Montreal upgrades to online petitions, but too late for Mount Royal opposition

Montrealers will no longer need to gather signatures on paper to submit a petition to call for public consultations, but the change in policy is too late for those against a plan to block cars from driving across Mount Royal.

Until now, petitions submitted to the city have required 15,000 signatures on paper, rather than online. 

An internet petition against the Plante administration's pilot projet set for this spring has accumulated more than 25,000 signatures.

François Croteau, borough mayor for Rosemont-La-Petite-Patrie and the executive committee member responsible for innovation, blames the extra delay this year on how the technology was developed. 

The city's soon-to-be-implemented new website cannot accommodate it, he said.

"We have to completely change the architecture of what was developed," he told Radio-Canada's Gravel le matin.

The motion for online petitions will be submitted by the opposition, Ensemble Montreal, will be tabled at a municipal council meeting later this month.

Projet Montréal will support it, Croteau said.

Delayed intentionally?

The technology required to accept electronic petitions was developed by the city's last administration, under Denis Coderre, but couldn't be implemented in 2017 because it was an election year, according to his old party's current leader, Lionel Perez.

Perez said the city can't launch public consultations during election years, and such a change would have required a consultation. 

He suspects the delay may also have something to do with the petition against blocking cars from crossing the mountain, a pilot project championed by Plateau-Mont-Royal Borough Mayor Luc Ferrandez. 

The pilot project has received pushback from Montrealers who say blocking cars from crossing Mount Royal will reduce access to the mountain and create a barrier between the city's east and west ends.

A counter-petition online in favour of the plan has more than 7,000 signatures.