Montreal's demerged cities hit with their portion of city's Formula E settlement

MONTREAL -

The bill has come due for Montreal's cancelled electric car race and suburban mayors say they want to slam on the brakes after being told what their share will be.

Last week, the City of Montreal announced it had reached a $3 million settlement with Formula E over the cancellation of races scheduled for 2018 and 2019. A 2017 edition was held in the city under the tenure of then-mayor Denis Coderre, but the ensuing events were halted once Mayor Valerie Plante took office.

As a result of the settlement, Formula E Operations agreed to drop a $16.1 million lawsuit against the mayor.

As a result of the settlement, Montreal's demerged cities are being told to pony up for over $500,000 of the $3 million total.

“This is only an example here with the Formula E settlement of what we are facing all the time,” said Beaconsfield Mayor Georges Bourelle, whose city was hit with a $30,000 portion of the bill. “We are looking at many events where we end up sharing the cost and those events have not benefited the demerged municipalities.”

Bourelle and some of his colleagues say they should not be expected to pay anything, especially given they were never consulted on the settlement.

“We raised our concerns when the race was proposed to us,” said Montreal West Mayor Beny Masella. “We voted against it at the time, but we at least had a little bit of debate ahead of time. This time, there was a settlement and we were not told a single word about it.”

The Plante administration told CTV News that it was given a clear mandate to end the Formula E race and that the settlement should serve as a lesson to those thinking of bringing it back.