(web translation)

I went to the council meeting last Monday and the atmosphere of heaviness, non-transparency and reciprocal mistrust convinced me that we had to write collectively, “to you our elected representatives”, without going through the filters of Distrust of your administration to people who think otherwise. I therefore write this free opinion in La Tribune.

It has been almost four years since you, the current elected members of our municipal council, are looking for solutions to enlarge a tax base too heavy to bear for a small community. With the same impetus, you are looking to offer a quality of service that would allow families to settle in and businesses to live there adequately. You want to prospectively respond positively to the attrition and needs of an aging population as well as starting from the living forces towards the urban centres. Finally, like any municipality, you want to make the uninhabited areas profitable, enhance and modernize the housing stock. We are aware of the efforts to be made to resolve such equations, but also the extent to which it is imperative to include them in an overall plan, vision and consensus.

Throughout your mandate, you have invested a great deal of effort in supporting almost unreservedly a single project as the solution to all the problems of the municipality. You have traced and facilitated the way to the project of a single promoter owning this large flood-able space in the heart of the village. And you have spared no energy so that the vision of this promoter will make his way against the enlightened opinion of a section of the population opposing this choice.

Beyond the “democratic mechanisms” too often useful for framing hard-to-hear arguments, there has certainly been a failure on your part as to the “spirit of democracy”, given this climate of mistrust and dissent, Is set up between the supporters of different visions, those of “economy first”, on the one hand, and those of “harmonious development of the community in all its aspects” on the other. Different visions, but nevertheless reconciled if one acts as a “good father” who listens and decides from the opinions of everyone.

Since this project has gone through assemblies, meetings and higher forums, you have been deprived of the technical knowledge and insight that is as wise as your consultants, preferring to believe and bewailing that those who oppose do not want any change. And you have mostly deprived yourself of the depth of community life of these people. All in all, you thought you saved efforts and succumbed to the easy solution of an economic development that will undoubtedly have nothing durable. Who will come to buy at a high price a condo in flood zone without insurance to be able to insure against the risks?

We have just gone through a difficult spring at the national level, due to the main subject of the dispute, namely the construction of several 3- to 5-storey buildings totalling some 210 condos in a flood zone. What Quebec, like governments, would have had to make you think a little farther and listen more seriously to the solid arguments of some of the opponents who had been ringing the bell for a long time.

Worse, you did not “plan” or imagine your municipality other than through this idea of ​​”mass of condos”, probably lucrative for the promoter, but how risky for the future of the community. You have not done the exercise to look more closely at it and to come up with a general vision acceptable to everyone and to which the municipal gestures would be subjected in the years to come. Nevertheless, there are experiments in this respect to address the same concerns as the municipality.

Now that the Government of Quebec is proposing to review its policy with regard to flood zones, instead of going to ask to be the exception to the rule, it may be time to take some cautious steps on the side of your constituents And to take back the reins of the development of your municipality with a more open attitude, more respectful of what it is fundamentally and more inclusive of the ideas that are there. You have the opportunity to become the elected representatives of all the world and not those of a single promoter. Instead of stumbling, why not open up a real dialogue between all (young people, old people, shopkeepers, retired people, young families, etc.) so that new avenues of development can be sought and gestures made Measure our abilities, our pace and our resources? Why not look more seriously at the regrouping of the municipalities around this lake?

North Hatley, as you often rightly claim, is a jewel whose lustre must be preserved by taking advantage of both its strengths and its constraints. It is visually a heritage in itself that interventions that are too flashy and irrelevant to its delicate water environment, to its community and to the good neighbourliness of the founding cultures, could quickly tarnish.

“Small is Beautiful” applies perfectly to her case. But “Small is Beautiful” is not synonymous with refusal of evolution, modernity and economic growth.

North Hatley needs to build a long-term vision and make room for any project that will lead to a consensus achieved through genuine participatory democracy. North Hatley, like the rest of the planet, must include in this vision the fragility, protection and contribution of its ecosystems, which fortunately, by their beauty, are the spearhead of the village economy.

On the eve of an upcoming electoral event, is it possible for the city council to take responsible and concerted action with regard to the future?

Is it conceivable that the elected representatives take back control of an agenda that they have concerted with their constituents and that they respond directly and without filter to the questions that will inevitably be transmitted to them?

Is it conceivable that the elected representatives really mediate between all the interests and the forces involved?

There is a lot to be done here and there is a relay to pass on to young people who will see things in the light of other models and whose main concern for survival will necessarily take into account the environment.

Democracy is not a heartbreaking game that must be played every four years. It is an exercise that takes place day by day, often in confrontation, in the search for compromise and in respect for ideas and differences.

Vincent Ranallo, North Hatley

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