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He’s a biker, even if his shoulder-length hair and beard are turning white and his once muscled body has wasted to lean bordering on frail. His Moto Guzzi sits in the shed, in front of the bench where he grows cannabis under LED lights. He’s smoked weed most of his life, but these “girls” as he refers to his female plants, will never be immolated. Gray says he hasn’t smoked since he began extracting cannabis oils a year ago.

Gray has MDS, myelodysplastic syndrome, a form of blood cancer. The immature blood cells his bone marrow produces don’t mature. Some patients with lower-risk forms of MDS can live five years or more. In 30 per cent of cases MDS degenerates into acute myeloid leukaemia, a form with a far shorter life expectancy.

When Gray was diagnosed with MDS, his doctor told him he had 18 months and put him on Darbepoetin to raise his hemoglobin level. For three years he received the $1,580 injections every three weeks. He was also prescribed up to eight Oxycontin tablets a day.

Three years later, Gray was barely functioning. His hemoglobin/white cell counts continued to decline. That and the Oxycontin left him wasted, so he stopped the darbepoetin and replaced the Oxy with Percocet, a combination of acetaminophen and oxycontin. Online, he’d been following the advice of Rick Smith, a Canadian cancer survivor who counsels supplanting or supplementing conventional treatments with a mix of tetrahydrocannabinol (THC) and cannabidiol (CBD) extracted from dried cannabis. Like Smith, Gray believes a THC-rich blend is more effective in killing cancer cells.

He continued to monitor his hemoglobin level and white cell count, both of which rebounded. When his cannabis extract supply ran out in October, his levels dropped so fast and far, he required two blood transfusions. Since then, he makes sure he has the raw materials to maintain a steady supply.

He’s still taking the opioid Percocet, but at lower levels than prescribed. “There are days I’ll feel like popping a perk,” he says. He believes opioids helps him function in the mornings.

He doesn’t share his self-medicating details with his doctors. “Oh, they know, but they don’t want to know.” He’s a firm believer in the conspiracy theory placing the self-regulating bodies that oversee Canadian medical professionals in bed with Big Pharma. Doctors are encouraged to continue prescribing prescription painkillers and discouraged from assisting their patients in exploring alternatives. Career-wise, it’s safer for a doctor to continue prescribing opioids despite a North American epidemic of overdose-related deaths.

Long before the Oct. 17/18 legalization of recreational cannabis, the federal health establishment and its provincial agencies strove to keep the cannabis discussion focussed on regulatory issues for fear of being drawn into a larger discussion concerning the use of cannabinoids as effective, health-insurable prescription drugs.

Since 2013, any doctor in Canada is legally permitted to prescribe cannabinoids without the patient having to enrol in a clinical trial. The exception at that time was Quebec, where as of April 2014 cannabis could only be prescribed “within a research framework,” as it is not a medically recognized treatment.

To satisfy the Collège des medécins’ demand for a framework, a group of doctors and researchers announced in May 2015 the creation of the world’s first research database on the use of cannabis for medical purposes, the Quebec Cannabis Registry (www.registrecannabisquebec.com).

“We need this database to help develop and answer future questions on the medical use of cannabis, such as who uses it, for what reasons, through which methods, and at what dose.” — Dr. Mark Ware, Director of Clinical Research of the Alan Edwards Pain Management Unit at the MUHC and associate professor in Family Medicine and Anesthesia at McGill University.

The Quebec Cannabis Registry collects, compiles and store clinical data collected from patients who use medical marijuana. Participants agree to provide data for four years after recruitment. Any licensed doctor practising in the province wishing to authorize cannabis for their adult patients can thus enrol participants in the registry. The Registry’s creators set a goal of 3,000 participants over a 10-year period beginning in 2015. (It stopped taking registrants this fall after enrolling the 3,000.) 

April, 2018: Quebec’s Collège des medécins cautions members against prescribing cannabinoids pending further research into efficacy, dosage and side effects. “Does one prescribe three grammes a day or five,” demands Collège secretary Yves Robert. “And five grammes of what? Cookies? Oil? Inhalation?” Doctors who prescribe cannabinoids instead of opiates had better be able to justify their choice, Robert warns.

The Collège argues that the Registry doesn’t satisfy the criteria of true scientific research and therefore can’t demonstrate that cannabinoids offer a solid alternative to opioids for chronic pain relief.

Quebec’s growing network of private cannabis clinics accuses the Collège of using veiled threats to fearmonger doctors into refusing to consider cannabis as an alternative to opioid painkillers. 

Sept 20/18: Three weeks prior to the legalization of recreational cannabis, the CMQ revises its prescription protocols for medical cannabis. Quebec doctors can now prescribe cannabis outside the framework of a research project subject to the following caveats: 

— A doctor must know the limits of his expertise and should not prescribe unless medically necessary. 

— Based on the principle of ‘first, do no harm,’ the doctor must also ensure that a prescription’s therapeutic benefits must outweigh undesirable potential effects and risks such as dependency.

— Cannabis must not be the first treatment choice. Before considering it for treatment of a medical condition, the doctor must ensure that the patient’s response to other treatments is inconclusive. The doctor must make note of treatments tried and deemed ineffective by the patient.

— The doctor must become aware of policies regarding the use of cannabis for medical purposes as listed on the Health Canada website. The prescription of cannabis isn’t appropriate for anyone under the age of 25, anyone presenting a risk or history of dependancy, those with a family history of psychosis, anyone with cardiovascular or respiratory disease, women breastfeeding, expecting or hoping to be. The doctor must also weigh the risk to ex-smokers of prescribing inhaled cannabis.

— Upon prescribing, the doctor must carry out a full medical evaluation, in person, and must note the patient’s free and informed consent in his file. He must inform the patient of possible effects and complications on the patient’s health (depression, psychosis, mental illnesses, lung disease, connitive decline, memory loss, reduction in professional or scholastic performance). — The patient must be aware of his responsibilities in following this treatment, specifically while driving and preventing the drug’s use by minors.

— The patient must schedule visits to the doctor as needed to ensure adequate followup of his medical condition. A first followup visit should take place within three months of the initial prescription depending on the clinical conditions and until the stabilization of the patient.

The patient must not sell or traffic in prescribed drugs.

— The doctor must cease prescribing cannabis in the event of a complication or if the patient doesn’t fulfill his obligations.

— Treatment must begin with the lowest possible dose and increases must be managed with care.

— In all cases, treatment must be signalled to the the treating physician as well as to other doctors following the patient with the patient’s consent. 

— The doctor must note in the patient’s file the indication for which the cannabis is prescribed.

— The doctor must keep a register of patients for whom he has prescribed cannabis so as to permit control and adequate followup of his clientele and rapid access to files.

 The CMQ protocol also addresses potential conflicts of interest:

The authorization or prescription for the use of medical cannabis or supplementary fees cannot be billed by the physician. The doctor cannot derive profit from prescribing medical cannabis and cannot directly sell or provide it to the patient.

— The prescribing physician must allow the patient the freedom to choose a supplier.

— The physician must safeguard his professional independence at all times and avoid any situation in which he would be in a conflict of interests. To this end, if the physician has financial interests in an enterprise engaged in the production of cannabis, must so inform the patient as well as the milieu where he practices.

Pain specialists expressed disgust at the CMQ’s latest edicts, arguing that opioids, with their known risks of addiction and abuse, are the real problem. Research has shown phytocannabinoids THC and CBD can work in harmony with the body’s own endocannabinoids to mitigate pain. “The pharmeconomy would save millions, maybe billions, in drug and treatment costs with cannabinoids,” a Quebec GP told me. 

