ARTICLE - MONTREAL - HELPS CAPITAL REBUILD

CITY OF MONTREAL'S FIRST MISSION ARRIVES TO HELP CAPITAL REBUILD
(Montreal Gazette) - By James Mennie

Bureaucrats loaned. Local administration must be re-established

The first of 50 missions organized by the city of Montreal to help rebuild the earthquake-shattered municipal administration of Port-au-Prince has been on the ground in Haiti for the past week, a city hall spokesperson says.

"Right now they're in the process of organizing office space (for subsequent missions to work out of) and recruiting (local municipal) personnel," Bernard Larin said. "They will be there for the next month."

The missions -which will see city of Montreal personnel sent to Port-au-Prince over the next two years to assist with rebuilding and the re-establishment of a municipal bureaucracy in the Haitian capital -are part of a larger program announced last month that will see the Canadian Federation of Municipalities and the Union des municipalites du Quebec provide their expertise to the battered municipal governments of Gressier, Leogane, Petit-Goave and Grand-Goave.

The total plan will cost $9 million over two years, much of it coming from the Canadian International Development Agency. Montreal's financial contribution will come in the form of $1.2 million in salaries paid while its employees are on assignment in Haiti. Larin said all employees assigned to the mission are doing so on a voluntary basis, and their main tasks will be to assist in the planning of urban and economic development, establishing a housing plan and restoring infrastructure.

The announcement of Montreal's aid to Port-au-Prince was made a week before the controversial return to Haiti of ousted dictator Jean-Claude Duvalier.

However, Larin said Duvalier's arrival was unlikely to have any effect on Montreal's missions.
"It changes nothing," he said, "Their work is at the level of the city, not the country, and our relations with the administration of Port-au-Prince are very good."

The experts and bureaucrats who will be sent to Port-au-Prince over the next two years are not the first city employees assigned to assist Haiti. Since 1995, the Montreal police department has fielded a contingent of officers to ensure security and train local police.