CCU should include all parties, says Action Laval councillor for Chomedey
Action Laval city councillor for Chomedey Aglaia Revelakis is accusing Mayor Stéphane Boyer and his administration of partisan practices because of the mayor’s seeming preference for appointing people from his own ranks to the Consultative Committee on Urban Planning (CCU).
Wants it to be non-partisan
In a statement by Revelakis released by Action Laval on the same day as the Feb. 1 meeting of city council, she noted that during that meeting, she had tabled a motion calling for the CCU to be non-partisan and made up of city councillors from each of the municipal parties.
“Based on what you find in Quebec and in Ottawa, the fundamental principle with committees is that all the political options are represented in proportion to the number of elected officials in the National Assembly or the House of Commons,” Revelakis said.
‘No respect,’ says Revelakis
“This is meant to ensure that the largest number of opinions are heard, and not only those of the party in power,” she added. “This evening, the message from the mayor and his party was clear. There is only the opinion of those who voted for them that counts. He shows no respect whatever for institutions and democracy.”
Noting that just a little more than 28 per cent of eligible Laval residents voted in the municipal elections last Nov. 7, she maintained that fewer than 12 per cent of those on the voters’ list actually voted for Mayor Boyer and his team. “He doesn’t have a strong mandate from the population of Laval,” she insisted.
‘System democratic,’ she says
“The mayor cannot make decisions without taking into consideration the opinions expressed,” Revelakis continued. “Our system is democratic. The mayor cannot appoint only those who share his ideas on a committee of this importance, while ignoring the other political options.”
The City of Laval’s Consultative Committee on Urban Planning is composed of four city councillors and four non-elected residents of Laval. The four city council members are:
| Yannick Langlois (L’Orée-des-bois) | President of the CCU |
| Ray Khalil (Sainte-Dorothée) | Elected member |
| Pierre Brabant (Vimont) | Elected member |
| Sandra El-Helou (Souvenir-Labelle) | Elected member |
The four non-elected Laval residents who sit on the CCU are:
| Johanne Couture | Resident |
| Omar Waedh | Resident |
| Serge Vaugeois | Resident |
| Wassila Djaziri | Resident |
Without identifying anyone specifically, Revelakis noted that one of the non-elected resident members of the CCU was a candidate in the Nov. 7 elections for one of the municipal parties.
In a news release issued last June 1 by the Mouvement lavallois, then-mayoralty candidate Stéphane Boyer announced that Omar Waedh would be running for the party in the district of Chomedey.
Sat on CCU before elections
A biography of Waedh included in the same release describes him as having an extensive background in engineering, with experience at leading projects throughout the Montreal region worth more than $100 million.
‘The mayor cannot appoint only those who share his ideas on a committee of this importance’
“Currently employed by Devimco real estate as a project director, he has among other things worked for Mondev construction, for Réseau sélection in Laval, for Cree Construction & Development in James Bay whose head office is in Laval and for Home Dépôt,” states the Mouvement lavallois. The release goes on to note that Waedh has been very active in his community, serving on the board of a non-profit organization that offers affordable housing for single mothers, and that he sat as a non-elected resident member of the CCU before last November’s municipal elections.
