MONTREAL - The opposition Vision Montreal party is pushing a plan that would prevent some possible examples of contract collusion that have plagued the city.
They propose that the city create its own asphalt production rather than buy the pothole-filling materials from private suppliers.
Mayoral hopeful Louise Harel said Friday that it would be possible to make the switch as soon as this fall, as some other Quebec towns have already paved the way by switching from private to public road material suppliers.
“It’s possible to do very quickly because many experiences have been done in other cities and certainly we can find inspiration from them,” said Harel.
Her colleague, southwest borough Mayor Benoit Dorais said that technologies developed by Permaroute and the Ecole de Technologie Superieur could be employed to have city workers steamroll ahead with in-house asphalt production.
In this system, a high-tech solvent is mixed with recycled materials taken from previous excavations and a mobile asphalt plant could even be put into use.
“It was successfully used by Crownsville and other towns and cities in Quebec, so I think the southwest borough and all the boroughs of Montreal can use that technology too,” said Dorais.
But former executive committee member Robert Libman said that the plan goes down the wrong road, creating a costly “new mega-bureaucracy to do all the road and sidewalk repairs in house.”
He said that the privatization of such services is a proven method of saving money and should be maintained.
“The blue collar workers are unionized employees,” said Libman. “That’s where the costs escalate. What if they go on strike and we are left for a few weeks without being able to do any road work?”
Libman said it would be cheaper to fix the holes in the contracting system.
“Montreal must clean up and solve the problem of collusion in the private sector and continue to outsource under this new system where everyone is squeaky clean.”
