Wealthy neighbourhood shocker!

Westmounters are good liberals, but don't protest in their town

by JACQUIE CHARLTON

It's a holiday weekend. I'm sitting in the garden, sipping a freshly poured Guinness, the glass coated with little rivulets of condensation. It's five o'clock. The westering sun glints gold in our windows. When the wind blows enough to ruffle a row of maples bordering our property, shafts of light pierce its leaves, creating dappled patterns in the grass...

This pastoral peace is only broken when those scruffy people lugging white canvas sacks start shoving advertising through people's mail slots. It's then when the little dog across the road starts up a series of irritating yips that are taken up like a canine chain letter by the many dogs resident on our street. It takes a while for peace to be re-established...

--Westmount mayor Peter Trent on why he intends to stay in Westmount during his summer vacation, Westmount Examiner, June 29, 1995.

Two thousand anti-poverty protesters marching through Westmount last Saturday spoiled a perfectly beautiful day.

The march, organized by a coalition of community groups, was held to protest government inaction on poverty and to call for greater redistribution of wealth. And despite the fact that Westmount is an isle of comfort in a city racked by poverty, nobody in the neighbourhood could figure out just why Westmount was chosen as the place to air their beefs.

"I'm floored," said a thin woman in a black Calvin Klein top outside her home on the Boulevard. "I can't believe this is happening in Montreal. I'm upset."

"It's disgusting," said a man named Okan, sunning himself in Murray Hill Park. Added his friend Audrey: "We're supposed to pay more taxes because they have no money? Because we live here we have to listen to this?"

"I think it's terrible," said a young man named L.B. walking away from the demo up Edgehill Road with his father. "My father had $15 when he came to this country. I think he deserves to live in Westmount because he worked like hell all his life."

"What are these people?" asked Madonna Levy outside of her home on Sydenham Road. "I don't see the point. You know where I was born? Griffintown! This is a land of opportunity. I think it's ridiculous. It's unbelievable."

"As a child I was poorer than all of them," exclaimed a man named Jack in a pastel-coloured suit. Jack added he would be willing to pay more taxes "as long as the poor do what they have to do--as long as the poor contribute and work."

"It's ridiculous," said Chris, a baby-boomer playing with his two kids in Murray Hill Park. "And I don't see why Westmount should be targeted. I think in a free society if you want to work it's your responsibility and your right to work. This country has social programs and they're enough. I don't see any of these people suffering.

"Look at their kids," Chris said, gesturing to the children some of the protesters had brought in tow. "Their kids are well-dressed, they've got proper baby carriages. I don't see what the problem is."