. It’s a question of floods. They’re promised certain things, and nothing is happening. They’re living all this stress every time it rains, the elderly people, and it’s just getting from bad to worse.”

Conte also questioned whether the problem lies entirely with climate change.

“Is it climate change? Is it the over-construction? Is it the condo towers that are soliciting our drainage system?” he said.

Perri said he understands his residents’ complaints and hopes more will be done soon.

“I sympathize with them because many of them got flooded twice last year and this year again, and what is really not acceptable is that more than four years ago, I asked the administration of Projet Montréal in Montreal to do something about the continued, repeated flooding ... we have in Saint-Leonard,” said Perri.