Snow removal and waste management are constants, says Nathalie Blais
In her latest report on the City of Laval’s efforts to address residents’ complaints about shortcomings in municipal services, ombudsman Nathalie Blais says her department managed last year to cut its response time to less than 48 hours, while dealing with 636 dossiers, most of which concerned routine issues like sidewalk repairs, road paving and street lighting.
In the 12th annual report filed by the ombudsman’s office, Blais said 124 of the 2024 dossiers were carried over from past years and that 53 dossiers are still unresolved while being processed.
Learning opportunities
“Above and beyond the quantifiable results, each complaint remains for us an opportunity to learn, to correct and to improve the municipality’s services,” she said in a statement issued on the same day her report was tabled in Laval city council.
“It’s in this spirit that we work with teams from the city to create a culture of listening, of transparency and continuous improvement,” said Blais. In all, 32 per cent of the files received by the ombudsman in 2024 were deemed acceptable – that is, the complaints were judged to be founded.
However, of the 68 per cent judged as unacceptable, the administration was found to have initiated corrective action or the process hasn’t been completed yet. In those cases, residents who’d sought the help of the ombudsman were steered to the city’s 3-1-1 service for follow-up action.
Public works complaints
In 2024, the municipal services that were the subject of the ombudsman’s intervention most often were public works (20 per cent), environment (19 per cent), engineering (15 per cent) and urban planning (9 per cent). In 15 per cent of all the dossiers, municipal services decided not to contest claims.
The ombudsman’s office noted that some of the dossiers remain active in 2025 in view of their complexity. One of the more outstanding of the complaints dealt with by the ombudsman last year was snow removal, which falls under the oversight of public works and engineering.
According to a summary of the ombudsman’s work in 2024, the matter remains unresolved, although management at Laval’s public works department “has committed itself to revising the internal administrative procedures and to present to the ombudsman a plan of action in 2024.”
Policy being revised
Again, according to the summary, a new policy statement for snow removal is currently being revised by the city’s legal affairs department. “Considering the political implications, the adoption of the snow removal policy has been postponed until 2026,” states the document.
In an interview with The Laval News, Nathalie Blais said snow removal is an issue that comes up in her annual report every year, as does the city’s handling of waste removal and recycling. “As regards snow removal, there’s probably still a lot of work to be done,” she acknowledged.
“There’s the new plan that is supposed to be released next year,” she said. “But in the meantime, things seem to be a lot better this year. Thanks to the work done by the city’s environment service in conjunction with the ombudsman’s office, we were able to find solutions to make things more efficient.”
Mobility access at Val-Martin
Another issue the ombudsman’s office dealt with last year – access by mobility-challenged apartment tenants at the Habitations Val-Martin social housing project – is also currently unresolved.
According to the ombudsman’s report, the city’s department of engineering services is working in conjunction with the Office municipal d’habitation de Laval (OMHL) to carry out a survey among residents this spring, before making recommendations on the interventions judged to be necessary.
In the meantime, at least one parking space for people with reduced mobility issues was supposed to be implemented at Habitations Val-Martin by this past February. And the engineering department is also evaluating the possibility of installing lowered curbs in order to improve access for the mobility-challenged.
