Mayor Denis Coderre’s decision to hire a $1,800 per day consultant to manage the city’s Syrian refugee raises opposition complaints

 

Michel Dorais, a former deputy minister of immigration, was named to head a committee handling the thousands of Syrian refugees in Montreal and will be paid a total of $110,000 for the next three months.

Opposition councilor Guillaume Lavoie questioned this decision and sarcastically explained for the Montreal Gazette and the CBS that other Canadian towns are able to prepare managing between 1,000 and 1,300 Syrians without the help of a private, expensive consultant, as the Syrian refugees in Calgary, for example, are resettled by the Calgary Catholic Immigration Society for free.

“(Calgary) Mayor Nenshi is showing that it is possible to deal with the arrival of refugees without having to hire an expensive consultant. Why is it that Mayor Coderre can’t be as good as Calgary?

“We all know it’s hard to admit a mistake, but that’s no excuse not to correct it. Mayor Coderre must reverse his decision.

“We have more than 20,000 employees in Montreal. Are we telling them that no one is qualified enough to co-ordinate the arrival of the refugees? That makes no sense at all.

“On the other hand, we’re asking Montrealers and tens of organizations to volunteer their time and money, and the guy at the end of the table is making $1,800 a day”, Lavoie commented.

Toronto's officials aim to resettle 2,600 refugees by the end of 2015, also without any special consultant's help.

“The city of Toronto has reassigned ‎one staff member from its Toronto Newcomer Office to focus on the Syrian Refugee Settlement Program. That individual will work with staff from across a number of divisions. We are using existing staff instead of outsourcing the work”, the city's officials stated.

The hiring of Dorais made Montreal’s 8,000-member white collar union to announce a half-day strike for Wednesday, Dec. 9, due to the fact that the Coderre's administration “is handsomely paying an old acquaintance for a coordination of work that employees can do internally.”

On the other hand, Coderre spokesperson Catherine Maurice declared about the Mayor's decision:

“He acted to welcome hundreds of Kosovar refugees when he was deputy minister; we could not have found someone with better expertise.”