Of Parc, politics
and parking meters

Small businesses get their
pressure group in Action Montreal

LOOKING TO GET BACK TO BASICS: Chris Karidogiannis

by PATRICK LEJTENYI

This fall’s municipal election might be a distant concern—if that—to many of the city’s voters, but with four months to go, preliminary drama is wagging city hall-watching trainspotter tongues: Louise Harel throws her hat in the ring! Francine Sénécal quits! Helen Fotopulos to run in Côte-des-Neiges! Scandal upon scandal raining down on the Tremblay administration!

Now, amid the hullabaloo, Parc Avenue merchant Chris Karidogiannis and Ahuntsic restaurateur Giovanna Giancaspro are stirring things themselves. Although hardly household names, both have long histories of confronting city hall. Giancaspro led the protest against the city’s newfangled and much despised parking meters, while Karidogiannis rallied the troops in the 2005 revolt against the arbitrary decision to rename Parc Avenue after former Quebec premier Robert Bourassa. The two teamed up and last week announced the creation of Action Montreal, which they are calling a political action group that could, if need be, transform itself into a political party and contest the elections this fall.

What galvanized the pair into creating Action Montreal is not anything overly dramatic. Indeed, it’s fairly mundane, and Karidogiannis admits as much. “It’s basic stuff,” he says. “There’s no huge issue, it’s really day to day. Parking meters, the number of city inspectors and fines, we’re looking for better environmental solutions to public transportations—$1 weekends, 24-hour metro service on Fridays and Saturdays.”

But when pressed, Karidogiannis freely admits that the parking meters are the big bugaboo. With their two-hour limit, the meters, he says, “are driving business out of the city and into the suburbs and Marché Central…. We want to bring small businesses back to the core of the city.”

If Karidogiannis and Giancaspro sound like they are positioning themselves as the party of small business—and why shouldn’t they, given their respective backgrounds?—Karidogiannis asserts that it is business people like themselves who add the pop that differentiates Montreal from other box-store cities. The perceived flight of small businesses from the city centre under this and previous administrations, he says, “has taken away from the city’s style and pizzazz. When these places die, the flavour of the city dies with it.”

The flavour of local politics is changing though, especially with the candidacy of Louise Harel, the former PQ minister who presided over the municipal mergers in 2001 and a staunch sovereigntist. But Action Montreal wants to concentrate on what they consider Vision Montréal’s lack of effectiveness as the official opposition and avoid the language issue at all costs. “It’s bad for business, for the culture, for hearts and minds,” he says. “[Giancaspro and I have] spent the last four years acting like the official opposition… It’s arrogant on [Vision Montréal’s] part to get a ringer. They couldn’t handle being the opposition, what makes them think they can handle running the city?” (Karidogiannis doesn’t think much of Projet Montréal either: “They’re more concentrated in the Plateau, and our ideologies differ vastly. The essence of that party is to turn every commercial street into a big bike path…. They treat business and property owners as persona non grata.”)

For now, Action Montreal is not officially in the running as a bona fide political party. But Karidogiannis and Giancaspro are planning to hold a series of town hall meetings throughout the city over the summer to gauge interest. He says they have a network of “15 or 20 prominent people” in and around the city willing to run, and someone—as yet unnamed—in mind for a mayoral candidate.