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Coalition Avenir du Quebec leader Francois Legault and Montreal Mayor Valerie Plante in Montreal, Que., Sept. 7, 2018Ryan Remiorz/The Canadian Press

Before Doug Ford gives any ideas to Quebec politicians about shrinking the ranks of the 216 people who represent the two million residents of the Island of Montreal, the city’s mayors and councillors have delivered a message: Beware.

The last round of provincial tinkering is how Canada’s second-biggest metropolis ended up with all those elected politicians.

The Ontario Premier’s move to slash the size of Toronto City Hall to 25 from 47 caused François Legault, the conservative candidate who polls show is most likely to become Quebec premier Oct. 1, to muse that Montreal should consider trimming its own large civic democracy.

“We all need to stand up and let it be known we wouldn’t stand for it,” said Montreal Mayor Valérie Plante, whose City Hall passed a unanimous motion Tuesday telling provincial politicians to keep their hands off. “It isn’t worth it,” she said in an interview. “I won’t defend the number of elected officials in Montreal, but we’ve been down this road before and Montrealers aren’t interested.”

Ms. Plante was a university student when Montreal’s last period of municipal reorganization started in 2000 and lasted six torturous years. The Parti Québécois government that started the streamlining process was defeated by a Liberal one that brought its own vision and changes, along with a series of referendums that split the city on linguistic lines. In the end, the Island of Montreal was left a hodgepodge of one metropolis with 19 boroughs separate from 15 other cities and towns, some of which are surrounded by Montreal territory and all of which have their own mayors and councils.

THE MANY DIVISIONS

OF THE ISLAND OF MONTREAL

Municipal reorganization that was supposed

to turn the Island of Montreal into one

streamlined city left it a patchwork with 216

elected officials instead

40

Montreal and its boroughs

Other municipalities

Laval

640

20

Island of

Montreal

Island of

Montreal

Longueuil

0

5

KM

CARRIE COCKBURN/THE G L OBE A ND MAI L,

SOURCE: CITY OF MONTREAL

THE MANY DIVISIONS

OF THE ISLAND OF MONTREAL

Municipal reorganization that was supposed to turn

the Island of Montreal into one streamlined city left it

a patchwork with 216 elected officials instead

40

Montreal and its boroughs

Other municipalities

Laval

640

20

Island of

Montreal

Island of

Montreal

Longueuil

0

5

KM

CARRIE COCKBURN/THE G L OBE A ND MAI L,

SOURCE: CITY OF MONTREAL

THE MANY DIVISIONS OF THE ISLAND OF MONTREAL

Municipal reorganization that was supposed to turn the Island of Montreal into one

streamlined city left it a patchwork with 216 elected officials instead

40

Montreal and its boroughs

Other municipalities

Laval

640

20

Island of

Montreal

Island of

Montreal

Longueuil

0

5

KM

CARRIE COCKBURN/THE G L OB E A N D MAIL, SOURCE: CITY OF MONTREAL

After all the fuss, the total number of elected representatives on the island dropped from 270 to 216 with few discernible cost savings. The city of Montreal has 1.7 million residents and 103 mayors and councillors, 65 of whom also sit in the central city hall. The separate towns and suburbs have another 113 elected officials to represent about 250,000 people.

Mr. Legault, who leads the six-year-old right-leaning Coalition Avenir Québec, has not proposed a specific restructuring nor unilateral action. “I want to discuss it with Montreal representatives, including the mayor,” Mr. Legault said, referring to Ms. Plante, during a recent stop in a suburb east of Montreal. “I think right now it’s true, it’s a matter of fact: there are many councillors in Montreal. But I don’t want to do like Doug Ford and impose something and decide alone what we do about it.”

The other provincial leaders want nothing to do with cutting councillors unless the municipalities ask.

They do well to tread lightly, according to Harold Chorney, professor of political science at Concordia University. “The municipal reorganization was a debacle. We have a Swiss-cheese mess in Montreal but the answer isn’t tinkering with the number of councillors.”

Dr. Chorney said a much-larger national reform is needed that would give cities more autonomy from the provinces.

“We have structures from a 19th-century Constitution from when Canada was an agrarian society imposed on an urban 21st-century reality,” he said. “We should find a way to amend it. It would be very difficult to do, but with a federal government inclined toward helping cities and Mr. Ford’s reprehensible and risky moves, it may be time.”

Montrealers often complain they are taken for granted by Quebec because most of the city’s provincial ridings rarely change hands and elections are decided in suburbs and rural areas.

Mr. Legault’s electoral strength lies outside Montreal. His party has never won a seat in the city, which is dominated by the Quebec Liberal Party, with a smattering of Parti Québécois and left-wing Quebec Solidaire members of the National Assembly.

Montrealers might have a new gripe after the Oct. 1 election if a new Coalition Avenir Québec government has no Montreal representation. Ms. Plante is keenly aware of the potential problem but says she is confident the next premier will govern for Montrealers, too.

Dr. Chorney is more skeptical: “No matter who gets elected, we can be pretty confident they will ignore the city.”

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