"eventually they start thinking montreal's some kind of lego toy village for them to play with...."
2006-11-28 | 5:55 p.m.

So, the Parc Avenue name change passed. 40-22. This in spite of the fact that the reaction of the public was almost uniformly, and very, very vocally, negative.

What bullshit.

Look, I'm not saying (and neither were the vast majority of the people who protested this move) that Robert Bourassa doesn't deserve to be honoured in some way. But to rename Parc? What's next, renaming Sherbrooke? Sainte-Catherine? Saint-Laurent? Yeah, let's just wipe them all out. Heck, maybe we can get Toronto to rename Bloor, Yonge, and the Danforth! Maybe Ottawa can rename Bank Street and Sparks Street! After all, they're just names, right?

A bit melodramatic? Maybe. But only a bit.

Gerald Tremblay's idea of democracy is this: the public elects the councillors, and their say ends there. The councillors, once elected get to do whatever the hell they want. I'm not kidding, that's basically what he said.

Now, my only council experience is student government, and I've only been at it for a few months. But I know this much- by appointing me, my classmates agreed to trust my judgement on most issues. However, if ever anything contentious comes up, and if ever anything comes up about which my opinion and the majority opinion of my department conflicts, I am bound to do what they want, not what I want. (Within limits of course. If they voted unanimously to, say, deny grant funding to all black students, I'd be justified in ignoring them. But that's another issue entirely.)

The public outcry against the name change was huge. And the city council ignored it. Which means that they weren't doing their jobs. I hope they're proud.

And the most ironic part is, it's doubtful that Bourassa himself would have wanted to be commemorated this way. He was known for avoiding anything divisive. (Besides which, if a particular part of town meant something to me, I wouldn't want it changed in some semi-arbitrary way. I sure as hell wouldn't want anyone, say, naming Sherbrooke after me. Sherbrooke means something to me just as it is. But that's just me.) Tremblay and his cronies aren't doing this for Robert Bourassa. They're doing it for themselves, to make themselves happy.

Okay, that there is just pop psychology. I don't actually know that. But that sure is what it looks like.

I'll be watching with interest the fallout on Help Save Parc and the Montreal City Weblog (from which I took the title of this post).

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