The new opposition leader in Montreal is promising a campaign against budget reform for boroughs.
Luc Ferrandez, who was named interim leader of Projet Montreal on Monday, accused the Coderre administration of slashing budgets without data to back up its decisions.
Ferrandez, who is mayor of the Plateau Mont Royal borough, said the boroughs were never consulted.
He accused Mayor Denis Coderre and his executive of being "amateurish" and acting rashly.
"These things are extremely bad for the boroughs. It ends up in the magical thought of 'You can do everything now.' No we can't. Sit down with us, tell us, take our budget, tell us where to cut," said Ferrandez.
"Take the pen and when we're in these kinds of details they'll find it's not so easy, it's even impossible."
Opposition councillors have decided to present a motion in council asking the administration to work with them on a more equitable solution and asking for immediate discussions to revamp borough financing.
“Mr. Coderre said that we will work together, he said we will improve the reform, but nothing's been done,” he said, adding that some boroughs have been handed the impossible task of cutting their budgets, even though there's no indexation and they're managing debt.
Coderre dismissed the idea that the budget targets were set in a slapdash fashion, and recognized there will be changes needed in the future -- but not now.
"It's not a one-size-fits-all process," said Coderre. "It's not a matter to be re-opened. We do have those parameters. We are providing ourselves new standards. We have a harmonized way to work when we're talking about getting rid of the snow or how to manage a street."
Coderre said all elements of the city have to work together to uphold services, and budgetary decisions must reflect that.
The new funding formula is based in part on kilometres of roads and sidewalks in each borough, but opposition leaders say this doesn't take into account each borough's complexity and funding decisions should have been based on more information.
“Why are you calculating for example the money you're giving for parks is exactly uniform, for example between Parc Lafontaine or Parc du Mont Royal and a park in Ahuntsic-Cartierville,” said Ferrandez, asking why instead did the city not assess the amount of traffic in each park beforehand.
Mayor Coderre said, however, it's important to have budgets based on certain standards.
“This is a living thing, from the historical budget we're saying that now we have parameters and that's benchmarking, we will be able to see some result and we can adapt ourselves in the next budget,” he said.
