Building bridges

>> New dream for Lachine Canal doesn't float everybody's boat

By PETER McQUEEN

As tourist yachts drift dreamily past, local athletes race their kayaks from the Domtex lofts to the Coleco craft boutiques. It's an image from a future, spiffed-up Lachine Canal floated by Pierre Paquin, Mayor Bourque's right-hand man on the executive committee for the canal project . But details of the splashy plan have caused ripples among opponents who say the project will soak local taxpayers and spray cold water on the hopes for continued low-cost housing.

Paquin has advocated the construction of a new bridge, approved at the last council meeting, that will span the canal at Monk, where Cote-St-Paul, Ville-Emard and St-Henri converge. The new bridge will replace the existing one at de l'Eglise that feds have condemned as too weak for heavy trucks and too low to let boats under. Paquin tells the Mirror that the span will reinvigorate decaying south-side commerce by improving access to Notre-Dame and Highway 20.

But Philippe Bisonnette, independent councillor for Ville-Emard, suspects the bridge is too far-fetched. He raises caution flags about the supposed effects of the new bridge and its $12- to $15-million price tag. Bisonnette says that rather than bring shoppers to the area, improved road access south of the canal will tempt consumers away to the westbound Highway 20 and the malls of LaSalle and the West Island and actually damage the poor inner-city neighbourhood's retail streets.

Paquin also claims that new access ramps to the eastbound 20 could one day be built into the Turcot interchange, improving access to downtown and attracting yuppie commuters to live in his district. However, Bisonnette counters that Cote-St-Paul's access to Highway 20 eastbound was already improved just 10 years ago when the Angrignon interchange was built. He asks, "Why do we need to spend more money on it now?"

Bisonnette calls the price tag of Paquin's canal renovations an "astronomical investment" for such a nebulous reward. "The money could be better spent on any number of projects throughout the city or on the canal." Bisonnette says. For example, a recently built footbridge over the canal at Parc Georges-Etienne Cartier cost only $375,000. Besides, he says, "No consultations on the plan were ever carried out in either district," and he adds that the studies justifying the plan were released to the public only after City Hall had already approved it.

The rest of Paquin's plan envisions an expansion of the City of Montreal's Gadbois sports and recreation complex that would be linked directly to the canal by the closing of St-Ambroise, the St-Henri approach to the old bridge. Rezoning between Atwater and de l'Eglise will also allow for 650 new homes and heaps of new office and commercial space in the area.

Kayak facilities and a chalet for winter visitors are also on the table because Paquin predicts that, "One day people will skate on the winter ice, like they do on Ottawa's Rideau Canal."

Paquin has enjoyed a meteoric rise in stature since fellow southwest councillor and long-time St-Henri power broker, Germain Prégent, suffered a stroke this spring. But his plans have stirred other local opponents. The Regroupement pour la relance économique du sud-ouest have argued that boating and satellite yuppie service industries will push out existing manufacturing jobs in the area. And the low-cost housing group PROPIR also fears that the plan will spark a Plateau-style rent spiral in one of the city's last affordable areas.

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