October 2018: The Quebec Automobile Insurance Board refuses to reimburse the cost of cannabinoids prescribed as a cost-effective pain treatment alternative to opioids such as dilaudid, fentanyl and methadone. Only medications bearing a DIN and listed in the Régime général d’assurance médicaments (RGAM) are reimbursable. (CNESST, Quebec’s workplace health and safety agency, will consider reimbursing the cost of prescribed cannabinoids.) 

Of the provinces, Quebec maintains the hardest stance on cannabis. The current government proposes to raise the legal consumption age to 21 regardless of the federal legal age, 18. Quebec is the only province to ban unlicenced cannabis production (not even the federally sanctioned four plants), yet outlets of the SCDQ, the provincially managed cannabis marketing structure, are closed half the week for lack of product. Who benefits from that?

Gold-rush hucksterism

This past April, I attended a cannabis industry conference in Montreal and blogged about it (https://thousandlashes.ca/2018/04/16/cannabis-update-risk-vs-potential/). Major producers Canopy Growth, Aurora and Hypothecary were there, along with Health Canada and a jam of lawyers and lobbyists — regulatory and governance specialists, branding and trademark lawyers, M&A suits. I met venture capitalists and insurance actuaries, producers and foodies.

Researchers provided a reality check to the gold-rush huckerism. A mid-morning panel on the scientific and medical implications of legalization featured McGill’s Dr. Mark Ware, the Université de Sherbrooke’s Dr. Serge Marchand and New Brunswick Health Research Foundation head Dr. Bruno Battistini. They foresaw serious public health issues resulting from Canada’s legalization of the recreational use of cannabis, at that point still six months away. Their biggest concern —the 20 per cent of recreational pot users at risk of mental illness. THC, the psychoactive component of cannabis, latches onto receptors in the brain that trigger certain pleasure reflexes. This 20% is at risk of developing psychotic reactions, especially among adolescents and young adults.

The panel stressed the need for extensive research into phyto-cannabinoids, the collective label given to 142 molecules found in various cannabis strains. The two best-known cannabinoids are delta-9-tetrahydrocannabidiol, or THC, and cannabidiol, or CBD. THC is responsible for many of the pharmacological effects of cannabis, including the psychoactive effect — the high. CBD doesn’t have any of the intoxicating, euphoric effects of THC.

The researchers described CBD’s potential as a medical ‘magic bullet.” Cannabidiol is being used to treat a growing list of conditions — Crohn’s and other inflammatory bowel diseases, PTSD and other psychological disorders, fibromyalgia, rheumatoid arthritis, epilepsy, MS, Parkinson’s, Alzheimer and dementia, austism spectrum disorders, acne — and opioid addiction. But without clinical trials and scientific methodology, the medical cannabis industry can’t advance past the anecdotal stage and opiates will remain North America’s default prescription painkillers despite their toxicity and potential for abuse.

Ware, who has since gone on to become chief medical officer for Canopy Growth, is a West Island family doctor who co-founded the Canadian Consortium for the Investigation of Cannabinoids (CCIC) while serving as director of clinical research at the MUHC’s Alan Edwards Pain Management Unit. He described how difficult it was to convince doctors to enrol their patients in cannabinoid clinical trials because of resistance from the profession’s governing bodies. (To get around Quebec’s Collège des médecins and its convoluted protocol for the prescribing of cannabinoids, Ware and a group of pain specialists in May 2015 launched the Quebec Cannabis Registry (www.registrecannabisquebec.com), the world’s first research database on the use of cannabis for medical purposes. In late 2018, registration was closed at 3,000 patients.)

Drs. Ware, Marchand and Battistini concluded on a down note: In legalizing recreational weed, Canada has opened the door to cannabis’s medical applications. However, they warned, it was a matter of time before the U.S. removed CBD from the DEA’s list of Schedule 1 drugs (no currently accepted medical use, high potential for abuse). Once that happens, Canada would lose its advantage.

As they predicted, the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration five months later moved CBD from Schedule 1 to Schedule 5, allowing the prescribing and sale of CBD-derived formulations with levels of THC below 0.1%. In December, the Hemp Farming Act of 2018 was signed into law, making CBD a legal agricultural product. Estimates peg the U.S. CBD market at $23B annually within 10 years.

Equally sudden has been the opioid backlash directed at producers and distributors. In the U.S. the attorneys-general of 41 states have served five major opioid producers and three distributors with subpoenas seeking information about how these companies marketed, sold and distributed prescription opioids. Civil class-action lawsuits alleging the industry misrepresented the effectiveness and addictive nature of opioid painkillers are being filed across America.

In Canada, the opioid backlash so far has been limited to B.C., which in August announced it would file a class-action lawsuit against dozens of players in the opioid industry. The province’s attorney-general alleges 20 years of misinformation and deception about the effectiveness and risks of addiction and asked other provinces to join B.C.’s action. Although a number of provinces with their own skyrocketing opioid-overdose death rates said they would review B.C.’s action with an eye to joining it, none have stepped forward.

Why the silence? None of the professionals I spoke with wished to be quoted, but they generally agreed the problem lies with Canada’s medical insurance structure. Public and private insurers buy in bulk from the distributors, who motivate doctors and pharmacists to prescribe.

Are opioids effective, non-addictive painkillers when used as prescribed? Here’s what one Quebec pain and addiction specialist told me: “I came to realize that my patients taking opioids for pain relief were fat, lazy, sweaty, non-functional — and still in pain.” The condition is called opioid-induced hyperalgesia, characterized by a paradoxical response whereby a patient receiving opioids for the treatment of pain could actually become more sensitive to certain painful stimuli.

Urinalysis and close questioning led to his discovery that some of his pain patients were trading their prescribed drugs for more powerful alternatives. Others were selling all or part of their prescription for cash. His doctor-patient relationship prevented him from turning them over to the police. The response from the Quebec Collège des médecins? Stop prescribing.

Hudsonites may remember this. For a town struggling to reverse the demise of its Main Street retail, the sight of a trainload of day trippers spending a vehicle-free day shopping, dining and playgoing was all it took to launch talk of a resurgent local economy. (Many visitors said there wasn’t enough to see or do to fill the time, but that’s another issue.)

The idea of train travel generates a lot of feel-good baggage, especially for we who  grew up with a dozen daily trains and the Sunday-morning Hangover Special. Old photos are a reminder of what Hudson has lost as service dwindled to a single commuter train weekday mornings and evenings and shuttlebuses, collectively costing taxpayers roughly $270,000 a year.

One of Hudson’s perennial debates is whether subsidizing public transport is worth it. The late mayor Steve Shaar used to quip it was cheaper to buy a car for every one of those taking the train. Since then, I’ve realized the extent to which the taxpayer  subsidizes the use of the car (and the driver doubly so). I’m running into more and more people done with a three-hour commute, traffic and lost personal time. I’m also meeting Millennials who reject car ownership and the illusion of personal freedom it conveys.

Is there a social shift underway in Vaudreuil-Soulanges? With a population topping 150,000 and 15% growth between censuses, is it sustainable enough to attract investment in an hourly light-rail shuttle between Rigaud, Hudson’s heritage stations and the bus/rail terminus in Vaudreuil? Will the new Réseau express métropolitain (REM) line terminating in northern Ste. Anne de Bellevue eventually cross the Ottawa River via the Ile aux Tourtes bridge replacement planned for 2028? Shouldn’t we be planning now for what will happen a decade away?

Hudson’s current administration has just begun its second year in office. Council’s orientations include a planning exercise that may or may not result in changes to  transport-oriented development (TOD) established by the previous council. Under current densification designations and Hudson’s 10-year-old master plan, the town has limited control over the size and social impact of multi-unit developments within the current one-kilometre TOD zone. It’s another of those inherited headaches we’re having to deal with.

