But sometimes unelected provincial bureaucrats make things considerably worse for the cities and their residents.
Here are some troubling recent examples of how the Quebec government has made life worse for Montrealers.
1-Leisure - The unpopular political decision to remove the longstanding baseball field on Jeanne Mance Park near Mount Royal and Park was a decision taken by the Projet Montreal municipal administration based on the idea that after decades of uneventful play, balls from casual pickup softball games suddenly become dangerous projectiles. However another chunk of this narrative has gone overlooked: provincial authorities laid down strict guidelines concerning how this or any baseball field could be built or rebuilt. Municipal authorities had the choice to either rebuild the field based on those demanding standards or demolish it completely. They chose the latter. The experience is common and widespread in other domains, as Quebec entrepreneurs will often bemoan that their dreams of creating a commerce were dashed when informed of the excessive rules and hoops they'd be required to satisfy in order to make their operation happen.
2-Parking: Many handicapped parking spaces go unoccupied around 99.9% percent of the time while other motorists - many vulnerable in their own ways - are banned from setting wheel in those much-needed spots. The handicapped parking spaces have been proliferating due to a provincial law from the Regie du Batiment which orders places like grocery stores to earmark one space per hundred to handicapped parking. Handicapped lobbyists often persuade the business owners to go above and beyond the spaces required. While this doesn't seem shocking, this year the CDN/NDG borough and possibly others, have extended this same rule to city streets near such places as public parks with chalets. The municipality now classifies a park chalet as the same thing as as grocery store or any other such structure, as a result, the borough has removed parking spaces that can be used by anybody and set them aside for cars with handicapped user stickers. Delivery trucks, parents with small children and other worthy vehicles are routinely forced to park in distant spots while these handicapped parking remain empty at all times.
3-Tickets Many parking tickets have recently ballooned to an unreasonable $169 in the Montreal urban area due to a new interpretation that provincial rules apply to Montreal-area city streets, as opposed to municipally-generated tickets that cost about $62 - which is still pretty steep. The ridiculously expensive punishment has been met with an outraged backlash.
4-The Turcot rebuild - The rebuilding of the various highway entrances and ramps known as the Turcot Interchange has proven a difficult challenge for Montreal, as residents have been forced to endure years of noise and dust and motorists to suffer time and gas-consuming detours. However the provincial authorities could simply have chosen the option of simply repairing the existing structures, a cheaper option that simply was never seriously discussed, although some journalists, such as myself confirmed at the time with engineers that repairing the existing structures would have been cheaper and less invasive.
With a provincial election campaign now underway, these issues might be worthy of mention to the candidates you are considering.