CôTE SAINT-LUC, QUEBEC

'Côte Saint-Luc' is a municipality in the province of Quebec, Canada, situated in Montreal's West End. Incorporated in 1903 it grew from a town to a city in 1958, it is mainly a residential suburb of Montreal that is 85% English speaking and 70.5% of residents are Jewish. Côte Saint-Luc has approximately 32,000 residents and it is an upper middle class suburban community with fine parks and recreational facilities including the Eleanor London Côte Saint-Luc Public Library, one of few libraries in North America that is open every day of the year.
Côte Saint-Luc (along with all of the island's other suburbs) was forced to merge with the city of Montreal on January 1, 2002, but was given the opportunity to demerge from the city in 2004. During the 3 years that it was merged with the City of Montreal, some services decreased. It was merged with its neighboring suburbs of Hampstead and Montreal West to form the borough of Côte-Saint-Luc—Hampstead—Montréal-Ouest. In a referendum held on June 20, 2004 over 87% of Côte Saint-Luc residents voted to demerge and Côte Saint-Luc was re-established a separate city on January 1, 2006. The leaders of the demerger movement were all elected to the new City council with Anthony Housefather being elected Mayor.
The City of Côte Saint-Luc is led by the mayor and eight councillors. The current councillors are Sam Goldbloom (district 1), Mike Cohen (district 2), Dida Berku (district 3), Steven Erdelyi (district 4), Allan J. Levine (district 5), Glenn J. Nashen (district 6), Mitchell Brownstein (district 7) and Ruth Kovac (district 8). The City's General Manager is Ken Lerner.
Former residents of Côte Saint-Luc include trauma surgeon Ernest FJ Block, fashion designer Shelley Twik, actor William Shatner, and poet Irving Layton.
Côte Saint-Luc has a history of being innovative and was the first municipality in Quebec to ban smoking from public places, the first to require bicycle helmets and the first to adopt a unity resolution declaring that Côte Saint-Luc wished to remain in Canada no matter what decision Quebecers made about secession. After many years of debate and disagreement, Côte Saint-Luc agreed to the extension of Cavendish Blvd. from Saint-Laurent to Cote Saint-Luc, most likely through an indirect route, to Cavendish Blvd. in the borough of Saint-Laurent, over the Canadian Pacific railyards. However, the City of Montreal has changed delayed their timeline for constructing the new road.
Côte Saint-Luc is served by a unique Emergency Medical Services first responder system. The only volunteer first responders on the island of Montreal, the Emergency Medical Services department answers more than 3,000 calls for help every year. The EMS volunteers provide a vital link in the chain of survival, arriving on scene within three minutes to stabilize the patient, before the Urgences-Santé ambulance arrives to transport the patient to the hospital. Côte Saint-Luc also has a full time Public Security Department who enforce municipal by-laws and recently launched a volunteer Citizens on Patrol (vCOP) program that allows residents to deter crime.
Along with Hampstead and Montreal West, Côte Saint-Luc forms an enclave within Montreal. Côte Saint-Luc also has two exclaves sandwiched between Hampstead and the city of Montreal. The larger one contains the residential development North of Hampstead and Decarie Square shopping centre, while the smaller one consists of just fifteen residential buildings on MacDonald Ave.
In a move seen as embarrassing to some residents, the councillors in power prior to Montreal's forced mergers decided to re-name many local parks for themselves--rather than naming the parks after past councillors or other prominent residents. This was widely mocked in the local media at the time, but has since become a non-issue. Interestingly, then mayor Robert Libman opted to not participate in the renaming and kept himself out of it.

Contents

Sister cities

See also

External link

Sister cities

★ Ashkelon, Israel

See also

★ List of former boroughs

★ Montreal Merger

★ Municipal reorganization in Quebec

★ List of enclaves

External link

★ Côte Saint-Luc city website

★ Côte Saint-Luc buildings on Image Montreal IMTL.org