It was with these thoughts that I headed to Trois-Rivières last Friday for the Nov. 9 Forum municipal sur le transport ferroviaire sponsored by the Union des municipalités du Québec. Alone and by car, onto the island on the 40, off the island via the 13 to the 640, to the 40. There is simply no other means getting to and from Trois-Rivières in less than 24 hours — the amount of time it took by steamboat 150 years ago.

The forum drew some 150 participants from throughout the province. During that afternoon’s interactive online survey, we learned that 96% of us arrived by car —most by ourselves. (I confess to not having made an effort to carpool with Hudson mayor Jamie Nicholls and Rigaud’s Hans Gruenwald.)  I met mayors, prefects and councillors from among the 500 Quebec municipalities transected by at least one operating rail line. Most of those I spoke with said their priorities were public security and moving freight. Public mass transit wasn’t at the top of most attendees’ lists of priorities despite UMQ president and Drummondville mayor Alexandre Cusson’s opening remarks warning us the planet is at a turning point, that sustainable transport is an essential next step and we, the municipalities, have to sell this to our residents.

With Lac Mégantic mayor Diane Morin in the audience and Transport Canada’s role in creating conditions for the 2013 oil train explosion fresh in many minds, federal transport minister Marc Garneau concentrated on vaunting his government’s doubling of the number of Transport Canada inspectors and investment in level crossing safety. He was followed by Infrastructure and Communities Minister François-Philippe Champagne, who touted the many areas in which the feds and the provinces can partner on rail transport projects.

Quebec’s new CAQ government declared itself behind whatever François Legault promised during the election campaign. In his maiden speech as transport minister, François Bonnardel touched on everything from passenger service in the Gaspé to developing Contrecoeur, on the South Shore downriver from Montreal, as Quebec’s new containerport and intermodal terminus. He noted how the premier is involved “haut et fort” in Via Rail’s plans to double service to Quebec’s smaller population centres — like Trois-Rivières. Again, Bonnardel’s emphasis was on the need to partner with Ottawa and municipalities and to let citizens know what’s happening.

Corporate interests were heavily represented by lobbyists and the forum’s panelists. VIA Rail CEO Yves Desjardins-Siciliano shared a glowing report (below) of VIA Rail’s blue-sky expansion plans for eastern Canada. CN executive president Sean Finn delivered a jolly hundredth-anniversary cheer for CN’s Quebec operations (2,038 miles of track, eight major clients across Canada) and a bold mission statement: we’re ready to help you move goods while removing trucks from Quebec’s highways. He made it clear people-moving isn’t part of CN’s mandate.

Stéphane Forget, chairman and CEO of the Fédération des chambres de commerce du Québec, was alone in mentioning Montreal’s Réseau express métropolitain (REM) light rail transit system due to start moving Greater Montreal residents in 2021. The big challenge in building new lines or reviving old ones, he added, is finding the financing.

Last up at the podium was Martin Soucy, CEO of the Alliance de l’industrie touristique, who tried to convince the crowd Quebec rail tourism can become world-class if enough money is thrown at it.

• La présentation de monsieur Yves Desjardins-Siciliano, président et chef de la direction de Via Rail;
• La présentation de monsieur Sean Finn, président exécutif des services corporatifs et chef de la direction des Affaires juridiques du CN;
• La présentation de monsieur Stéphane Forget, président-directeur général de la Fédération des chambres de commerce du Québec;
• La présentation de monsieur Martin Soucy, président-directeur général de l’Alliance de l’industrie touristique;

The forum produced a formal declaration, the Déclaration de Trois-Rivières, creating a UMQ’s rail transportation committee dedicated to making rail transport safer, more competitive and more convenient. Like the day’s event, I found the declaration to be vague and flabby — deliberately so. Is the focus on moving freight more cheaply,  more safely and conveniently? In that case, what happens on lines where passenger rail schedules are forced to mesh with freight? Greater Montreal’s commuter lines — and their users — pay the price in dependability and frequency.

Environmental concerns got the requisite lip service. The UMQ commissioned a CROP poll which found nearly nine out of 10 Quebecers (87%) use their cars for trips of 100 or more kilometres, compared to 4% who take the train. Fewer than one in four (22%) use the train as an alternative to driving. At the same time, more than a third (37%) of those polled think government should invest in public transit by rail because it’s the best existing alternative to the car. One in four (28%) say it’s because rail transit reduces greenhouse gas emissions. In other words, a significant percentage of those who say we need more rail transportation aren’t using it now.

In one aspect, the Forum was an incredible success. Everyone with business in rail was there and available. I walked into a conversation between La Megantic’s mayor Diane Morin and François Rebello, a former PQ-turned-ADQ MNA who now lobbies on behalf of municipalities looking to resurrect disused rail lines for freight and passenger service. Morin told me her town’s chief concern is ensuring its industrial park has punctual freight service. What about passenger service? The line is too old and bumpy to allow passenger trains.

We talked with Jean Bouchard, the mayor of Mirabel, a sprawling suburb north of Montreal. Like Hudson, Mirabel is part of the 82-municipality Montreal Metropolitan Community and Bouchard sits on the board of the Réseau de transport métropolitain (RTM), the organism responsible for developing MMC public transit policy. Despite being crisscrossed with old rail lines, Mirabel has no rail commuter service. A new station is planned as part of Exo’s St. Jerome commuter rail line, but there’s no hard completion date.

Bouchard explained how the RTM is responsible for policy, while Exo, the aptly named melange of ARTM, AMT, STM and a half-dozen other public transit entities, oversees operations. Most of the conversation centred on the dog’s breakfast of schedules, services and bad decisions the RTM is having to work its way through in creating a single public transit structure that will guarantee the same level of service throughout the MMC.  It wasn’t encouraging, but I took some relief from knowing Quebec’s best entrepreneurial minds are on the job.

As I made the 150-minute drive back to Hudson via the 40, 640, 13, 40 and 342 in steadily worsening Friday-afternoon traffic I wondered what it will take to break Quebec’s addiction to personal transportation. Ever-longer commutes won’t do it, because for many, the commute by public transit is still longer and less convenient. Either deliver on promises such as those made at the UMQ Forum, or continue to pretend there isn’t a worsening public transit crisis.

Finally, Hudson has a Quebec-approved plan to address the municipality’s notorious infrastructure deficit. Council unanimously adopted the final version of the intervention plan at the Nov. 5 meeting a month after receiving MAMOT approval.

It’s taken almost 11 years to get to this point, but for most of that time, most Hudson residents, myself included, never knew the town needed an intervention plan in order to qualify for municipal infrastructure funding. It works like this:

Back in 2005, Ottawa created the Federal Gas Tax Fund, a permanent source of funding for municipalities to build and revitalize public infrastructure across Canada — roads, bridges, water, energy, public transit and solid waste management systems. Conditions applied. Quebec being Quebec, it wanted a say in how the money got spent. So it created TECQ, funded by the feds but managed by Quebec’s municipal affairs ministry. MAMOT attached its own strings. TECQ grant applications had to cover four years and address Quebec’s list of priorities, beginning with drinking water and sewers. Municipalities could fund road repairs with their TECQ money only after potable water, stormwater and wastewater needs were met. Before it could apply for TECQ funding, a municipality had to submit to MAMOT an up-to-date intervention plan — an inventory of the town’s capital assets and their state of repair.

Engineering consultants Maxxum were hired in the summer of 2017 to work with Town managers to draft a preliminary intervention plan. It was submitted to MAMOT Nov. 9/17. On Feb. 23/18, MAMOT engineering staff replied with comments which required a response. MAMOT received the Town’s response Aug. 14 and replied Oct. 4 — after the Town’s 2018 paving program was completed.

