In your latest edition and elsewhere, Beryl Wajsman is retailing the absurd notion that I wanted nothing to do with anything outside Westmount when I was mayor.
He is patently oblivious of my work as President of the Association of Suburban Municipalities, executive member of the Quebec Municipalities Union, the suburban leader in the Montreal Agglomeration Council, a member of the Council of the Montreal Metropolitan Community, and so on.
Wajsman’s claim also flies in the face of my public stance, as reported in regional and even national media, about the cutting of home delivery by Canada Post, the gross over-remuneration of municipal employees in Quebec, corruption by Quebec contractors, and regional mass transit policy. I could go on, but the list is long.
But Wajsman’s most egregious assertion was that he decided to seek my old job because of my supposed lack of action in the elimination of the Mount Royal provincial riding!
In fact, I was on that case two years before Wajsman decided to make it yet another of his multifariouscauses célèbres. Two local papers reported that I was “fiercely opposed to” the potential loss of the riding and actually tabled a detailed position paper on the whole matter at hearings held for that purpose. I reproduce these articles below.
— Peter Trent
Further to Peter Trent’s letter I actually do not mention him on this issue. I mention the need for Westmount to assume a more open and activist role on these issues as other advocacy groups and municipalities do. And I mention what I am told by provincial observers and officials on the importance of Westmount being seen to be involved. As for Mr.Trent’s comments at the end of his letter about my reasons for entering the race, I did not say what the article stated and that portion was supposed to be corrected. I even put a remark in the comments section to that effect and Irwin Block was supposed to have made the clarification on the website this past Monday.- Beryl Wajsman