There have been a lot of stories lately about climate change and other dire warnings of a global nature, so this week I thought I’d keep things local.
Expo-67 legacy on the chopping block
If you missed it in yesterday’s Gazette, city councillor and long time QC politicion Louise Harel told the paper that Montreal’s biosphere (that giant dome thing in Parc Jean-Drapeau) could be affected by federal cuts.
A remnant of Expo-67, the biosphere is now an environmental museum run by Environment Canada. And, like its American counterpart, the Environmental Protection Agency, it has been targeted by conservatives for funding cuts. The city holds a 25-year lease—set to expire in 2016—on the land surrounding the biosphere.
Now that Environment Canada has to cut 700 jobs in Quebec, according to the Gazette, the museum’s 25 employees may be on the chopping block. As usual, Environment Canada employees did not want to comment for the article, but it seems unlikely that the museum will shutter completely given that around 150,000 people visit it each year.
More likely is that the museum will eventually move under the umbrella of the city from the federal government, or that maybe the museum will cut down its hours.
Condos are going to take over because the City needs tax dollars
Yesterday’s Gazette also featured a lengthy meditation on the problems of condo living in Montreal—with the main problem being that our view of the Olympic Stadium and the St. Lawrence will inevitably be obscured by some new project.
Despite the downturn in the real estate market in the past few years, Montreal has 36 projects on the books. The City also changed zoning laws in April, allowing for denser projects.
In April, the city of Montreal approved new zoning that would allow developers to build higher, denser buildings in certain parts of downtown. The change was approved to facilitate the conversion of empty parking lots into towers, which bring in added tax revenues to city coffers.
Since then, three other projects exceeding 35 stories have been announced for the area around the Bell Centre, including the twin-tower Roccabella, l’Avenue and the Tour des Canadiens.
Someone needs to go out and buy the city’s planning commission copies of The Death and Life of Great American Cities, which details over 400 pages the problems with building high rise dense communities. Basically, they kill the local life around them, and often end up less integrated and less safe.
Province could take over environmental assessment, Mafia likely happy
The centre-right Coalition Avenir Québec (CAQ) party told Global Montreal that all things environment should be handled by the province, not by the federal government. Francois Legault initially said he wanted provincial power over all “federal powers and functions in environmental matters,” though the party has since side stepped to “obtain all powers over environmental impact studies” and then aim for more.
In theory, this may not be a bad idea given the current government’s love of the environment.
But let us not forget that in Quebec, decisions concerning “city planning,” “construction,” and the “environmental assessment of projects” aren’t always made with the province’s best interest in mind, but rather those of developers, who more often than not seem to have some sort of tie to organized crime or engage in other shady dealings at City Hall.
Think that sounds like paranoia? A recent poll in the Globe and Mail stated the majority of Quebeckers feel their government is corrupt. (My feelings are it doesn’t just stop with the party in power, there are way too many institutions and relationships in place to clean up with one election.)
*Photo by Idjaffe via Flickr (under a Creative Commons license)
