Merger Delusion by Trent Peter F.;

Author:Trent, Peter F.;
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 3332541
Publisher: McGill-Queen's University Press
Published: 2012-08-15T00:00:00+00:00

SANCTON REDUX

Most mayors saw the situation as binary: win in court or embrace the megacity. I worked hard to change that attitude to a strategy of sniping at the enemy until the Liberal cavalry came over the hill. Our lawyers generally were not keen on our publicly playing up the Liberal demerger promise, though, as it sent a message to the courts that our situation was not so desperate and irremediable that we could possibly be rescued by other means than the hand of justice. Understandably, courts prefer to have difficulties resolved outside their halls. While this made sense, I think this self-gagging hobbled us terribly: it reinforced the myth of the binary choice. It also looked as if we did not believe in the Liberals’ promise. While Charest’s promise of demerger was popular with the public, even though paradoxically most felt he would not deliver, I had to badger most mayors into taking it seriously.

One element of this broad anti-merger strategy was to harp on the merger mess in Ontario, asking the Quebec public whether they really wanted to slide down the same slope. We set up a series of visiting speakers, starting with Andrew Sancton, who addressed the Canadian Club in early March. Sancton pointed out that in 1996 the consulting firm KPMG said the Toronto merger would save $300 million a year: the reality was far different. “While KPMG assumed all workers would receive the average wage, it forgot the unions. They chose not to accept this assumption.” This was one of the reasons the 2001 budget of the megacity of Toronto had a $305 million shortfall. And, warned Sancton, only $47 million of this had to do with the downloading of provincial responsibilities onto Toronto’s back. “The prospects for Montreal are bleak,” Sancton concluded; “Montreal Island is poised to lose one of its greatest assets: municipalities that provide all kinds of services at different costs. The present system helps keep those costs down. It helps many people feel like they are in control of their lives and their communities.”30

While the French media covered Sancton’s speech, there was nothing in the Gazette the next morning, although they sent a photographer and reporter. I called the managing editor to find out what happened. What he said upset me, especially given that his newspaper had been our only media ally in the anti-merger battle. He said, “Peter, the mood on the newsroom floor is that the battle is lost. Besides, they are fed up with the implicit anti-Quebec tone. Nothing Quebec can do seems to be any good. They want more positive stories about Quebec.” Then he said, “We don’t want to get our readership in a funk. After all, how much of the anglophone exodus in the last few decades was created by the Gazette saying ‘the sky is falling’? And at one point you have to ask, ‘What’s good for the Montreal region?’”

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