(TLN) The official opening of the new Lausanne Park community centre on Jan. 17 was attended by Mayor Marc Demers, who toured the facility with representatives of several community organizations, as well as Laval city councillor for the district of Saint-Bruno David De Cotis.

Fruit of consultations

The $5.5 million project was undertaken by the City of Laval after a need for the centre was expressed by local community groups. In all, five community and sports activities groups were consulted by the city before proceeding.

“The City of Laval is happy to be able to offer to these groups community spaces of high quality that will serve simultaneously as sports chalets as well as locations for other types of gatherings,” said Mayor Marc Demers. “This mixed use centre which has long been awaited by people from the area is the result of a participatory consultation.”

LEED certification

The new centre, measuring 1,393 square metres, contains multi-use rooms, locker areas, sanitary services, a snack bar, a community kitchen and storage space. The building has received a LEED Gold certification for environmentally-responsible construction. It also includes three re-charging stations for electric vehicles.

David De Cotis was accompanied to the launch by fellow city councillor Michel Poissant, Gordon Berry of the Club de soccer Monteuil, Danielle Mercure of Loisirs St-Bruno and Anabela Monteiro of Vimont MNA Jean Rousselle’s office. In a statement, De Cotis said the opening of the community centre was a sign that the people of Saint-Bruno were no longer being ignored by the Demers administration.

De Cotis pleased

“When I decided to run in the municipal elections in 2009, I quickly understood that the population of the sector wanted this space,” he said. “For me, promises are meant to be kept. I had committed starting in 2009 to get this community centre and I am very proud to deliver it to those supported me so strongly in 2013 and 2017.”

“This is a space that will become the heart of the district of Saint-Bruno,” De Cotis added. “Already there is a lot of activity in this park during the winter as well as during the summer, and now it will be structured even better. While we now have here multiple sports facilities of the highest level, there were none before for the organizations, the referees, the players and the equipment. Loisirs Saint-Bruno were struggling to grow in their facilities far from the population, although now they’re close to the clients they serve.”

Martin
C. Barry

The oft-told story of the engineer who immigrated to Canada only to end up having to drive a cab for a living “is no longer as true as it used to be,” federal Immigration Minister Ahmed Hussen told a gathering of community group leaders at the YMCA in Cartierville last week, as he defended Ottawa’s position on the recognition of academic credentials from foreign countries.

“Maybe it’s true for doctors, but I want to give credit where credit is due,” Hussen said, acknowledging that the medical profession in Canada still has a long way to go in recognizing foreign MD degrees.

All the same, he continued, “Some of the professions have moved – they’ve really moved to address that issue – to give a pathway for people to become licensed. Other professions not so much. And I’m thinking medicine a little bit here.

Obstacles to overcome

“Having said that, we’ve noticed that even with the professions where it’s become – I don’t want to say easier, but there’s a path to licensing and everything is smoother – even in those professions we were seeing that wasn’t the obstacle, but there were other obstacles.”

Hussen – who is himself a product of Canada’s immigration system, having come to Canada from Somalia during the early 1990s – was one member of a panel of elected officials from three government levels who took part in a round-table discussion sponsored by Ahuntsic-Cartierville Liberal MP Mélanie Joly.

Ottawa helping out

Also taking part were Acadie Liberal MNA Christine St-Pierre, Borough of Ahuntsic-Cartierville mayor Émilie Thuillier and Montreal city councillor for Bordeaux-Cartierville Effie Giannou.

While noting that the federal government’s role in the recognition of foreign academic credentials is limited (“The government of Canada doesn’t have jurisdiction strictly on the licensing issue,” he said), Hussen pointed out that Ottawa has been trying to do its part to improve the situation by providing subsidized loans to immigrants who may need to write examinations given by professional associations in Canada, but who may not be in a position to pay the cost.

On CAQ immigration policy

Regarding the new CAQ provincial government’s stated commitment to reducing the number of immigrants entering the province by up to 20 per cent, Hussen said, “They are very adamant about keeping their campaign commitment to cut the numbers.

“But they emphasize a number of things. Number one that it’s a temporary measure, that in about two years they’ll bring the number back. And that they need this pause, as they called it, to take some of the savings from the 20 per cent cut to invest in the 40,000 immigrants that they’ll bring in to help them with integration.