My summary of the final Maxxum report: 

The Town of Hudson contains 82 km of water mains, 12 km of sewers, 2.6 km of storm sewers and 76 km of roads. The town is fortunate insofar as its water mains and most of its sewers and storm sewers are relatively new and have plenty of useful life left.

That doesn’t mean they don’t need continuing investment to keep them that way. Our aqueduct network requires $1.875M ANNUALLY. Sewers and storm sewers also require annual investments of $115,400 and $67,600 respectively.

The biggest problem with the aqueducts is that while we began collecting data on water main breaks in 1983, the historic excluded service entrances, corporate stops and “poteaux d’incendie.” Experience has shown these are the source of most of Hudson’s water leaks.

Roads are another story. Maxxum recommends that the town invest $9.1M in integrated upgrades (water + sewers + storm sewers + roads) to bring the road network up to a minimum sustainablity standard. Just keeping the roads as they are will require a minimal ANNUAL investment of $2M +

Once one understands how the plan is laid out, interesting factoids jump out.

Example: a 227-metre segment of Main Road between civic #s 302 and 322 will require water main remediation and repaving totalling $377,610. It was the most expensive segment I could find.

I counted more than 100 segments of road with RMC (réféction majeure de chaussée) designations. Almost all had 4 and 5 ratings — bad or very bad.

Of the storm sewers, the stretch on Cameron between Main and St-Jean has expended 82% of its expected lifespan. Of the 2.6 km of storm sewers, 1 km will turn 50 within the next 10 years, meaning that when that stretch of Cameron is due to be repaired, the storm sewer should be part of the total.

That’s the takeaway from the Maxxum plan. If we’re fixing the town, let’s do it right the first time and according to the intervention plan.

Ask most people how they want their tax dollars spent and they’ll say “better roads and sidewalks.” A longtime Hudson resident moved to St. Lazare because his wife was sick of her car getting beaten up on Windcrest. Cyclists tell me they won’t ride on Main Road because they’re risking life and limb. They can’t understand why we don’t just repave Hudson’s streets, starting with Main Road.

So there was serious confusion when this summer’s $2 million paving blitz included side streets in far better condition than a number of major arteries. Back in September, a District 5 resident requested a schedule of roads to be resurfaced in 2018, those to be done in 2019 and how priorities were decided, “for instance why a low traffic road like Lower Whitlock would be a priority over the far higher traffic volume Main Road.”

I wrote him back with the following:

To answer your first two questions, the document above is the schedule and original estimate for 2018.

It was to be funded by Bylaw 670.1, adopted by the previous council prior to the 2017 dissolution.

The current council was informed that (a) the schedule did not follow the hierarchy of needs set out in the draft intervention plan required by MAMOT to govern infrastructure expenditures, and (b) that the 2018 cost of resurfacing these streets was $470,000 more than the 2016 estimates.

As regards the cost overrun, MAMOT allows a loan bylaw to be revised on this basis.

So 670.1 was revised from $1.5M to $1.97M.

This is reflected in the refinancing resolution we approved in September.

Concerning the intervention plan, council will be approving the final version shortly.

The 2019 repaving schedule will be priority-based as established by the intervention plan.

To answer your last question, it was decided in absence of a final intervention plan to repave according to two criteria:

1) Refrain from cosmetic repaving wherever a road needs serious infrastructure work (drainage and culvert replacement, aqueduct/sewerage remediation);

2) To repave streets where a coat of asphalt will prevent further degradation.

Example: In the late ‘80s the town dug up Main Road between Cote St. Charles and Beach Rd. to install new aqueducts.

The piping itself is in remarkably good condition but the mild steel saddles and corporate stops have rusted to pieces wherever they’re in clay.

This represents roughly 85 addresses.

We saw the result at the exit to the IGA parking lot last winter and more recently, the breaks next to the former Habib’s and Legg’s.

These breaks necessitated digging up the pavement (and in some cases, the sidewalk) and installing bronze saddles.

Former technical services director Trail Grubert counselled the town to replace them all in one go and force recalcitrant property owners to connect to the sewer network before investing in new sidewalks and repaving. (These represent roughly a quarter of the 700 addresses that CAN connect.)

As councillor for District 5, it bothers me to see arteries in need of serious remediation, like Lakeview, Oakland, Elm and Maple, neglected while less-travelled streets got a fresh coat of asphalt.

But as a councillor representing the Town of Hudson, I see the necessity of balancing cost and needs.

I apologize for rattling on, but as you can see, this isn’t a simple matter of heeding the squeaky wheel.

I’ll have news of the 2019 repaving program shortly and welcome your comments.

Jim

For those still with me, here’s some deep background I compiled in January 2018 and shared with Council:

Back in 2005, MAMOT produced its first Guide d’elaboration d’un plan intervention. The idea was to oblige municipalities to apply standard measurement tools to the task of determining how federal, provincial and municipal tax dollars should be spent on infrastructure. In 2013, MAMOT revised the Guide to include storm sewers and the roads above underground installations.

In 2011, Quebec adopted its Strategie d’économie d’eau potable. It obliged municipalities to establish water consumption baselines, which meant towns like Hudson had to get serious about collecting consumption data and using the information to design a program to identify and repair leaks in the system. It also required water meters in non-residential buildings as well as in a sampling of residences for comparison and made some infrastructure grant categories conditional on data thus gathered.

In 2015, MAMOT came out with the Rapport sur le coût et les sources de revenus des services d’eau. Besides putting a 2012 dollar figure on the real cost of water — $2.26 per cubic metre, roughly a penny a gallon — it extended the cost and revenue streams for water services to include all water services — potable water sourcing, treatment and distribution as well as wastewater collection and treatment.

The $2.26-per-cubic-metre figure is now the baseline for all future calculations regarding water infrastructure. That number is regularly adjusted in light of research on the life-cycle replacement costs as well as escalating service costs and salary increases.

The Rapport sur le coût et les sources de revenus des services d’eau was never meant to deal with how these services should be financed or taxed. Since then, however, Quebec has come to realize the real cost of drinking water also includes maintaining, replacing and refinancing all infrastructure related to water. Not just potable water, but wastewater, storm water and the roads and sidewalks above. It also includes the cost of preparing for, and dealing with the cost of climate change.

Last December MAMOT published its Portrait des infrastructures en eaux des municipalités du Québec (PIEMQ). Compiled by the Centre d’expertise et de recherché en infrastructures urbaines, the PIEMQ presents a province-wide analysis of the current state of municipal potable water, wastewater and storm water infrastructures as well as the roads above.

Besides compiling a municipality-by-municipality picture of the current state of our aqueducts, sewers, treatment plants and roads, PIEMQ provides indicators to MAMOT of medium-to long-term maintenance and replacement costs.

The report divides municipal water infrastructures in Quebec into two basic categories — linear, as in major population centres, and sectorial (ponctuel) as we have in Hudson and most semi-rural municipalities where only certain sectors can access services.

The 577 larger, more centralized municipalities with linear systems collectively represent 30,000 km of water pipes with a replacement value of $30 billion, 25,000 km of sewers (replacement value $31 billion) and more than 13,000 km of storm drains (replacement value $17.2 billion.) Some 25,000 km of roads above these systems would cost $28.9 billion to replace.

PIEMQ found urban infrastructures to be in relatively good shape compared to their smaller counterparts (such as Hudson). Almost half (48%) of the 4,153 sectorial infrastructure installations are at a high to very high risk of failure while the rest range from low to moderate.

