Renata Isopo

People, people, more curious people. At least 200 citizens crammed the June 4^th Laval City Council meeting. The opposition, under David De Cotis’s leadership, invited taxpayers to attend the session in support of Councillor Michel Poissant’s request to freeze municipal taxes for the next two years. Laval sits on $555.2 million surplus, and $42 million retrieved from the financial misdealings of former Mayor Gilles Vaillancourt’s administration.

Booming treasury

According to Poissant, Laval coffers have accumulated excess funds over the years. To him, it demonstrates lack of consideration by the Demers administration for the middle class already among the highest taxed in Canada. “Worrisome indeed,” stated Poissant who jumped the Demers ship, joining Action Laval, last March.

Last month, Poissant moved for a two-year residential tax freeze as of 2020.  At this past week’s meeting, the debate didn’t hit the table until 11:00 pm, since it was arguably declared out of order. Council chair Christiane Yoakim denied comments or questions on the surplus. The issue finally emerged, following the Ordre du Jour, a seemingly endless agenda.  By then, most attendees had left the meeting.

Earlier in the meeting, Councilor De Cotis was asked by a citizen when the tax freeze would take effect. “It should take place today for two years, even four, there’s a way to freeze taxes,” he responded, before the chair cautioned that his time was up, ordering him to sit down.  “Absolutely not,” retorted De Cotis, standing ground, invoking his right to speak as an elected people’s representative. Heated confrontation ensued, tension evident in the crowd.

Indirect returns to taxpayers?

Mayor Demers, in his defense, stated that some accumulated funds are being dispersed among Laval children in different forms.  He did not specify amounts or organizations. He did add that “money is already given back in free transportation for seniors.” Councilor Stéphane Boyer stated, “There must be a tax distinction. $42 million (from Vaillancourt) only comes once, and that goes fast.”

Reference of expenditures was made to roads, parks, street drains, at $400,000.  $45 million for the next ten years was quoted. Councilor Poissant quickly responded, but he too was shot down. “You don’t have the floor, Mr. Poissant, please sit down.”  Poissant’s body language spoke tons.

The opposition persisted, launching a war of words with the chair, with Councilor Paolo Galati joining De Cotis and Poissant in the fray. The heat was on. Demers reminded De Cotis that the budget was examined together.  “What will it cost to resolve all the problems brought here?” the Mayor asked. De Cotis, attempting rebuttal, was again silenced by chairperson Yoakim whose plea amounted to – “Are you trying to make my life difficult?” 

Poissant pointed to financial documents citing figures which would substantiate tax freezing. “Why are you only looking at current accounts?” asked Demers. Councilor and STL (Société de Transport de Laval) president Erik Moras told the mayor there was no mention of a Laval Metro extension. “The project ends in Montreal.” De Cotis added “It isn’t in the plan, not that it isn’t intended.”

Councilor Claude Larochelle proposed an amendment to Poissant’s motion, a one-year freeze for 2019-2020.  “Not a good idea to do it for two years since the budget isn’t known.” Poissant responded that 95% of the budget is always known in advance, giving the Demers administration a lesson in accounting.

The one-year amendment was defeated, as was the two-year motion. Unsurprising to the Opposition, the depleted Demers group which still enjoys a sizeable majority on Council unanimously blocked the tax freeze.

Tempers flare, citizens livid

The June meeting was laced with multiple complaints from various sectors of the Laval citizenry, including council members. At question period, Councilor Galati angrily demanded that the chair apologize for stopping a citizen from repeating a question.  “It’s lack of respect. Apologize to that gentleman,” he shouted. No apology came.

Parent Namouner Rabah complained of discrimination and intimidation by Chomedey Soccer Club against his child who wasn’t allowed to play and wasn’t given an explanation. He told TLN that city hall, aware since last November, has done nothing, his phone calls unreturned. 

Action Laval member and candidate Vivianne Monette pointed out that Equinoxe Levesque’s zoning isn’t respected. “There are urgent issues, Mr. Mayor. You did nothing, and that makes you no better than the Gilles Vaillancourt gang. Actions talk, not empty words. This has become a long and complicated dossier because of negligence.  Mr. Mayor, I assure you that if you don’t act within the law, you will find me in your way, and your masks will fall,” she warned. Several other citizens’ complaints also seemed to fall on deaf ears.

