by PATRICK LEJTENYI

It was a decision based maybe on hubris. Or perhaps loyalty. Or just plain stupidity. But whatever motivated Mayor Gérald Tremblay to decide to rename Parc Avenue to Avenue Robert-Bourassa, after the late premier and the mayor’s former boss, it sparked a public outcry that is rare in a city where municipal politics strikes a ringing chord of ambivalence among most residents.

On Monday, Nov. 27, city council votes on it, and many of the mayor’s councillors are politically savvy enough to save their skins and have publicly said they will vote against it. Granted, they only said so after the mayor announced that the vote would be a free one, meaning councillors don’t have to vote on party lines. Other high-profile dissidents in the mayor’s Montreal Island Citizens Union (MICU) ranks include NDG’s Marvin Rotrand and Warren Allmand. But the majority of the mayor’s councillors—MICU holds 47 of the 64 seats—are keeping mum about their intentions. As of press time, the mayor can only count on five votes going his way.

The whole brouhaha started on Wednesday, Oct. 18, when Tremblay announced the name change. Other streets were in the running, including St-Joseph and even briefly the Bonaventure and the Metropolitan autoroutes. But Parc got the nod, because the premier lived in and represented the Outremont and Mercier ridings. Tremblay also thought having a René-Lévesque-Robert-Bourassa juncture would be worth a giggle (Bleury is included in the name change proposal).

Residents and merchants on or near Parc were not amused. They complained about a lack of consultation, and were outraged over the tinkering with a 123-year-old street name. Online petitions sprouted up, and opponents say they’ve garnered over 30,000 signatures. Demonstrations were held along Parc, drawing hundreds of supportive honks from drivers as, in at least one case, they made their way from the George Étienne Cartier monument to the mayor’s Outremont home. “Save Parc Avenue” stickers and signs popped up in windows and railings.

Sniffing blood, the Vision Montreal opposition is making great hay about the issue, although at least one VM councillor will vote for the name change. But partisan politics has a way of sneaking into just about everything. Last week, Côte-des-Neiges/NDG MICU borough mayor Michael Applebaum, who plans to vote against the motion, speculated that Vision Montreal councillors would abstain from voting, allowing the motion to pass, and then sit back to enjoy the uproar and the carry-over damage to the next election. Vision Montreal “angrily denied” the suggestion.

And then came the kicker. Last Thursday, Nov. 16, news came out that Richard Theriault, the mayor’s communications director, sent out an e-mail referring to the “neo-Montrealers” who oppose the name-change. Most people took the term as applying to immigrants, who for decades settled on and around Parc. Theriault carefully indicated that he was thankful for their contribution to Montreal, but the damage was done. It also overlooked one glaring fact: While the most vocal opponents to the name change are Parc Avenue Merchants’ Association executive Chris Karidogiannis and actor Alison Louder, the petition include names like Demers, Coté, Brodeur, Houle and Bédard, as much as, if not more than, Carlozzi, Hassam, Galbraith, Pappas, Schwartz, Petrov and Wiseblatt.

Losing the vote may just be the best thing that could happen to this administration. Montrealers can forgive things like the deficits for big sporting events (Tremblay has presided over at least two), but there will be a whole lot of voters who won’t forget who christened Avenue Robert-Bourassa.