Over 1,200 Sign Petition Against Cultural Centre

"The point tonight is just to put into your calculations and reflections that we have a petition with 1,268 names that were collected during the past two months against the construction of a cultural centre," said resident Robert Geoffrion, one of the leading foes of the project, during the first question period. "It's 10% of the population, of voters. Even so, it's a very big number of persons."

The preamble states that TMR is located within minutes of cultural venues in downtown Montreal, is a small community of 18,000 that cannot financially sustain such a project, will have to provide "many millions of taxpayers dollars" with or without outside funding, and has several existing, under-utilized cultural sites that negate the need for new construction.

Mayor Vera Danyluk simply noted that the Town would receive the petition and deposit it in the minutes of the next Council meeting.

During the second question period, critics continued to ask questions and hammer away at the Council's support for the project. Resident Guy Djandji asked what would be the total costs of the cultural-centre project, including construction, engineering fees, contingencies, and financing.

Not taking into account any outside financing, Danyluk admitted that the total costs, with the debt servicing for the next 15 years, would be $9.4 million. Over a month ago, the Town submitted a request for a provincial subsidy of up to half of the construction costs that were evaluated at $6.5 million. The mayor added that they've made a similar funding request to Heritage Canada that would reduce local costs to $3 million and are also seeking partners in the private sector.

MRMA treasurer Kathy Elie wondered why the Town is going ahead with such a costly project if only 15% of the CROP respondents favoured major infrastructure spending for culture. Councillor Fouad Sahyoun, vice-president of the Recreation committee, replied that Council has not yet been officially submitted with a cultural-centre project.

"We had no and we still have no project called Maison de la culture," he said. "So whether 15% of the people answered the way they did does not give us neither the red light, nor the yellow light, nor the green light (to go ahead)."

Elie followed up, asking how could Council, "in good conscience," demolish a building (10 Montgomery) that was acquired for a cultural centre? Danyluk intervened, saying that such a question would presume a decision to be made next Tuesday, December 5, by the Demolition Committee. Elie warned that the three committee members would have to "take the brunt for the decision to demolish a perfectly good building for a project that may never go forward. "Even if it doesn't do so, the mayor added that the money spent so far would still be a good investment for green space.