Montreal Summit: no riff-raff allowed

Want a new stop sign at your corner? New swings in your local playground? Longer hours at the pool? Although city bureaucrats are still mumbling about it in the vaguest of terms, the megacity’s upcoming Montreal Summit will be the key event to determine the details of life in the newly united island burg. Summit organizer Eric Ryan describes the event as a “decision-making process” in which neighbourhoods and boroughs will “identify their priorities.” In other words, neighbourhood types will be given a choice on how to divvy out the cash in their local kitty.

For example, if borough busybodies agree to assign the maintenance of their outdoor skating rink to local volunteers rather than leave the job to city workers, they could save around $11,000 to spend on other city services. Who will be invited to represent at the summit—which is pencilled in for May—remains unclear but Ryan implies that the red carpet will be unrolled for local notables rather than the great unwashed. “It won’t be a public hearing, that’s not the right term for it,” he says. “The process will involve decision makers and community leaders. We’ll need them to provide opinions and decisions. Once there’s a consensus they will go back and enact the consensus.” :

—Kristian Gravenor