Legault and Plante agree to pressure the feds to ban handguns

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Gun violence and public transportation projects were the main topics of the first official meeting between Quebec Prime Minister François Legault and Valérie Plante since her re-election as mayor of Montreal on November 7.

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After the meeting, the two expressed outrage at the violent deaths of three teenagers in Montreal since February and vowed to do everything possible to combat the rise of street gangs in Montreal. 16-year-old Thomas Trudel was fatally shot in St-Michel on November 14, Jannai Dopwell-Bailey was stabbed to death in Côte-des-Neiges on October 18, and 15-year-old Meriem Boundaoui was shot mortal in St-Léonard on February 7.

Both Legault and Plante again called on the federal government to ban firearms across the country and do more to prevent them from crossing the Canada-United States border.

“As I understand it, the federal government does not want to (ban handguns) across Canada,” Legault said. “They want to give (the responsibility) to the cities and I think the cities do not agree with that. We are ready to discuss it with the federal government, first to ban firearms and once they are banned, better control is needed at the borders to ensure that they do not enter Quebec. “

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He said Geneviève Guilbault, Quebec’s minister of public safety, will announce, in the coming weeks, more funding for community groups to help keep youth out of street gangs or to work with youth struggling with mental illness.

Plante said he considers the federal government’s attempt to give large cities the responsibility for banning firearms “absurd.” He said the city will hire 250 more police officers, as promised during the election campaign, because Montreal must maintain its reputation as a safe city.

“Montreal is a city known for being safe,” he said. “It is one of the arguments that allows us to distinguish ourselves internationally, whether to attract tourists, workers or students.”

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He praised the work of the Montreal police, referring to the arrests and seizures that resulted in “500 guns removed from the streets of Montreal since last January.”

The two also discussed REM de l’Est, the proposed second phase of the light rapid transit system that will link downtown Montreal with Pointe-aux-Trembles at the eastern end and with Montreal North. Legault said he’s sensitive to concerns expressed in a march Saturday that the project will ruin neighborhoods on the far east if it is built on the ground.

“I admit that we have to do much more, the government of Quebec and the Caisse de Dépôt, with the city of Montreal, to make the REM project acceptable in the east,” Legault said.

He said there are “adjustments to be made”, adding that an independent advisory committee chaired by engineer Maude Cohen is looking at alternatives to the current $ 10 billion REM de l’Est de la Caisse de Dépôt project. He acknowledged that those alternatives will likely involve burying more of the project underground and therefore increasing the cost.

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“Right now we are not excluding anything. We are talking about a cost of around $ 10 billion. If we had to hide it all, it would be $ 20 billion, which would be unacceptable. Can we reach a compromise? “

They also discussed the extension of the metro’s Blue Line to St-Léonard and Anjou, mainly focusing on concerns about cost overruns and how to minimize them, Legault said.

Before their meeting, Legault and Plante rode part of the rapid transit bus project route along Pie-IX Blvd., currently under construction, on an electric STM bus.

The service will reduce transit times for commuters along 13 kilometers of highway between St-Martin Blvd. in Laval and Notre-Dame St. in Montreal. The buses will run in two reserved lanes mainly in the center of the road, with priority traffic lights to speed up the journey of some 70,000 passengers a day.

SRB service between Laval and Pie-IX metro station (except between Everett and Bélair streets) is expected to begin in the fall of 2022, but the line will not be fully operational until at least 2023.

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