The numbers attached to this small-town infrastructure deficit are mind-boggling: 3,400 km of water lines, 2,600 km of sewers, 400 km of storm sewers, 11,800 km of roads, 1,700 potable water installations and 2,450 wastewater treatment systems require “more or less short-term intervention.”

The report stresses its ratings should be used as a measure of time left in a life cycle rather than as a risk assessment.

The cost of repairing or replacing infrastructure assets in Hudson and 822 other Quebec municipalities rated as having a high to very high risk of failure is roughly $29.5 billion.

What we need to take away from PIEMQ is the awareness that infrastructure investment is a constant budgetary priority that rockets out of control if councils are distracted by the need to please a fickle electorate with nice-to-have expenditures.

(with apologies to Charles Dickens)

Walking through the front door of Gananoque, Ontario’s 187-year-old town hall last week, we unknowingly entered a parallel universe where it’s illegal for a town council to reach a decision behind closed doors.

A universe where every file is simultaneously available to the public and council members.

A universe where, if four council members happen to show up anywhere, even to the local Tim Horton’s, one has to leave to avoid an unauthorized quorum.

A universe where anyone, even a visiting Quebec councillor, can get detailed financial information simply by asking.

A universe where half of all advisory committee members are unelected citizens with unobstructed access to any data they require to assist council in reaching informed decisions.

Welcoming us to the land of the Ontario Municipal Act was Melanie Kirkby, Gananoque’s treasurer. We had no appointment and she had things to do, but she took the time to answer our questions:

Gananoque’s OPEX? $8.5 million (Hudson’s is $12M.)
Revenues? $15M, including $1.4M from the OLG casino (Hudson hopes to take in $13.46M in 2018.)
Budgeted surplus? $500,000 (Hudson has no defined budget surplus.)
Accumulated surplus? $8M, half of which will be spent on a Town Hall annex to make the entire structure accessible. (Hudson has no accumulated surplus.)
Long-term debt? Zero! (Hudson’s long-term debt as of 2016 was $24.4M.)

Off the main hall was a council chamber that looked as if Sir John A. Macdonald had banged the gavel on the rickety desk. I asked Kirkby if caucus meetings were still held there.

She recoiled in horror. “Caucus meetings? They’re illegal in Ontario!” By law, all meetings are open to the public. In order to close a meeting to the public, council must pass a resolution that a closed meeting will be held, stating the nature of the topic under consideration. Only meetings dealing with public security, human resources, the purchase or sale of municipal land, litigation, training and matters covered by the Freedom of Information and Privacy Act can be closed to the public.

The Municipal Act goes further, imposing certain restrictions on any other meeting held without the public present by requiring that no vote be taken unless for a procedural matter or the giving of instructions or directions to municipal employees.

Kirkby explained the Ontario system in terms of Gananoque’s schedule. Regular council meetings take place on the 1st and 3rd Tuesdays of each month. The June 19 council meeting began at 5:05 p.m. with a closed session that ended at 5:55. One item dealing with an HR issue was discussed.

At 6 sharp, the regular council meeting began voting on resolutions stemming from the previous meeting of the Committee of the Whole (COW), a public working table which includes members of council and town staff. It was over by 6:10, including question period.

At 6:11, that week’s COW got underway with Kirkby, fire chief Steve Tiernan and supervisors or and managers from public works, community development, public utilities and parks and recreation in attendance. The town’s external auditors presented the 2107 audited financial statements, thereby releasing them to the public for discussion to a final vote to table them at the next regular council meeting. COW discussed half a dozen other ongoing files before adjourning for the night at 6:55. Those files will be turned into motions for presentation at the next council meeting after having spent two weeks in public circulation.

Kirkby explained how they used to leave the closed sessions to the end of the meetings but moved them to the front of the line so meetings wouldn’t drag on. And to think we’re happy with 10 p.m.

According to the 2016 census, Hudson and Gananoque are remarkably similar in some ways, polar opposites in others. Population-wise, Gan has six more residents than Hudson — 5,194 to 5,188. Hudson’s residents average four months older — 47.7 years versus 47.2.

Both towns are having to deal with aging infrastructure and whether growth and densification guarantee sustainability. Both wrestle with zoning issues.

Hudson faces a chronic water shortage, a $6 million roads infrastructure deficit and an uncertain future as an off-island bedroom community. The weekend-home, pied-a-terre market appears to be Hudson’s best bet — if it can find a sustainable infrastructure solution and redevelop itself as a destination by freeing its commercial core from zoning constraints.

Once Canada’s rivet capital, Gananoque’s industrial base has collapsed; tourism and condominium development to capture the wave of geriatric boomers fleeing the cities are its main hopes. With the pristine headwaters of the St. Lawrence at its feet, Gan’s problem isn’t water, but sewage treatment capacity. A proposed hotel next to the Shorelines Casino has been told it has to build its own sewage treatment plant.

According to the 2016 census data, Hudson is by far the wealthier community. Hudson has fewer private dwellings (2,386 to Gan’s 2,516) but 650 more detached single-family dwellings (1,975 vs. 1,315.) Average total household income: Hudson $121,000 to Gan’s $70,300. Hudson also collects roughly $500,000 in transfer tax.

While Hudson debates whether to charge people for using the Jack Layton Park (JLP) boat launch and how to police and control access to Sandy Beach, here’s food for thought.

Between 2:45 and 3 p.m. Saturday, June 16 we conducted a 15-minute survey of people using the boat launch at JLP.

We began by asking them where they were from. Two respondents — a couple kayaking and the owner of a 23-foot Sea-Doo runabout — were from St. Lazare. The others hailed from Les Cedres, Huntingdon and Lachine.

Asked whether they spent any money in town, all said no.

Asked whether they would pay $50 to use the launching ramp, all said they would go elsewhere.

The Lachine resident has been using the ramp for three years, including the season the town charged for the use of the ramp.

He said he finds the Lake of Two Mountains more interesting for boating and fishing than Lac St-Louis but wouldn’t return if the town charged $50 for use of the ramp. Lachine, he pointed out, doesn’t charge for use of the ramp. Instead, Lachine charges $10 per vehicle and $10 per trailer. Boaters using the ramp do so at their own risk.

Next, we tallied the number of vehicles with and without trailers in the parking lot.

We counted 20 vehicles with trailers and 40 vehicles without trailers.
Let’s say the town charges $10 per vehicle and $10 per trailer.
At $10 per vehicle and $10 per trailer, that amounts to $800 for one afternoon.
Since many won’t spend the whole day on the water, it’s a fair assumption this past Saturday would have pulled in $1600.

Multiply that by 32 weekend days and we come up with $51,000.
Assume rainy weekends will be more than offset by revenues from holiday weekends, when the ramp is in constant use from dawn to dusk.

Assume another $42,500 for weekday use. Conservatively, parking for JLP and Sandy Beach could bring in $100,000 a year.

The only expense would be a parking attendant and gate at the park entrance on Halcro.

The benefits of charging for parking rather than for using the boat launch?

Non-residents enjoying Sandy Beach should be paying for the privilege as well as subsidizing the cost of parking-lot operation and park/beach bylaw enforcement. We biked to the far end of the beach and noted the number of off-leash dogs (the vast majority), coolers of food and alcohol, and overflowing garbage cans the Town pays to empty. How many bought their food and drinks locally before heading to the beach?

Hudson residents pay dearly for all of this, so they should be alone in enjoying free parking by applying for a decal.

Beaches and greenspaces in our region— Pointe du Moulin, Oka Provincial Park, Plage Saint-Zotique, Plage Saint-Timothée, Base de plein air — all charge for vehicle access. Some offer reduced rates or free access to their citizens. Some exchange special access privileges.

