Fighting city hall

HENRY AUBIN The Gazette

On paper, Montagano is precisely the sort of citizen the Tremblay administration should welcome. He is raising his young family in Montreal instead of a suburb. He takes good care of the duplex he owns. And his organization's mission statement is all about "improving the quality of life in our community."

In practice, he's a pariah. Some councillors question his motives, saying he wants to run for office - he swears he doesn't.

The treatment he's getting is symptomatic of the city's overall anti-democratic climate. Tremblay's party, for example, prohibits members from expressing opinions on any issue that are contrary to the party's - a gag rule that is extremely unusual in Canada.

The city is also unique in North America for the secretiveness with which it makes decisions (through its executive committee). Even the zoning committees in many boroughs, including Applebaum's, hold their meetings outside the view of citizens.

If Montreal wants to attract more people from the suburbs, it should give citizens like Montagano not only the basic services they ask for, but also simple respect.

Henry Aubin is The Gazette's regional-affairs columnist. haubin@thegazette.canwest.com

Alex Montagano is being harassed by the public-works department for trying to do something to clean up his borough

March 31, 2005

Alex Montagano is the kind of citizen whom Montreal's political establishment detests. He scorns city hall's traditional view of democracy - the belief that citizens should be grateful they can vote every four years and the rest of the time they should stand back, shut up and let their elected representatives do as they please.

Last June, the Cote des Neiges resident got fed up after the municipal public-works department ignored for three months his requests to remove rubbish on his block. To get the Tremblay administration's attention, he trucked two soggy carpets, a toilet tank, tree branches, two TVs, a box spring, a mattress and enough furniture to equip a living room to the steps of city hall. He dumped them there.

That made the front pages - but it didn't make officialdom any more responsive. The mayor of Cote des Neiges/Notre Dame de Grace borough, Michael Applebaum, told the media his constituent was a complainer who avoided discussing problems in a civil manner.

So last fall, taking a page from textbook democracy, the 35-year-old salesperson co-founded the Cote des Neiges Residents Association and became its president. Instead of being a lone individual, he's now one of scores of members who share his concern over two issues - neighbourhood cleanliness and traffic control.

At borough council meetings, for example, members ask questions that one councillor, Jeremy Searle, calls "effective and well-researched."

"I'm a fan," he says. Significantly, however, Searle is an independent - the only one of the borough's six elected officials who is not a member of Montreal Mayor Gerald Tremblay's ruling party. Some of the other councillors groan at the mere mention of Montagano's name.

This week, Montagano got nailed for his civic activism.

A bailiff served him with 22 tickets carrying a total of $2,110 in fines for violating an anti-clutter bylaw that prohibits notices on utility poles, lamp posts, bus shelters or other city property. He put up signs publicizing a meeting of the group.

Never mind just about everyone else slaps up notices about lost cats, garage sales, music lessons and house painting with impunity.

Never mind, unlike most signs, the association's were affixed with plastic bands - which, when removed, don't take paint from the pole, as does tape.

Never mind if people aren't allowed to place notices on poles, they'll place them on windshields - where motorists will throw them away and really litter the landscape.

The supreme irony is that a purpose of the meeting in question was to discuss ways of pressing the borough to do a better job of picking up garbage and other litter.

The borough mayor, Applebaum, insisted yesterday he didn't ask the public-works inspectors to write the tickets; he said he was as surprised as anyone they were issued.

Yet he was also uncritical of the crackdown, saying that by Montagano's own account there were 200 of the signs, which is more than the number people usually put up.

So what? The fact is the public-works department is this citizens' group's target, and the department has made the group its own target. I don't know if this is innocent coincidence or gross retaliation, but the perception of a conflict of interest is obvious. Applebaum should be reading the riot act to the department instead of defending it.