Martin C. Barry

The outlook is positive for students with anxiety disorders and special needs at the Sir Wilfrid Laurier School Board’s Laval Junior Academy and Crestview Elementary School with the official arrival of two service dogs to provide comfort and focus in moments of stress and emotional need.

Laval-based Asista and the SWLSB, with the help of partner Nutrience pet foods, held a launch for the service dogs on May 27 at Laval Junior Academy, where one of the dogs has been providing assistance for the past two and a half years.

Service dogs

Facility dogs, trained in obedience and specialty cues, are used in work settings following training in specific techniques which enable the dogs to serve as a tool and a motivator, thus enhancing the accomplishment of goals.

Introduced to the gathering of school board, company and municipal officials were the two dogs: Hope the Labrador who will be stationed at Crestview Elementary, and Wall-E who will be gracing the halls at LJA.

Along with many other dogs trained by Asista, Hope and Wall-E will be doing their part to help the students in their daily activities at both schools.

‘Out of the box’ thinking

“At the Sir Wilfrid Laurier School Board, we pride ourselves for thinking out of the box and finding innovative ways to ensure all our students succeed,” said SWLSB chairman Paolo Galati, while adding that as an educational organization the school board needed to adapt its ways to the growing student population.

“Autism, anxiety disorders and other mental health illnesses are on the rise and the goal of the Facility Service dog program is to provide an open, accessible environment for both students and adults,” said John Agionicolaitis, spokesperson and co-founder of the Asista Foundation.

Dogs helping students

According to LJA interim-principal Eric Ruggi, Wall-E’s role among the students is diverse. “He helps students in difficult situations, either social or educational,” he said. “His presence allows students a chance to interact in a controlled setting with an animal to overcome their fears and apprehensions. He visits classrooms to assist students with special challenges by helping them cope with their emotions.

“He will know if the tension in the room is rising,” continued Ruggi, “and will instinctively seek out students who are in distress. He helps prevent the escalation of a given situation. In a group setting where the dynamics can be difficult, Wall-E provides first a distraction, and finally a connection in order to ease tensions. Wall-E is part of our day to day school life.”

According to Ruggi, Asista is in the process of training a second service dog for Laval Junior Academy – a Golden Retriever named Enzo. “He already started last week and he will continue until the end of this school year and into the next year,” said Ruggi.

Helping reduce bullying

Experts in the training of service dogs say the dogs help to reduce bullying in the school community, increase school spirit and de-escalate high stress situations. Each service dog is medically insured to cover any accidents or illnesses that may occur. Each service dog is also vaccinated and cared for carefully to maintain proper health and hygiene.

LJA student Samantha Tardif said she benefited enormously from the presence of Wall-E. “I used to not really want to come to school – I used to have really major bad anxiety attacks,” she explained. “Without Wall-E or Asista, I don’t know what I would personally do, because there’s not that many foundations that would actually do what they do.”

Other Asista projects

In addition to its work with the SWLSB, Asista has also been working with the federal government to help veterans, while also helping develop standards for service dogs in Canada.

The non-profit organization’s mission is to provide service dogs for people who are dealing with mental health issues. The foundation’s primary goal is to maintain a therapeutic relationship between the individual and the dog to help them cope in difficult settings.

Asista says it is the only foundation in Quebec that exclusively offers certified service dogs for people with PTSD. Its vision is based on matching the right dog to the right person. Their dogs come from shelters and are selected based on their traits.

When the foundation was established in April 2012, Nutrience (produced by a subsidiary of the Montreal-based Hagen Inc.) became involved and has been sponsoring Asista ever since. According to Asista, the demand for their dogs is exceedingly high and is rising quickly.

(TLN) The City of Laval recently won two awards for excellence in its communications with the public. The awards were presented during a recent evening sponsored by the Association des communicateurs municipaux du Québec (ACMQ).

A campaign by the city’s communications department promoting Laval à vélo won a Plume d’excellence award. The strategy included video, social media, posters and TV coverage. Olympic track and field medallist Bruny Surin was recruited as a spokesperson.

The city’s communications department also won an award for a print-media campaign promoting outdoor activities, and Laval’s public libraries won an award for using social media to promote library services among youngsters from the ages of 10 to 14.