To summarize, wouldn’t it be preferable to see Hudson’s lakeside jewel of a greenspace covering the cost of maintaining and securing it for Hudson residents? I can’t understand the mindset of those who say it will end up costing the town more to charge than to give it away.

Don’t believe us. Do the math. Take your own survey. God knows we have the Parks and Recreation staff.

The following account was compiled from information on the public record or freely available to enterprising residents.

The next to last item on the agenda for tonight’s June 4 Hudson council meeting — authorization for drilling piezometer – Wells 483, etc. — will mean nothing to most people. But for those following Hudson’s chronic water shortage saga, it’s confirmation of the latest failed attempt at finding a solution.

One of the last acts of the previous council was the approval of a $1.4 million loan bylaw to cover the cost of locating, authorizing, drilling and connecting a new well.  At some point in the decision-making process, it was decided to concentrate the search for a new well in the same area of the Viviry Creek watershed where Hudson’s two producing wells are located.

Every step in that process was approved by council, beginning with $14,000 to consulting hydrogeologists Akifer to pinpoint the location of two drilling sites. Another $7,000 went to environmental consultants Sagie to steer the project through the environment ministry’s approval process. Another $36,500 went to Daoust for site preparation on a very short deadline, followed by $63,434 to Forage Samson, the winning bidder on the actual drilling of the wells.

Samson began drilling operations on Daoust’s temporary road below Hillcrest the third week in May.  The contractor quickly concluded from core samples the site would not support a well capable of producing 600 gallons per minute on a sustainable basis. There was plenty of water starting at a depth of 150 feet—  but the sand matrix was too fine and laden with silt to guarantee sustainability.

The best comparison is with a Slushie, those concoctions of sugar syrup and crushed ice consumed through a straw. If the ice is too coarse, you end up with a cupful of ice and no liquid. If the ice is too fine, it clogs the straw — essentially what happened with the nearby Bradbury well barely two years after it started pumping.

A second borehole confirmed Samson’s concerns. I have not seen the contractor’s drilling report but I strongly suspect it recommends against further drilling in the Viviry wetland because of the unsuitability of the water-bearing sand.

In other words, Hudson taxpayers paid in excess of $120,000 with nothing to show for it but another summer water ban.

What does Quebec have to say about the Town of Hudson’s annual well quest?

This morning I put that question to Hudson’s regional representative for the Sustainable Development, Environment and Fight Against Climate Change (MDDELCC).

“Every year, you spend more money and get no f**king results, just another interesting report,” he said. “When are you going to come to your senses, run a pipe into the lake and build yourself a treatment plant?”

With a provincial election this October and a federal election next fall, he added, there’s no better window of opportunity to pressure the politicians for subsidies. “Stop wasting time and taxpayer’s dollars!”

This evening’s Item 11.1 seeks council’s approval to conduct test drilling in one or more of the piezometers (test wells) surrounding Well #483, the town’s single major source of drinking water. I find it ironic that after all this time and expenditure on outside expertise, we’re considering a solution first suggested by former technical services director Trail Grubert some 10 years ago.

Hudson’s potable water system is supplied by four wells.  They have a combined production capacity of 3,547 US gallons a minute. Each well’s health and productivity is monitored in real time by a system of piezometers, or test wells, located throughout the municipality and the results logged by municipal employees. Summer demand peaks at 4,750 GPM, representing a 30% shortfall and the reason behind the annual summer watering ban.

The two wells providing most of Hudson’s drinking water — #483 and Bradbury — are located in the wetlands along Viviry Creek. Well #483, Hudson’s equivalent of Old Faithful, began pumping in 1983. It replaced Well #2, located next to the Wellesley entrance to Bradbury Park.

Well #2 still produces, but was condemned on the advice of the environment ministry because its water exceeds provincial norms for iron, manganese and chlorides.

The Bradbury well, barely 10 years old, is producing at below its rated capacity despite repeated efforts to unclog its 60-foot intake screen. Had today’s well-sustainability technologies been in effect when it was drilled, it’s doubtful Bradbury would have ever been connected.

In the west end, two wells supply Hudson Valleys and Alstonvale. This system can be fed water via a connection at the top of Mount Victoria but isn’t configured or permitted to feed water to the town’s filtration plant and reservoir at the top of Fairhaven.

How critical is Hudson’s drinking water situation? Serious enough to question whether the town can guarantee a four-day supply for its 5,200 residents in the event of a failure of either of its two main wells. Until Hudson finds a sustainable long-term solution for its chronic water shortage, we can forget about future development.

Continue reading $120,000 for nothing

What’s happening with the Liberal promise to legalize the recreational use of marijuana by this July? When will edibles be legal? What’s the story on pot-impaired driving? To find the answers and to see where this budding industry is at, I attended the April 10 Marché du cannabis, a day-long Les Affaires symposium on Canada’s weed industry.

Speakers and panels covered the horizon, ranging from regulatory issues and public health concerns to branding, marketing, packaging and consumables. Some 300 participants included Canada’s three largest growers and an expert on the exploding market in consumables — edibles and other alternatives to smoking.

Quebec municipalities are concerned with three laws: the federal C-45 and C-46, plus Quebec’s Projet de loi 157, now undergoing article-by-article study by the Commission de la santé et des services sociaux. No dates are set for the second or third readings.

C-45 and C-46 are before the Senate Committee on Social Affairs, Science and Technology, last stop in the approval process that began last July. The committee’s vice-chair Sen. Pierre Hughes Boisvenu told a recent Conservative party gathering he doesn’t see recreational cannabis made legal until January, 2019.

C-45 gives Ottawa exclusive right to licence growers, processors, exporters and all aspects of branding, labelling and distribution. Medical and recreational pot will be delivered in similar packaging; advertising and promotion will be subject to tobacco rules. The fast-growing markets in edibles and alternative-delivery systems (nebulizers, etc.) will have to wait a year while the feds and provinces work through problems.

C-46 sets out testing procedures, impairment levels and penalties for drug-impaired driving. Canadian police forces will be required to equip their patrols with “spit kits” as well as roadside alcohol breathalyzers. The kits test for THC, cocaine, and methamphetamine. As with alcohol, those who fail roadside spit tests are subject to further testing, with one level for summary conviction and a higher level leading to a criminal conviction.

There was general agreement court challenges are a near-certainty, especially in Quebec where PL157 mandates a zero-tolerance level for THC, whereas the rest of Canada is proposing a 25-nanogram roadside test threshold to separate seriously impaired drivers from someone who might have consumed within in the past 24 hours.

Ottawa and the provinces generally agree on the need to control the black market by keeping the market price as low as possible. Under federal law, individuals would be allowed to grow up to four plants. However, Quebec and Manitoba have chosen to prohibit home cultivation altogether, despite the four-plant limit allowed under the proposed federal law. If their prohibition is challenged in court, Justice Minister Jody Wilson-Raybould has said the federal law will prevail.

The feds are giving the provinces wide latitude in deciding how recreational cannabis should be distributed. Quebec and Alberta propose to make 18 the legal consumption age; the other provinces are all 19. Five provinces, Quebec included, will control distribution and sale through their own retail networks.

Under PL 157, Quebec has created a distribution arm of the SAQ, the Société québécois du cannabis (SQC), to oversee the purchase of 62 tonnes of bulk weed annually from federally licenced growers. It will be sold in 20-150 stores, but as with all of Quebec’s initiatives under PL 157, timing is up to an oversight committee mandated to advise the government on every step of the legalization process.

Under the terms of a $5 billion contract announced this past week, Quebec’s sole licenced grower, Gatineau-based Hydropothecary will supply the SQC 200,000 kilos over five years. By then, Hydropothecary is hoping to have 63 products — cannabis and its derivatives in every delivery form — ready for the legal consumables market.

