Some Montrealers who live in the Glenmount neighbourhood are talking about merging with the Town of Mount Royal.

For more than 30 years, the City of Montreal has been paying for the 1,800 residents who live in the small area off Jean-Talon Blvd. to use TMR’s municipal services because they are closer to that town.

“The reason has always been proximity,” said resident Guillaume Tardif, who lives a five-minute walk from the TMR library and three minutes from the arena.

Tardif said if his kids had to use the Montreal facilities would be a much longer trip.

“We are cut off from the rest of the city by a very dangerous intersection at Jean-Talon – and a train track,” he said.

The borough of Cote-des-Neiges-Notre-Dame-de-Grace was paying TMR $155,000 for the services. Residents have been told that deal is now over.

“We were in the midst of negotiating,” said CDN-NDG Borough Mayor Sue Montgomery. “When I crunched the numbers, it turns out we were paying twice as much as it actually cost TMR to do this.”

Montgomery said she tried to negotiate, but TMR broke off the talks, adding that she would like to keep the deal going -- but not at any cost.

“We have a lot of needs in this borough. It's huge. It's the biggest borough, and I can't afford to be wasting money like this,” she said.

Local city councillor and opposition leader Lionel Perez said Montgomery fails to recognize this very particular situation.

“She basically is making a political decision that she doesn't want to invest in these types of activities,” he said.

“I'm not going to be able to tell my children to walk to the arena before they're in high school,” said Tardif.

Glenmount residents said they already pay higher taxes than TMR residents, and with the latest budget, their taxes are increasing even further. They say if they can't maintain the current deal, they'll look at separating from Montreal to join TMR, something the neighbourhood tried and failed to do in the 1980s.

“We're asking for us: Why? How can we justify the tax increase with a service reduction at the same time?” said Tardif.