Projet Montréal
Gomery, McQueen, Popeanu win nominations
Article mis en ligne le jeudi 28 mai 2009
Photo Courtoisie
Projet Montréal candidates Peter McQueen, Magda Popeanu with Leader Richard Bergeron and Cym Gomery.
Green initiatives and good governement dominated the evening’s discussion as Projet Montréal members unanimously supported the nomina-tions of Cym Gomery, Peter McQueen and Magda Popeanu as Côte-des-NeigesNDG candidates in the November municipal election.
Gomery, daughter of retired Judge John Gomery, is an environmentalist and green activist running in the Loyola district. In her emotional speech before Projet Montréal members on May 14, she said she would work to reduce garbage pick-up to every other week and eventually once a month by encouraging organic waste disposal. Concordia University has an industrial size composter, she said. Why can’t the borough get one too?
She proposed organizing weekly community days where residents would carry out clean-up operations in their neighborhood. A moratorium on plastic bottles; education about pesticides; asking people to downsize their cars; covering up the Décarie expressway; solar panels, more parks and trees Gomery looked like she could keep going on and on about all the green initiatives that she’s ready to implement.
McQueen is an equally enthusiastic supporter of environmentally-friendly projects and two-time candidate for the Quebec Green Party in NDG where he placed a solid second behind Liberal Kathleen Weil. McQueen is particularly dedicated to developing pedestrian and cyclist paths near commercial arteries and schools and upgrading Notre-Dame-de-Grâce Park. “I want a stream; I want running water,” he said, “and gardens.”
The other project dear to his heart is getting a rail shuttle going between downtown and the airport before Transport Quebec starts tearing down the Turcot interchange.
“The shuttle should go through NDG on the CN rail line and it should be more of a tramway that runs every two to three minutes,” he said.
McQueen said that the tramway could stop in Lachine, Vendôme and Cavendish, and continue through downtown on René-Lévesque Blvd, which is wide enough for such a project and close enough to neighboring Ste-Catherine St. And why not head to Hochelaga-Maisonneuve from there instead of developing the Notre-Dame highway, then shoot north to Laval, eliminating the need for a bridge, he said.
“Cities everywhere are betting on the quality of their urban life-style to attract foreign intellectuals, artists, investors and tourists but not Montreal,” said Popeanu, who is Projet Montréal’s president since 2006 and in the running for Côte-des-Neiges.
“We have a disappointing administration and a lackluster official opposition.”
Popeanu regularly shows up at borough council meetings to denounce in no uncertain terms what she considers the current administration’s abuses of power and lack of transparency. She won 16% of the vote in the 2005 election when she ran for Projet Montréal in Côte-des-Neiges.
Popeanu said she is happy to be part of a party that “will put an end to scandals and waste.” If elected, she promised to set up a neighborhood council in Côte-des-Neiges where citizens will be able to express concerns throughout the term of the administration and “not give elected officials a blank check for four years.”
Projet Montréal Leader Richard Bergeron said that his party needs to get 40% of the borough’s population out and voting, and garner 40% of the suffrage in order to form the next administration. In the 2005 municipal election, voter turn-out in Côte-des-NeigesNDG was 32.2%.
[ Iuliana Petrescu ]