Gadgets and consumables were the big draw on the convention floor. Aurora was showing off Envoy, a self-contained miniature greenhouse. Hydropothecary showed off Elixir, a sublingual nebulizer delivering a minty THC/cannabidiol blend and Decarb, an edible THC/CBD capsule or mixable powder. Benefits are never spelled out; federal law prohibits unsubstantiated medical claims and the medical profession is generally wary of the hype surrounding cannabis’s real and/or imagined medical uses.

Marijuana contains more than 100 cannabinoids, but is grown for two principal ingredients — tetrahydrocannabinol, or THC, and cannabidiol, or CBD. THC is psychoactive — it gets you high by binding to certain receptors in the brain. CBD binds to different brain receptors and is medically available in Canada (Sativex) for the treatment of multiple sclerosis symptoms. Research is attempting to determine CBD’s efficacy in the treatment of other conditions ranging from multiple sclerosis to epilepsy.

Panels:

Effects on Quebec cities and towns

— Alexandre Cusson, president of the Union des Municipalités du Québec and mayor of Drummondville
— Robert Beaudry, Montreal executive committee member

Major concerns: One-law-fits-all edict, SQC big-footing local government on traffic, zoning, permit and derogation issues. Every municipality is different, with different policies based on what its citizens want.

$60M: Estimated up-front cost to Quebec municipalities for first two years of legalization. Represents police training/equipment, job site (HR) training/enforcement.

$1.25/resident: Recurring enforcement and social costs that should be borne by Ottawa. Municipal/regional police forces will be saddled with costs of enforcing ban on unlicensed cultivation and public cannabis use. Municipal/provincial courts will bear cost of prosecuting offenders. Instead of grow-op ban, UMQ, Mtl. propose $250 four-plant licence.

Scientific research into cannabis

— Dr. Mark Ware, doctor in family medicine, McGill professor and DG of Canadian Consortium for the Investigation of Cannabinoids
— Dr. Serge Marchand, doctor/researcher, Université de Sherbrooke and research director, Fonds de Recherche du Québec — Santé
— Dr. Bruno Battistini, cardiologist and PDG New Brunswick Health Research Foundation

Major concerns: Legalization will turn Canada into a huge social and medical experiment before the medical profession is set up to measure the effects on individuals and the healthcare system. Doctors reluctant to refer patients for clinical studies and trials, especially in Quebec where the College des medicins discourages its members from writing medical pot prescriptions. Ware: The problem isn’t in recruiting patients, it’s recruiting doctors to participate in a study.

Studies underway: Is CBD a medical magic bullet? Which markers determine whether someone will respond well to the molecule and who might be genetically predisposed to psychotic or allergic reactions to cannabis? Why do men and women respond to molecule differently? Canada needs to invest in research now, before the U.S. jumps in.

Risk vs. potential

— Adam Greenblatt, Canopy Growth
— Pierre Killeen, Hydropothecary
— Andrea Paine, Aurora Cannabis Inc.

Reps for Canada’s Big Three commercial growers talked about the regulatory logistics and cultural challenges. Greenblatt, co-founder of Santé Cannabis, the first medical pot dispensary in Montreal, complained about the stifling regulatory atmosphere in Quebec. Hydropothecary’s Killeen was far more conciliatory, understandable in light of the SQC’s huge buy from his company later in the week.

Takeaway: They’re all happy to be pioneers in an emerging industry where publicly listed corporations are already trading at valuation levels untethered to real market value. Whatever happens, they’ll each make millions.

Individual speakers:

The market for consumables

— Sylvain Charlebois, Dean of of the Faculty of Management, Dalhousie University

Central message: The market for consumables will dwarf the demand for legal pot. Ottawa and the provinces have agreed to delay legalization of consumables for one year after the recreational use of cannabis is legalized. Health Canada’s central message: ingest, don’t smoke. 81% of Canadians are ready to try edibles. Charlebois predicts a $5 billion market, especially in Quebec where surveys show people demonstrate a more evolved understanding of edibles.

Charlebois, an acknowledged food marketing expert, noted that cannabis combines well with a wide variety of foodstuffs and can be processed into a wide range of products — butter, spices, oils and baked goods.

Quebec’s policy in response to the emerging consumables market is unclear. Quebec’s minister responsible for PL157 has expressed concern over the marketing of THC concentrates known by their street names — shatter, wax, honeycomb, dab, hash oil. While cannabis THC levels are below 30% because of the plant’s own inherent limitations, transformers can produce concentrates of up to 90% THC.

Health Canada status report

— Benoît Séguin, manager, national compliance and enforcement section, Office of Medical Cannabis, Health Canada

As the result of public hearings into C-45, Ottawa will now allow the licensing of microfarms (200 sq. metres). Microproducers will be required to sell output to licensed producers or transform their output (up to 600 kilos, representing the average output from 200 square metres) themselves.

Untapped market potential

— Barinder Rasode, National Institute for Cannabis Health and Education

Main point: Cannabis marketing is missing an huge target — women and minorities. This 49-year-old former Surrey, B.C. two-term city councillor was the only speaker to discuss why she uses cannabis — to enable her to sleep. Women aren’t interested in recreational use and place more importance on word-of-mouth than any other form of marketing. They favour edibles and other consumption alternatives over smoking and vaping.

Rasode noted the role of cannabis in traditional Chinese and ayurvedic (southeast Asian) medicine and the need to explain in those terms why Canada is proceeding with legalization. This market is more concerned with how and where the product was produced. They’re uncertain, confused and seeking a more evolved message.

Others I spoke with:

— An actuary for Intact Insurance. He has major concerns with the federal legislation and appreciates Quebec’s incremental approach. He echoed Montreal executive committee member Robert Beaudry, who noted during his panel that Montreal is Quebec’s largest employer and has to develop a policy covering marijuana in the workplace that doesn’t conflict with collective agreements.

Intact anticipates a conflict between impairment levels permitted in the Criminal Code and levels being proposed in Quebec’s Highway Code.

C-46, the federal legislation, proposes a roadside saliva test level of 25 nanograms for THC and 50 nanograms for cocaine or methamphetamine. Roadside test levels were set deliberately high to reduce the inevitable lawsuits. Once at the station, however, a 2-nano reading is sufficient for a summary conviction and 5 nanos a Criminal Code violation, with sanctions similar to those for blood alcohol levels in excess of .08.

Quebec’s proposed changes are far more draconian, with zero tolerance for drug impairment and an automatic 90-day licence suspension on the spot.

— James McMillan, Hydropothecary VP of business development. He said Hypothecary will be signing production agreements with micro producers to deliver the volume of cannabis the company anticipates requiring once consumables are legal. Any Quebec municipality with unused farmland would have an inside track at meeting the demand. He invited members of council to visit the company’s facility in Gatineau.

I don’t know about you, but I’m not getting a good feeling about last week’s Vaudreuil-Soulanges hospital announcement made by Premier Philippe Couillard, Health Minister Gaètan Barrette and our region’s two Liberal MNAs Lucie Charlebois and Marie-Claude Nichols. According to today’s Liberal 2018-19 budget, the hospital is ‘now in the “planning stage” in the 2018-2028 capital investment plan. Where was it prior to last Thursday’s announcement? What went on during those 10 years since former health minister Yves Bolduc made the initial promise?

Four months as a municipal councillor have taught me the tricks governments use to kick an election-promise can down the road. Posting them in a capital investment wish list is a sure-fire can-kicker.

Maybe I’m using the wrong metaphor. Instead of kicking the can, what about badminton with the bureaucracy? We’re the bird being whacked back and forth.

