Poor Governance Day
Montreal, May 5, 2016 – Naming 5 May 2016 Poor Governance Day in Quebec, les Pollués de Montréal-Trudeau have awarded Aeroports de Montreal (ADM) the title of Greatest Polluter of Montreal.
“The conduct of ADM is outrageous,” says Antoine Bécotte, president of the citizens’ committee. “This private company, managed by business people, has no consideration for the noise and air pollution that its decisions cause to thousands of Montrealers. Its Annual General Meeting only serves to whitewash it with its commercial partners by distorting data on the population adversely affected by noise.”

ADM not only refuses to recognize the gravity of the situation, it persists in its refusal to install permanent noise monitoring stations east of Vieux Saint-Laurent in order to respond to complaints from residents of the boroughs of Saint-Laurent, Ahuntsic-Cartierville and Villeray – Saint-Michel – Parc-Extension, and the municipality of Mont-Royal.

“ADM, whose mission statement specifically obliges it to work with the community and who has just cleared $19.8 million of net income in its fiscal 2015, can do no better than denigrate measuring stations we installed at our cost, whose results show decibel levels that are dangerous for the health of residents. All to continue to control the Montreal sky at will, without any supervision by the authorities. ”
Mr. Bécotte reminds us that ADM is not subject to the Access to Information Act nor the control of the Auditor General of Canada.

And while all the noise measuring station data of les Pollués de Montréal-Trudeau is available in real time (ww-ans.net), ADM’s data consists only of averages, published just once a year.

Governance at ADM is so bad that four boroughs (Saint-Laurent and Ahuntsic-Cartierville in 2008, Villeray-Saint-Michel-Parc Extension in 2015 and Lachine in 2013) and Mont-Royal (in 2015) approved motions either calling for noise mitigation measures and a curfew, or for an assurance that ADM does not establish new flight paths over their districts.

Moreover, in December 2015, the City of Montreal unanimously approved a resolution demanding that ADM publish all data on aircraft movements, as well as real-time data of the noise levels measured using its “sound level meters” placed around the airport.

The poor governance of ADM is abundantly illustrated in two studies published by the Institute for Governance of Private and Public Organizations in 2008 and 2014.
ADM, a bad corporate citizen? To ask the question is to answer it.

“Now this secretive organization manages our airport infrastructure, an asset that belongs to all Montrealers, Quebecers and Canadians,” laments Mr. Bécotte. “It refuses to make room for residents representing the island’s residential community on its bodies (Board of Directors and Advisory Committee on the Noise Environment).”

About Les Pollués de Montréal-Trudeau

Les Pollués de Montréal-Trudeau is a group of Montreal citizens incorporated as a non-profit organization in the summer of 2013. Their main demands are a revision of the landing and takeoff protocols at Montreal-Trudeau airport with the aim of raising altitude levels of aircraft flying over the island of Montreal, and the application of a strict curfew between 11 pm and 7 am.

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