Richard Bergeron joins Team Coderre - can you spell j-e-r-k?

I hope Projet can survive this. Projet was so much Bergeron's baby, and he does have some excellent ideas about urbanism. I agree with him about the need for modern trams, though personally I'd start with the big loop of Avenue du Parc and Côte-des-Neiges, as the Orange Line of the métro is saturated. But it is true that he is at once narcissistic and frankly a bit off the wall. There are excellent Projet mayors and council members.

We need both.

Edited to add: I'm an ecosocialist, and have long been a militant both in transpport - urban issues and in a tenants' association. A liveable city means a city where people - of all income levels - can live, and thus affordable, including social housing, of various types. But it also means a city freed from the death-grip of the car. That requires quality public transport that everyone will be happy to take. Modern trams are extraordinarily comfortable - you can read on them - and almost universally accessible. And yes, they work fine in snowy climes - there are plenty of you tubes and photos of trams in Nordic countries.

You could turn that on your head and say there is no point in building social housing if people are just going to be suffocated or squashed by speeding trucks.

(I'd disagree with either of those simplifications).

I'm not trivializing our ecologic concerns.

I just think that the priority should be tackling homelessness and poverty. THEN we can move on to tramways and everything else.

(BTW,I think Montréal already has a good public transit system)

I said what I thought about him in my first response. I also think he has some weird reactionary tics for someone who was leading a globally progressive party, which has done a lot of good things. I didn't like what he said about homeless people at all, and his "joke" about smoking being heathful just fell flat. He just doesn't "get" certain things.

And I strongly disagree to the idea that ecological issues are some kind of luxury to be dealt with after homelessness and poverty. Often these issues are intertwined. Poor people are also those most exposed to pollution and to the dangers of traffic and traffic planning centred on private vehicles.

It is important to fight for both these things. And no, it is not just homeless people among the poor who are exposed to more pollutants than more affluent people. Yes, by definition homeless people have horrific survival conditions - if they survive - one can't even speak of "living" conditions. There aren't a lot of homeless people in my area; there are a lot of badly housed people and people who pay far more rent than they can possibly afford. Look at the fence between Parc-Ex and VMR! We have a lot of workshops and mobilisations about mould, vermin and toxic pollutants from proximity to major streets, industry and a lack of greenery that absorbs those poisons.

The same forces that drive greater poverty also fuel carcentric, toxic society.

I'm dismayed by your lack of concern for environmental issues; and I've been involved in a tenants' association for over 30 years.

I'm no Bergeron fan either. But I think environmental issues are life and death issues, just as much as poverty issues are. I'm surprised by 21st-century "progressives" who think they can be left to some future generation.

Last year this kind of talk would get you smeared as "more radical than thou".

He is scum. My criticism beforehand had to do with his odd and at times outright reactionary stances on social policy (including his strange notions about homeless people) but I thought he had excellent points about urbanism. He is a wilful and conscious sellout, like Alain Dubuc in the day.

Bergeron vendu!

Any word on the Projet - Vrai Changment (Melanie Joly's party) merger talks reported last month by [url=https://ricochet.media/en/1450/exclusive-montreals-opposition-parties-in...