Pierre Poilievre’s polarizing rhetoric will do nothing to improve cohabitation with the vulnerable in Montreal. But downplaying citizens concerns as Mayor Valérie Plante’s administration has been doing is not helpful, either.
Federal Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre brought his wedge politics to Montreal last week, holding a press conference in a park near a controversial supervised injection site in St-Henri.
Poilievre was clearly intent on stirring the pot on a hot-button issue that is dividing this neighbourhood and many others in Montreal. As homelessness, addiction and mental-health issues rise in the city, a crisis of cohabitation has erupted, straining the limits of tolerance.
The concerns of Montrealers are real and legitimate. But the federal opposition leader’s hysterical hyperbole was supremely unhelpful. Whipping fear into frenzy, vilifying the vulnerable and ignoring best practices in public health is not going to solve a thing.
However, downplaying problems and offering false assurances — like the Plante administration has been doing as it struggles to address social scourges spreading far beyond the core — is also unproductive.
But opening the facility steps from École Victor Rousselot and a small park bearing the same name was disastrous planning. Young children have witnessed brawls, haranguing and even sex acts. Neighbours have been assaulted. Drug paraphernalia has been left littering the street.
At best, these files have been mishandled. At worst, they have stoked reactionary fears about similar projects elsewhere in Montreal.
Worries have spread to Rosemont over a project to put an emergency shelter in Église Ste-Bibiane. Local residents sought to gather 5,000 signatures to force public hearings, but the city raised the bar to 15,000, triggering anger.
The Plante administration has been standing firm on moving ahead with these plans, arguing that as homelessness and vulnerability spread to every part of Montreal, services must follow. And they are correct about that unfortunate reality. But ramming things through without a strategy to foster coexistence fails to build crucial social acceptance.
The Office de consultation publique de Montréal examines planning matters, like how the old Blue Bonnets site or the lands in the Peel Basin should be redeveloped. But hearings have also been useful in lowering the temperature on heated social issues, like systemic racism. They allow citizens to voice their frustrations. But they also buy city hall time to mobilize support from various stakeholders to provide cover for unpopular decisions.
Time is of the essence. Human tragedies are unfolding by the day.
Two dead bodies have been found in as many weeks in the Milton Park neighbourhood, Radio-Canada reported, the first in an advanced state of decomposition.
More services must be set up across the city to address the humanitarian catastrophe of homelessness. But the city must also use common sense to avoid upsetting the tranquility of neighbourhoods, jeopardizing residents’ quality of life and undermining citizens’ sense of security.