People's champion

>> City ombudsman Maurice Beauchamp helps the little guy fight City Hall

By NAOMI BLOCH

K. was attempting to fulfill her civic duty when she paid her $42 parking ticket at the bank. Imagine her shock one year later to discover that she now owed several hundred dollars because the city had only received $40. Trying to convince city officials that she could not be held responsible for the bank's $2 mistake, and confused as to how such a small amount had spiralled upward, K. was met with the usual bureaucratic paper-shuffling and indifference.

Five years ago, K.'s situation would have been just another Kafkaesque anecdote. Today, she and all other citizens of Montreal can turn to the man whose mandate is to rage against the municipal machine: Maurice Beauchamp, le Médiateur.

Early in the '90s, Mayor Bourque came back from Paris with a revolutionary idea. Montrealers should have an ombudsman to turn to, someone who answered only to them and would address their complaints against the city. It might not seem like a very novel notion to some, but Montreal's Bureau du Médiateur, founded in 1995, is one of the first of its kind in North America.

"In the past, sometimes a citizen's only chance would have been to go to court," says Beauchamp. "If they didn't have the money to do that, then they were stuck." Beauchamp has worked as a civil servant for over 30 years, and believes his insider knowledge of the system gives him an advantage that an outsider might not have.

He's met his share of resistance from fellow servants. Notices to the Legal Department regarding the abusive behaviour of certain bailiffs have never been addressed. "In one case, a bailiff apparently pushed a woman into a chair when she tried to call her husband, and told her to 'shut up and sit still.' We're trying to force the bailiffs to be more disciplined but it's not easy."

Still, Beauchamp says that a lot of progress has been made since he took over the position two years ago. "In the beginning, it was very difficult because we're definitely disturbing the system. When we demand information from a department head, it's because we think something isn't right. But now they've gotten used to seeing our faces."

His office now deals with specifically designated personnel within various departments, making it easier to work collectively to resolve issues. He has broadened his focus to affect overall changes to the system, "inspiring" departments to change their regulations as a whole, rather than conceding to Beauchamp on particular cases while continuing the same unfair practices.

Already overtaxing his resources, Beauchamp predicts a significant overload with the upcoming city mergers. In Montreal alone, the number of dossiers has risen substantially in the past year. "There will be a growing problem as different departments start to overlap. People will slip through the cracks."

In the mean time, Beauchamp has managed to reduce the time needed to resolve complaints, despite spending hours writing detailed letters of explanation to each complainant. He goes so far as hiring translators to communicate with Montrealers who can't understand French or English. "This is Montreal--35 per cent of our population come from other cultural communities. But the city has never dealt with things this way." Sometimes, it seems, the biggest changes come from within.

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