2020 Annual Report: An exceptional year marked by conditions requiring us to reinvent ourselves

MONTRÉAL, May 3, 2021 /CNW Telbec/ - Ms. Dominique Ollivier made public this morning the 2020 annual report of the Office de consultation publique de Montréal, where she has been president for almost seven years. The year 2020 was unlike any we have known before, not only at the Office, but the world over.  

The Office held a lot of consultations again in 2020, despite the pandemic. The first half of the year did not give rise to any new consultations, but to the finalization of some already under way, such as the one on the Namur-Hippodrome sector, and to the publication of reports on those files. That was the case for the public consultation on systemic racism and discrimination held pursuant to the right of initiative. Initiated in 2018, it ended with the submission of the report on June 15, 2020.

Over the course of the ten consultation mandates begun, held or completed in 2020, over 1600 citizen participations were recorded in the various citizen information and expression-of-opinion activities. For the OCPM, it was again a productive year, despite the unusual context of 2020.

As it did for numerous other areas of activity in Québec and other parts of the world, the COVID-19 pandemic led the OCPM to contemplate new ways of organizing public consultations. Our model for consultations rests on the presence of the populations concerned during essential steps, such as information and hearing-of-opinions sessions. That method of operation is in keeping with the OCPM's fundamental promise of transparency and independence.

Until March 2020, the testing of online participation was used as a complement to our traditional process. It essentially involved the viewing of information sessions, questionnaires, debate platforms, or allowing the expression of preferences, as well as interactive maps. We had noticed that the virtual component stimulated the appropriation of themes and helped us to attract new publics interested in consultation.

Last spring, when the health crisis limited gatherings and imposed physical distancing, it became necessary to quickly rethink our traditional model to adapt to the new circumstances. Admittedly, technological advances did make remote participation possible. However, numerous questions remained in view of the unprecedented situation. Since numerous areas of activity were suspended, would it not be preferable for public consultation to follow suit? Was it appropriate to establish new means of consultation in a context where the priorities of potential participants would lie elsewhere, notably in the preservation of their health, their economic survival, or even the reconciliation of remote working and family? What about the preservation of the credibility of our processes? What proportion of the population had both the tools and understanding of their workings to participate? Was there a risk that we might exclude some people?

Faced with that situation and in keeping with the mandate of ensuring best practices entrusted to us by the Charter of Ville de Montréal, we evaluated the population's expectations regarding public consultation in order to better gauge what we should do.

We therefore launched ourselves into a process during which we evaluated citizens' expectations, developed a method that respects both our greater principles and health orders, and tested that method using two pilot projects that were continuously evaluated. We drew lessons from that formidable testing ground, not only for the duration of the pandemic, but also for the future, when a new normal materializes.

The new virtual public consultation practices allowed us to take up the challenge presented by the new conditions under which we had to operate. In fact, the results of the mandates we carried out in the second half of the year compare very well with similar in-person exercises. More young people, more new participants, more questions asked, almost as many contributions, and no loss of credibility amount to a balance sheet of which we can be proud. Over 1500 people used the means put at their disposal by the OCPM to become informed about a given subject and express their opinions.

The annual report is available in its entirety in PDF format, in English and French, on the OCPM Web site at www.ocpm.qc.ca, in the Publications section. Moreover, since the 2014 annual report, a Web version is provided to facilitate its reading on mobile devices. This is another way for the office to maximize the dissemination of its message. The 2020 edition is available at report2020.ocpm.qc.ca.

SOURCE Office de consultation publique de Montréal