Martin C. Barry

In a report on the City of Laval’s management performance that is politely restrained despite its criticism, Laval auditor-general Véronique Boily raises questions about the Demers administration’s continuing failure to protect Laval’s once vast agricultural lands – some of which have been snapped up in recent years by development speculators, adds Boily.

City falls behind

In a statement issued when the report was tabled last week, Boily’s department noted that in 2016 the city adopted its first Agricultural Zone Development Plan (PDZA) for the period up to 2020. However, the city didn’t bother to measure the increase in the area of cultivated land, whose target set by the plan is 10 per cent.

In addition, she added, the city “has not taken the steps needed to acquire regulatory tools to prevent the spread of fallow land and restore it for agricultural purposes.”

Developers in the wings

In an executive summary of the 186-page report, Boily points out that Laval’s agricultural lands are located squarely in the middle of a vast market for farm products in the greater Montreal region. Even so, the City of Laval appears to be ignoring this.

While noting that Laval hasn’t bothered since adoption of the PDZA to inventory the rise and fall in the number of agricultural properties being cultivated or lying fallow, Boily suggested that land acquisitions made by property developers “can have important consequences” on attaining the goal set out in the PDZA.

Non-agricultural ‘speculators’

According to Boily, in 2012 alone more than 84 hectares of land zoned agricultural in Laval were purchased “with the possible aim of speculation by businesses whose activities have nothing to do with the agricultural sector.” As well, she added, in 2018 at least 62 hectares of agricultural lands were acquired by two buyers “who were not agricultural entrepreneurs.”

The report comes in the wake of some renewed concern among agriculturalists in Laval about the city’s neglect of the farming sector.

Farmers critical of city

Among those who raised the issue recently was Gilles Lacroix, a Laval-area farmer who spoke during a public consultation on May 21 on the ongoing development of Laval’s master urban plan.

“You talk about protecting the agricultural territory,” said Lacroix, noting that the city has failed to turn its words into action and isn’t providing any incentive to keep agricultural land owners from abandoning their properties.

After presenting her report to journalists at Laval city hall, Boily was asked by The Laval News to elaborate on her comments about the involvement of development speculators in the purchase of agricultural lands.

Land’s being bought, says Boily

While pointing out that the status of Laval’s agriculturally-zoned areas is officially protected and that this effectively should prevent them from being used for any other means, she said nothing stands in the way of development speculators purchasing farm lands.

“These lands get purchased,” she said. “On the other hand, they cannot use them for purposes other than what is provided for in the law.”

But the question remains: Why would property developers, who have converted vast tracts of Laval’s more than 95-square-mile territory from a once rural landscape to one that has gradually been urbanized, want to acquire agricultural land if the law says they can’t use it for anything other than farming?

De-zoning possible, says expert

Among those present during the presentation of the auditor-general’s report was Guy Debailleul, a University of Laval associate-professor of agricultural economics and co-president of the Institut Jean-Garon which conducts research on the use of agricultural territories.

While agreeing that generally speaking provincial law ensures that the status of agriculturally-zoned land can’t be changed, he suggested applications for de-zoning can be made to remove the protected status from certain portions of agricultural territory.

“There can be requests made to the Commission de protection du territoire agricole, which has a quasi-legal status of sorts, and individuals or municipalities may ask for modifications in the zoning for particular purposes,” Debailleul said.

De-zoning farm land now rare

He noted that de-zoning protected agricultural land has been done more commonly for autoroute construction, for example, but in exceptional cases also for residential development – although much more rarely.

According to former Fabreville city councillor Michel Trottier who leads the Parti Laval, de-zoning of farm land in Laval was fairly common under the administration of former mayor Gilles Vaillancourt, whose discredited governance ended in 2012. Trottier said the practice came to a halt the following year with the election of the Demers administration.

De-zoning ‘impossible,’ says Trottier

While acknowledging that applications for de-zoning can be made to the provincial commission, he said the buck would stop here in Laval because of the protected status accorded in Laval’s master urban plan by the city.

As for the property developers who’ve purchased land in the protected agricultural areas, Trottier suggested the acquisitions were made before the law came into effect. “It would be impossible to de-zone as things are now,” Trottier insisted.