‘We don’t agree,’ said Hussen

“Of course, we don’t agree with that approach. The Prime Minister has been saying that this is not the time for Quebec to cut its immigration, especially when there is such a need in the regions for labor. But having said that, under the Canada/Quebec Accord, Quebec has the decision on economic integration.”

Regarding Quebec’s current view of immigration under the new CAQ government, Hussen said, “They have an idea that they are experimenting with it. They haven’t really flushed it out. They haven’t kind of produced the final document.”

“And they’re thinking of a regionalization approach where they are seeking to use a temporary foreign program to meet the labor demand in the regions and then invest in those people for integration and language training by the Quebec government and then eventually make them into permanent residents and then citizens.”

No interest in temp measures

While maintaining that Ottawa wants to keep the channels of communication open with the CAQ government “to see how we can help them,” Hussen said “we’re not interested in temporary foreign worker programs. We prefer permanent residency, which is what we are having in Atlantic Canada. A program that has really worked well to not only meet labor shortages, but also actually increase the population in places like Nova Scotia.”Mélanie Joly, who is Minister of Tourism, Official Languages and La Francophonie in the Trudeau cabinet, agreed. “The Quebec government doesn’t want to cut economic immigrants,” she said. “Because obviously these are the types of immigrants that the Quebec government wants to actually support. And so the fact that they have under the agreement the jurisdiction only on this particular class is the core of the negotiation with the federal government.”

Martin C. Barry

Approaching the end of his first term after more than three years in office, Laval-Les Îles Liberal MP Fayçal El-Khoury received a virtually unanimous motion of approval recently to represent the Liberal Party of Canada once again in the October 2019 federal election.

Seeks four more years

Among the more than 200 people attending an investiture event for El-Khoury at the Château Royal on Dec. 20 were Vimy Liberal MP Eva Nassif, Chomedey MNA Guy Ouellette, Dorval-Lachine-LaSalle Liberal MP Anju Dhillon, Laval city councillor for Renaud Aram Elagoz and Quebec Liberal MNA for Laval-des-Rapides Saul Polo.

If anything, the last three and a half years during which El-Khoury has represented Laval-Les Îles for the Liberals have demonstrated his ability to unify and maintain a balance in a riding where there had sometimes been turbulent relations between Liberals in the not so distant past.

‘Always listening,’ said president

While former Liberal MP Raymonde Folco served five terms before leaving politics in 2011, her time in office was marred by fighting between factions within the Laval-Les Îles riding association and the defection of riding association members.

Current riding association president Viken Afarian praised El-Khoury as an MP who “is always listening to his constituents and always listening to the people from the many communities who are among us this evening and always available to help these people. I think it is rare to see this amount of devotion in someone.”

Committed to serve

Addressing the large crowd, El-Khoury said, “Nearly four years ago to the day, Liberal activists were choosing me to be the official candidate for the Liberal Party of Canada in Laval-Les Îles. And so I made the commitment to serve and defend the citizens of our riding with loyalty, integrity and efficiency. I present myself this evening humbly, but with a feeling of having accomplished something and with some pride.

“I know that in politics the work is never finished,” he continued. “But I also know that since 2015 we have put the situation in Canada back in order; eliminated all the obstructions that the Conservative government had placed in the way of the development of the country; rebuilt the confidence of Canadians towards their federal government, while creating more motives to present with pride our Canadian passport everywhere in the world.”

A lot accomplished

El-Khoury said he was proud that in just three years the Liberal government had managed “to do more work than any other government in the recent history of the country,” he said. He noted that in October 2015, when Canadians last went to the election polls, the Conservative government was leaving behind an unemployment rate of 7.6 per cent.

“Remember this number,” added El-Khoury, referring to the Liberal government’s employment rate figures. “Canada created more than 800,000 jobs in three years and the unemployment rate is at 5.3 per cent; in Quebec as in Canada; the lowest rate in forty years. This is what we call a full employment economy. It is another reason for my pride.”

Some accomplishments

El-Khoury gave examples of accomplishments by the Liberal government since 2015. They included: More than 60,000 paid student traineeships in the domains of science, technology, engineering, cybersecurity and artificial intelligence; The transfer to Quebec of more than $1 billion for training of workers for new technologies; 100,000 homes in Quebec and 360 municipalities and villages that are now connected to high-speed Internet; More than 40,000 computers which were distributed to schools and non-profit organizations located in isolated areas, to improve digital literacy; And the creation of 25 new research chairs in aerospace, optical and clean energy sectors in universities and learning centres.

