Bruno Marchand could ask the RTC to clean up the number of executives if it is demonstrated that public money is not invested optimally.
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The mayor of Quebec does not want to manage the Capital Transport Network (RTC), but he wants citizens’ money “to be invested as best as possible”. “If that’s not the case, yes, we’ll say: ‘With the money we’re putting into this, we have expectations.’ But we are not there, we will wait to have the opinion of the experts.
The performance audits published last week by the accounting firm Raymond Chabot Grant Thorton (RCGT) continue to fuel the debate. Mr. Marchand agrees that comparison with other transport companies regarding the supervision rate “is not always to our advantage”.
Opinion of accountants
However, he is careful not to make a hasty diagnosis. He first wants to speak with the firm quickly, in order to seek the opinion of the accountants. “Afterwards, I will meet the RTC with [la présidente] Maude Mercier Larouche and we will [demander] What explains that?”
The mayor does not share the observation of the president of the Union of Inspectors and Dispatchers, Éric Poirier, who affirmed that the RTC suffers from “acute meetingitis” because the executives are “regularly, even all the time, in meetings”. “We’ll wait and see. It’s easy to say that. After that, do we have the right staff ratio? We are going to evaluate it with an independent firm.”
Criticisms of the official opposition
Speaking of a “devastating report”, the leader of the opposition, Claude Villeneuve, called for the establishment of a “process optimization plan” at the RTC.
Calling for a reduction in the number of executives within the organization, Villeneuve said the priority should be to “put money into services and not into bureaucracy.”
The latter also focused on another fact that he considers particularly problematic. According to last week’s report, the number of “productive kilometers” per employee is only 38,700 km at RTC compared to 76,200 in Laval and 158,000 in Sherbrooke.
“It has been demonstrated that there is a management problem at the RTC,” he said. Instead of investing his time in discrediting the report, the mayor should instead try to improve things at the RTC.”
Private
Mr. Villeneuve would welcome the fact of giving more space to the private sector. He gave the example of Flexibus (the service is currently provided by Taxi Coop drivers). However, this Service will gradually be provided by unionized RTC drivers from 2027. In the eyes of the head of Quebec first, this could lead the RTC to have to manage the consequences of strikes for example.
On this aspect, Bruno Marchand is rather of the opinion that the private sector is not a guarantee of profitability.
— With the collaboration of Taïeb Moalla
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