The leader of the Union-Montreal party and Montreal Mayor Gérald Tremblay enumerated his administration’s accomplishments and talked about short and medium term development projects for the greater south west region during a speech he gave last week at the Chambre de commerce du Sud-Ouest de Montréal (Chamber of Commerce of the South West Region of Montreal).
“Among North America’s metropolitan areas, Montreal gets the best score in terms of the present economic situation”, Mayor Tremblay stated in his introductory remarks.
The south west region is on a roll with les bassins du Nouveau Havre, the re-development of the former CN sites and the Griffintown development, including a tramway that will go until UQAM”, said Mayor Tremblay, who is seeking a third term as Montreal Mayor. “That being said, I don’t want to give the impression that we’re targeting only large projects to stimulate the economy and to contribute to the wealth of the south west region; that impression is false”, the Mayor pointed out, insisting on the importance of supporting small and medium sized companies to create more dynamic and attractive neighbourhoods.
Mayor Tremblay made five announcements regarding economic development to meeting attendees, composed mainly of business people, municipal officials and his Party’s candidates in Verdun, LaSalle, Lachine and the south west.
Spearheading support for companies in the last four years of the Tremblay administration, the programmes PR@M (which stands for Programme Réussir à Montréal – Montreal’s success programmes) constitute Mayor Tremblay’s principal feature in his projects. He committed to extend the programme PR@M-Industrie for at least another year. This programme aims to offer – for the first five years - tax breaks to owners of buildings to be re-converted, in line with the “amélioration de l'immeuble” (building improvement) incentive. He also announced the creation of a programme (PR@AM-Décontamination) aimed to support developers who must decontaminate the soil and who will be reimbursed a portion of their costs in addition to reduced taxes.
Mayor Tremblay announced three other commitments relating to local business and commercial roads: extend from two to four hours the parking period for fire hydrants of Stationnement Montréal at all times, offer a supplementary amount of $500,000 for promoting and marketing projects in commercial streets, and lastly, create a revitalisation programme specifically for St. Catherine Street.
Without alluding to his opponents, Gérald Tremblay said he can even quantify his commitments. For those projects in phase II of the development plans such as the Lachine Canal and the reconstruction of the Turcot Interchange, the Mayor mentioned the importance of partnerships at the provincial and federal levels. He concluded his speech by citing the success of the Bixi bicycle programme.
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