Association des Résidants combat la ville en cour

Alexandre Montagano présente, demain matin, à la cour municipale, 775 Gosford pour défendre sa liberté fondamentale protégé par la Charte Canadienne des Droits et Libertés qui dit « Chacun a les libertés fondamentales suivants : (a) liberté de conscience et de religion ; (b) liberté de penser, de croyance, d’opinion et d’expression, y compris la liberté de la presse et des autres moyens de communication. »

Ancien président de l’Association des résidants de Côte-des-Neiges, Alexandre Montagano, a reçu 22 contraventions pour un total de 2195$ pour des affiches de l’association annonçant une réunion publique le 2 février dernier. M. Montagano décrit les contraventions comme étant « en violation directe avec ma chartre des droits et libertés, une opinion confirmée par deux éminents juristes, maître Julius Grey et Michael Bergman. »

Comme par hasard, lorsque les contraventions ont été émises à M. Montagano en mars 2005, Michael Applebaum, le maire désigné de l’arrondissement lançait l’étape finale d’une campagne de propreté qui prenait une tournure punitive « zéro excuse » envers les pollueurs.

Durant les mois de la campagne « zéro excuse », soit avril et mai 2005, les inspecteurs de l’arrondissement ont émis 0 contravention aux pollueurs de Côte-des-Neiges/Notre-Dame-de-Grâces. Ce n’est que suite aux pressions de l’Association des résidants de Côte-des-Neiges que la ville a émis des contraventions dans une communauté de 170,000 résidants aux prises avec un sérieux problème de pollueurs.

En plus, afin de déterminer si M. Montagano avait été spécifiquement ciblé, des demandes d’accès à l’information ont été faites auprès de l’administration de la ville. Il a fallu trois demandes d’accès à l’information et 192 jours (environ six mois) pour enfin obtenir une information partielle. Les secrétaires de l’arrondissement, mesdames Elaine Doyle et Geneviève Reeves ont refusé la demande à deux reprises en invoquant l’article 15 de la loi sur l’accès à l’information, pour ensuite demander un délai. L’information ne fut obtenue qu’après une déclaration de Michael Applebaum lors de la réunion du conseil municipal du 6 septembre 2005 sur les contraventions émises pour affichage illégal. Lors de cette réunion, en réaction à une question de M. Montagano, Michael Applebaum déclarait qu’environ 29,000$ de contraventions avaient été émises en 2005, contre 3000$ en 2004.

Selon les renseignements acquis grâce à la loi sur l’accès à l’information, cette déclaration est fausse. Seulement trois contraventions ont été émises en 2004 pour un total de 414$. L’information ne révèle pas si ces contraventions ont été émises pour l’ensemble de la ville de Montréal ou uniquement pour l’arrondissement de Côte-des-Neiges / Notre-Dame-de-Grâces. Qui plus est, cette information ne dit pas quand les contraventions de 2005 ont été émises. Ont-elles été émises avant celles de M. Montagano ou après, comme une police d’assurance servant de justification.

Ironiquement, Marcel Tremblay a été pris en photo alors qu’il installait des affiches électorales le 22 septembre dernier, avant le début officiel de la campagne électorale, soit le 23 septembre, et en violation directe des règlements municipaux évoqués pour émettre les contraventions de M. Montagano.. Concernant cette infraction, Gaétan Rainville, le directeur de l’arrondissement réitérait son refus d’émettre des contraventions.

« J’ai la profonde conviction que l’on m’a émis ces contraventions parce que j’ai eu le courage de remettre en question les politiques de la ville, d’exiger des comptes et d’exposer l’incompétence de la ville dans sa livraison des services essentiels. Ce n’est rien de moins que de la persécution politique, ce qui est étonnant, car nous sommes censés vivre dans une société démocratique ouverte et transparente », de conclure M. Montagano

Juin 2006

C.D.N./N.D.G. will be designating poster-friendly poles throughout its territory in 2006, a move expected to ease criticism of the borough’s ban on posting notices on public property.

The borough currently restricts postering to Access Montreal offices in N.D.G. and Côte des Neiges.

“Citizens are allowed to put up posters in designated places,” said borough spokeswoman Karine Massé. “The borough is planning to put in place some modules d’affichage libre (specific places where posters or public notices would be legal) in 2006.”