Trade improvements

At the same time, he also pointed out that the Liberal government improved global trade for Canadian businesses by negotiating and concluding business partnerships with the U.S., Mexico, Israel, the Asian Pacific countries and Europe. In addition, he noted that trade agreement negotiations were also launched with China, Brasil, Argentina, Uruguay and Paraguay.

El-Khoury noted that under the leadership of Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, the Liberal government re-established the age at which Canadians become eligible to receive old age security payments and income supplements as 65 years (after the Conservatives previously raised it to 67).“We will have the opportunity to state our accomplishments at the beginning of the campaign,” he said, alluding to the campaign period leading towards election day next Oct. 1. “I wish only to say to you, simply and with humility, that none of this could have happened without you and your support. Millions of voters had confidence in us, just as they did here in Laval-Les Îles.”

Martin C. Barry

With the new year now underway, the Union of Quebec Municipalities is hoping to negotiate a new agreement with the newly-elected Coalition Avenir Québec government, while reaching a better understanding with Quebec on the role of municipalities in welcoming refugees and immigrants, says UMQ president Alexandre Cusson.

Agreement expiring

“Our fiscal agreement with Quebec is expiring on Dec. 31, 2019,” Cusson, who is also mayor of the City of Drummondville, said in an interview with Newsfirst Multimedia.

According to Cusson, the province’s municipalities want a new agreement to be reached by next September at the latest so as to be able to calculate their 2020 budgets which normally are tabled by municipal councils in December.

Improvements sought

With a new government in place, and the Ministry of Municipal Affairs being led by CAQ MNA for Chicoutimi Andrée Laforest, Cusson is optimistic Premier François Legault will follow through on commitments made during last year’s election campaign to improve conditions for the province’s municipalities.

“The CAQ made commitments during the electoral campaign, among other things for the transfer of one point from the TVQ towards the municipalities,” Cusson said. “At the start this is something that’s on the table. It’s also something that the UMQ has been asking for nearly 20 years now.

Meeting key people

“We’ve already had several meetings with Premier Legault, as well as meetings with several ministers since they took office,” Cusson added. “And so, without being in negotiations formally speaking, we are nonetheless setting the table for what is to come.

“We have been meeting key people. We have been getting the message out about important municipal issues. We have been deciding what topics should be prioritized in the coming years. And the feedback we are getting is very positive and leading us to feel optimistic.”

The 1% transfer

According to Cusson, obtaining the 1 per cent TVQ transfer would make fiscal management more efficient for the province’s municipalities. “It would allow towns and cities to benefit from the province’s economic growth,” he said, noting that currently the municipalities depend primarily on revenues from residential and commercial property taxes to pay for operations and infrastructure.

“There are limits to how much we can do. We are among the municipalities in Canada where revenue is mostly linked to property tax. Up to 70 per cent, when the average is around 40 to 45 per cent.” Cusson said he is confident Premier Legault will live up to his pledges and take measures to ease the burden for Quebec’s municipalities.

Legault’s commitment

“He made the commitment to transfer to us 1 per cent of the TVQ,” he said, noting that Legault repeated the commitment as recently as the UMQ’s annual general meeting in Gatineau last September. “And he as well as several of his ministers recalled the commitment since the elections. For us, the principle has been accepted and agreed on. Now what’s left is to determine how it is going to happen – when and how the sums are going to be shared between the municipalities.”

On another issue potentially affecting the province’s municipalities, Cusson acknowledged that the UMQ could also be seeking additional support from the Quebec government to assist with the increasing numbers of immigrants and refugees who are arriving and settling in Quebec’s towns and cities.

Immigrants and refugees

“Effectively the towns and cities are working very hard at the level of immigration,” he said, adding that rising immigration is helping to resolve the province’s ongoing labour shortage. “What we have noticed over the past few years is that the support in terms of quality resources for when these people first arrive was lacking.”

While pointing out that the UMQ always resisted becoming involved in the debate over acceptable numbers of refugees and immigrants entering Quebec, Cusson continued:

“When Mr. Legault has said that we must do better with those we are taking in, we hear this is with great satisfaction. “We should emphasize this in all regions throughout Quebec. In 2019 this will be an important issue and we will be speaking about this with the government.”