Photo: Martin C. Barry
Laval mayor Gilles Vaillancourt takes questions from the media at
Parti PRO de Lavallois headquarters.

Incumbent Laval mayor Gilles Vaillancourt was at his party’s campaign headquarters last week for the official launch of their election platform, only to find himself answering journalists’ questions on recent and unrelated controversies. In the news just days before, a Radio Canada investigation had revealed evidence of bid-rigging in the processes used by municipalities in the Montreal region for awarding public works contracts. And just in the days before, a landowner in the district of Saint-François was fined $582 for cutting down a small forest in an area the City of Laval had decreed an eco-territory.

Inquiry needed, says mayor
“I don’t know more about it than you,” Vaillancourt told one journalist who recalled one of the allegations coming out of the Radio Canada investigation, that the mafia has control over a lot of the contracts given out in the Montreal region. “If that’s the case then an appropriate police inquiry would be in order,” said the mayor. “I think that for the moment there are some police inquiries underway and I think that we must let those police investigators do their work, and if there is reason to do something we can decide then. But I don’t know more than you.”
Asked whether more rigid regulations for the awarding of contracts might become necessary if a problem were found to exist in Laval, Vaillancourt said some previous attempts at the provincial level to change the system ended up being withdrawn. Regarding the tree cutting and the penalty imposed as a result of it, he said the fine was only one aspect and that the landowner would still be obliged to fix the damage done at a cost to be determined by the court. Vaillancourt insisted that nearly five per cent of the green space on Laval’s territory is officially protected.

Defends tree protection measures
“When you look at all the municipalities in the Montreal Metropolitan Community, and you look at the efforts they’ve made across the territory, you will see that we are a leader in this regard, because the almost five per cent that we have acquired, we did so ourselves without assistance. This was something done from the pocketbooks of Lavallers.” Vaillancourt compared this approach to creating an eco-territory using the method employed by municipalities on Montreal’s South Shore, where they relied on government intervention and assistance.
In preparing their team of candidates for the Nov. 1 election, the Parti PRO was careful to strike an equal balance between men and women. In its list of pledges for taxation, the party promises to maintain the water tax refund for seniors aged 65 and over, make the city attractive with property taxes that are reasonable, continue to pay cash for disbursements as much as possible, maintain an “aggressive” tax policy that attracts industries and businesses, and continue to accelerate the repayment of debts.

Cité du Savoir
Also during its next term, the Vaillancourt administration promises to start construction of the Cité du Savoir, the University of Montreal’s much-awaited campus in Laval. They would also continue efforts to attract more than $4 billion in investments, maintain a tax credit program for residential renovations, finalize discussions with both levels of government and private partners to build a high-calibre trade fair centre, encourage the densification of the Laval territory by building 4,000 housing units in the next four years, and sign agreements to build another state-of-the-art athletic and cultural centre.
In terms of concessions to greater transparency and democracy, the team says it will introduce regular times (such as one Saturday each month) for residents to meet with their municipal councillor. One regular municipal council meeting would be held in each sector during the four-year term. Some of the pledges in public security include setting up a computerized program that would make daily phone calls to seniors to ensure their safety, installing audible traffic signals for the visually impaired at major intersections, and increasing the time allowed for pedestrians to cross busy streets.