However, members of the non-profit New Acropolis citizens’ group, who received 25 fines of illegal postings between 2002 and 2003, are arguing the restriction violates Canada’s Charter of Rights and Freedoms.

“The ability to freely post notices is very important not only for us but for a number of citizens’ groups, associations, and citizens of Montreal. The Charter of Rights and Freedoms assures the right and freedom of association, thought, expression, including the freedom of press and other forms of communication,” said New Acropolis member Michel St. Pierre, who turned up at the December council meeting.

St. Pierre says his group is fighting the tickets, a case that is expected to be heard early next year. Meanwhile, St. Pierre demanded to know where his organizations could put up public notices.

“We haven’t received the list of places where we could post notices in C.D.N./N.D.G. If it exists, we are expecting the list to be very short,” St. Pierre wrote in an e-mail.

Côte des Neiges resident Alex Montagano is separately contesting 23 fines his Côte des Neiges Residents’ Association received for putting up posters.

“New Acropolis is fighting the same fines that I’m fighting, so their case will have a direct impact on my case,” said Montagano, who lost a bid for the borough mayoralty seat Nov. 6. “What is the policy in which you are allowed to put up public notices? It’s not clear-cut.

“This was a subjective application of the law: I feel I was specifically targeted by the inspectors because I had the courage to criticize them for not enforcing the bylaws.”

The borough’s poster ban is being challenged in courts by rights lawyers like Julius Grey who insist the bylaw is unconstitutional. More than a decade ago, the Supreme Court of Canada ruled that postering on public property is protected under the Charter of Rights and Freedoms.

December 14th, 2006

Lawyers slam poster ban

By Diodora Bucur, The Suburban

C.D.N./N.D.G. borough’s poster ban is reviving a legal debate on whether or not the city bylaw is constitutional.

Prominent Montreal rights lawyer Julius Grey is challenging the poster bylaw in court on the grounds that it violates Canada’s Charter of Rights and Freedoms.

“I’m suggesting that you cannot have a bylaw which, in general, prohibits postering. You can regulate it to some extent for aesthetic reasons, but you can’t restrict the freedom of expression,” said Grey. “The city cannot prohibit postering on public property, or at least not very easily, and if it does, it has to provide a really good alternative.”

Grey says a legal precedent was set more than a decade ago when the Supreme Court of Canada ruled that postering on public property is protected under the Charter of Rights and Freedoms.

“We have one case before Quebec’s Court of Appeal. The case has been going on for a few years and there are a number of people in Montreal who are contesting the various postering limits. And sooner of later it’s going to be decided either at the court of appeal or by the Supreme Court of Canada,” Grey added.

Lawyer Michael Bergman agrees.

“Posters are a matter of freedom of expression. For the borough to restrict posters, there has to be a very good municipal reason to do that. It is one thing to regulate posters, it’s another thing to ban them,” said Bergman. “Posters are a form of freedom of speech. Posters should not be banned simply because they may create garbage. A way to control garbage is to have regulations about garbage.”

However, C.D.N./N.D.G. Michael Applebaum suggested Grey is jumping to conclusions.

“If he is taking the issue to court then we have to wait for the judgment from the judge.”

Applebaum added they weighed the possibility of restricting posters before adopting the ban.

“We threw around the idea of having a round pole like they do in Europe where everybody is putting up signs. But then the question becomes what type of message you allow, for what period of time and which organizations. That becomes difficult to manage,” Applebaum continued.

“I respect Grey’s knowledge of law, but at the same time, we have a bylaw on the books and until it is contested, fought and won, we will apply it.”

Early this year, Alex Montagano’s Côte des Neiges Residents’ Association received 23 fines totaling $2,300 for putting up posters, after Applebaum claims the group had been warned to take down the signs.

Montagano insists his rights were violated.

“We don’t condone people using the urban landscape to sell products, but putting up notices for expressing political views and for announcing public meetings is a right protected by the Canadian Constitution... We need a vehicle to communicate with people,” he said. “This is Mr. Michael Applebaum trying to justify a crackdown on a residents’ association.”

August 31st, 2005

By Diodora Bucur, The Suburban

Borough to ease poster ban