My last blog Political Improv was written following last Thursday’s announcement, described above on the website of the SQI, the government’s real estate development arm. Since then, I’ve come to reflect on why I concluded the event was improvised. It was the absence of documentation.

Whenever the provincial government has a significant announcement to make, there’s a snowstorm of releases beginning with the invite to a news conference. Journalists attending tare greeted with media kits. Usually there’s a page on the announcement and a page or two of briefing notes. If more than one elected official is present, one also gets copies of speeches to be checked against delivery.

These media kits are assembled by the press attachés for the porteur du dossier, the ministry or agency under whose authority the announcement is being made, with input from their colleagues in the political sphere. In this case, the media kit should have included a statement from Couillard’s office, an explainer from Barrette’s people and comments from both MNAs, one of whom is also a cabinet minister.

The invite came from Yves Masse, president-director-general of the Centre intégré de santé et de services social de la Montérégie-Ouest. I received mine on my town email March 20. It was headed Annonce importante concernant les soins et les services de santé offerts sur le territoire de Vaudreuil-Soulanges but gave no details about who would be making it. The lack of paper says to me Masse and his people have as much enthusiasm for building this hospital as Vaudreuil-Soulanges residents have for voting Liberal. Quebec’s health and social services bureaucracy doesn’t take kindly to being ordered to work at anything more than a snail’s pace; 2028 may be optimistic.

So here we are on budget day evening, attempting to parse what, exactly, the government has announced in regard to a Vaudreuil-Soulanges hospital. Above is what we THINK is the envelope for the purchase of the site on which the hospital will be built. Is it?

I’m one of those who feels Finance Minister Letaio and the Couillard Liberals have done an exemplary job of cleaning up Quebec’s finances and putting this province back on the road to prosperity. Ex-Quebeckers visiting from outside the province can’t believe the number of public and private construction projects in Quebec’s major cities. But for whatever reason, the Couillard Liberals have neglected the Montérégie-Ouest, the tail on the Montérégie donkey with its head in Longueuil.

It makes no sense to me that the Liberals would deliberately turn their backs on Vaudreuil-Soulanges, a district which contains two ridings that have consistently voted Liberal for decades. But the lack of efficient public transit, no replacement date for the crumbling Île aux Tourtes bridge and a list of other deferred promises speak for themselves.

The Liberals could pull off a win in October’s election, but it won’t be with weasel words and bureaucratic code for “let’s kick this sucker down the road for another 10 years and see if those rubes in Vaudreuil-Soulanges are as stupid as they seem.”

Fool us once — shame on you. Fool us twice — shame on us.

Improv theatre has its place, but at the announcement of a $1.5 billion hospital for Vaudreuil-Soulanges? I’m referring to Tuesday’s (March 22) reveal by Quebec premier Philippe Couillard that his government would finally be getting around to build a 404-bed facility to serve the county’s 150,000 residents.

This should be a vote-getter in Vaudreuil-Soulanges. Back in August 2008, then Liberal health minister Yves Bolduc gratified the region’s healthcare structure with an unscripted promise of a 250-bed hospital by 2018. Shortly after the Liberals retook power, Couillard walked Bolduc’s blurt back with his own vague non-promise at a February 2014 appearance. Couillard’s health minister Gaètan Barrette tried to play it both ways with an April 2016 announcement that $16M had been earmarked for acquisition of a site. The money was never appropriated and the site, still agriculturally zoned, was somehow removed from the regional master plan.

Those following this file have become cynical, inured, jaded, fatigued disbelievers after a decade of blabla, especially whenever they’re forced to seek emergency services. Valleyfield? Eastern Ontario? Lakeshore? Downtown? My Louise calls it Loto ER. As I write this, Valleyfield’s Hôpital du Suroît, the ER for more 200,000 Vaudreuil-Soulanges residents, is at 268% capacity. Thirty patients have been lying on gurneys in the corridors for up to 24 hours. Another 19 have been there for up to 48 hours. It’s the hands-down winner of Quebec’s palmares de débordement, our imaginary award for the most overcrowded ER in the province.

Whenever I feel a pang of pity for our local MNAs I remind myself of family and friends wasting hours waiting for to be seen by overworked caregivers while this government chose to ignore our plight.

Thursday’s news conference was called in haste, I suspect because the committee which has been lobbying for the hospital for close to a decade ramped up the pressure by making it an issue in this October’s provincial election. Polls show François Legault and the Coalition Avenir Québec leading the Liberals in voter intentions by as much as 20 points. Premature, yes, but Liberal support is trending the wrong way. The Liberals don’t share their internal polling but the storm of comments on social media suggest Vaudreuil-Soulanges voters are royally pissed — in both languages.

Whatever, Couillard began on the defensive. “Your deputies fought for this project…cost is immaterial because of the need in the region…we’ll prioritize every step.” A site, currently zoned agricultural, has been identified at the junction of blvds. Harwood and Cité des Jeunes and $16M squirrelled away for its acquisition. (Look for it in Tuesday’s budget.) Quebec will call for tenders in 2019. Construction will begin in 2022, with a late 2026 completion date. The hospital will have 10 operating rooms and 94 surgical beds, 44 psychiatric beds, 24 paediatric beds. A 25-bed obstetrics ward will be able to handle 2,000-plus births a year. More than half the beds would be earmarked for general medicine.

Couillard and Barrette skated hard in explaining the rationale for the 10-year delay. Forget that 250-bed hospital, they said. It was wrong from the start. What happened at Pierre Legardeur, a 250-bed hospital that should have started with 400 beds, won’t happen to you. We took the time we needed to give you the right hospital, adapted to your needs. Barrette: “We can dig a hole tomorrow, but it’s for a hospital, not a quarry.”

Later, Barrette would claim the delay was entirely his fault and reportedly said that if he loses, he’ll return here to work for the new hospital. That, together with Couillard’s explanation of how the government can decree the rezoning of the site from green to white and place the approval process beyond the reach of whichever government succeeds his, suggests to me the Liberals are hearing CAQ footsteps.

The most emotional intervention was that of Soulanges MNA Lucie Charlebois, whose portfolios include the Montérégie, Rehabilitation, Youth Protection, Public Health and Healthy Living. Charlebois, whose riding now includes the Town of Hudson as the result of the latest electoral redistribution, is also vice-chair of the Treasury Board and a member of the Cabinet Committee for Social, Educational and Cultural Development. In other words, Charlebois, one of the highest ranking women in Couillard’s cabinet, can count on an historically Liberal vote from Hudson and St. Lazare. I would have thought a Vaudreuil-Soulanges hospital would have been a cabinet priority, if only to sweeten Charlebois’s and Nichols’s re-election chances in two ridings the Liberals can win.

Instead, Charlebois appeared to lash out at those who questioned her government’s handling of the hospital file. “Are you happy now?” she asked Louise Craig, the English-language spokesperson for the Comité tripartite pour la construction de l’hôpital de Vaudreuil-Soulanges lobbying for the hospital. She and Nichols called for a ‘grand collaboration’ to get everyone working together for the common good. “Too little, too late,” I thought to myself.

The invite for the news conference was sent out over the signature of Yves Masse, president-director-general of the Centre intégré de santé et de services social de la Montérégie-Ouest. Quebec’s bureaucracy does its utmost to remain apolitical. We could debate whether this was a political announcement but the message I got was that Masse would have preferred being stuck behind an accident on the Ile aux Tourtes bridge with no gas and a full bladder. It falls on his CISSSM-O to cover the ER shortfall in Vaudreuil-Soulanges for the next eight, nine or 10 years.

My advice to all: do whatever it takes to remain healthy — and thank your lucky stars if you live in a community with First Responders. If not, pray the ambulance gets there in time.