Mayor should take middle-of-the-road solution for Bourassa

The latest cause celebre in Montreal is Mayor Gérald Tremblay’s proposal to rename Park Avenue after former premier Robert Bourassa. It reveals so much about the mayor, who was one of Bourassa’s ministers. Now he can show his “affection� to his boss long after the boss has departed. There is something eerie and mystical about that.

Why is it that politicians always name things after other politicians? Perhaps it does have something to do with the quest for immortality. They hope that if they name something after one of their mentors that in the future one of their disciples will name something after them; an even fatter perk than the pension.

I look for an irrational basis for this because it is simply not rational to rename something that already has a perfectly good, historically meaningful, and communally cherished name. The rational thing to do would be to name something that has no name yet. Changing already-named streets causes pain and costs money. For a small business it can be a financial calamity. Maybe that means little to the mayor; he does not have to pay the price. Money spent on new street signs and maps and self-congratulatory receptions will come from the highest-taxed people in North America. High taxes are as Quebecois as “Les Gens de Pays� which means “The mugs who pay.�

Recently Lucien Bouchard pointed out that we Quebecers do not work as hard as Ontarians or Americans. Lucid Lucien said we should work harder. I disagree. I think Quebecers are simply smart enough to realize that in Quebec if you work hard and make more money the government will take it away from you. So the only reasonable response is — don’t work so hard.

Taxpayers would probably prefer streets to be named Rue Saku Koivu or Boulevard Guy A. Lepage — after people they actually like. Not after another slippery politician, and Robert Bourassa was one of the slipperiest. (Wouldn’t it be more appropriate to name the toboggan hill on Mount Royal after him?)

I don’t mean to diss Premier Bob. But anyone acquainted with his career knows that if they were going to name any road after him, they should name only the middle of the road, because Bourassa created the archetype of the Liberal Quebec Premier who has to be a Quebec nationalist and a Canadian federalist at the same time, a model that persists to this day. Bourassa constantly steered between the fast lane of separatism and the slow lane of the Canadian status quo. Let’s face it, since Bourassa there have only been two kinds of premiers in Quebec: PQ Pure Laine and Liberal Bourassa Lane.

So here is my solution: henceforth let us name the middle lane of every three-lane stretch of highway in Quebec “The Bourassa Lane.� This would cost nothing and no signs would be necessary. And as far as I know the middle lane of all our three lane highways are unnamed.

This should appeal to Middle Lane People all over Quebec. All those who hold the middle lane, because that way you don’t have to deal with the slower cars merging in the right lane or the speeders constantly tailgating you in the left lane. Where you don’t have to do much driving or make many decisions, because it’s non-committal. Because it is “The Bourassa Lane.