Drinking water by-law passes with some opposition

A new Pointe-Claire by-law will limit the amount of drinkable water residents can use, but it didn’t pass without some opposition.

Council adopted the by-law at this month’s council meeting on June 4, one month after it was introduced at the May council meeting. The law aims to limit residents’ use of drinkable water and will affect activities like watering the lawn and filling swimming pools.

Both councillors Claude Cousineau and Paul Bissonnette spoke out against the by-law. Bissonnette opposed the by-law in part because of its enforcement mechanism, which assigns responsibility to five municipal departments.

“I don’t agree that all five departments should be going around investigating. I’m totally against that,” he said.

Councillor Cousineau’s opposition to the by-law was related to the cost-sharing of a new water pipe, to be installed in Pointe-Claire’s southwest, with the City of Montreal. “Our share of the cost has now reached $9 million. Those are our costs for us. This was supposed to save us money.”

“We’re being mistreated by the Agglo, by the CMM, name any of the other agencies.”

Councillor Brent Cowan acknowledged his colleagues’ concerns but still spoke in favour of the by-law.

He pointed out that the city is eligible for subsidies for water-related projects only if it adopts such a by-law. “We’re gonna have a year or so to learn and adjust our behaviours and push back if we need to. We can amend this by-law. There’s nothing stopping us from doing that. But do remember, please, that there’s hundreds of thousands of dollars at stake, which is why we’re doing it now.”

A copy of the by-law will be available on the City of Pointe-Claire’s website next week.

Council redraws district boundaries

Also at this month’s council meeting, council adopted a by-law redrawing the city’s electoral districts.

A map of the new boundaries shows that the main changes are to District 6 and its neighbours; the district’s northeast corner, including Avenue Auto Plaza, will now belong to District 7. The district’s southern border with District 4 has also been redrawn, extending the southeast corner of District 6 to Sedgefield.

The purpose of reorganizing the districts is to bring them in line with provincial law, according to which the size of each district is determined by a formula that involves dividing the total number of electors in the city by the number of districts.

The new electoral districts will come into effect in October.

Not all residents heard during question period

Also at this month’s council meeting, the question period's 90-minute time limit expired before all residents on the list had a chance to speak. This marks the third time in recent months that not everyone had the chance to speak during question period.