Public Consultation: Urban Agriculture in Montreal - events schedule announced!

Great news!

The event schedule for Montreal's public consultation on urban agriculture has been released, along with a great new website!  This follows a campaign of local NGOs and citizens to gather signatures in support of the consultation.  Thanks to the City of Montreal's "Right to Initiative" the city is mandated  to hold a public consultation on any issue when a certain minimum of citizens (15,000 I believe) support the initiative.

On November 15, 2011 citizens delivered a petition with nearly 29 000 signatures to the city and the public consultation was confirmed in December.  After months of planning, the dates for the public consultation have been announced and will be held in May and June.

Citizens are also encouraged to submit their own urban agriculture activities to the website with a photo and description at: http://montrealacultiver.com/?page_id=54.  

I have translated the event listing below from French into English, as the English listing does not seem to be available elsewhere:

Exposition: Saturday May 12, 2012 - 11:00am - 4:00pm

CCSE Maisonneuve Chapter- 4375 Ontario st. East

This is the first information event where the public will have the opportunity to get to know the local actors involved in urban agriculture movement in Montreal.

Colloquium: Thursday May 17, 2012 - 9:00am - 5:00pm

Palais des congrès de Montreal Room 519
1001, place Jean-Paul-Riopelle(downtown near Place d'Armes Metro)

This is the first information event where the public will have the opportunity to get to know the local actors involved in urban agriculture movement in Montreal. Registration is required, space is limited: ocpm.qc.ca/agricultureurbaine/colloque.

 Public consultation sessions: in various neighbourhoods

1. Ahuntsic-Cartierville: 7pm - 10pm - Saint-André Apôtre Church - 10505 rue de l'Esplanade
2. Montreal-Central (i.e. Downtown, Plateau, Mile End, Villeray): 7pm - 10pm - Fraternité des policiers et policières de Montréal - 460, rue Gilford 
3. Montreal North: 7pm - 10pm - Centre récréatif Rivière-des-Prairies - 7650, boulevard Maurice-Duplessis
4. Cote-de-Neige/Notre-Dame-de-Grace:7pm - 10pm - Centre Communautaire St-Raymond - 5600, rue Upper Lachine 

Deadline for offering memories/testimonies on urban agriculture through the website:  June 14 at 4pm.

Final hearings for individuals and organization that wish to express themseleves on this issue: June 18, 7pm - 10pm: OCPM - 1550 rue Metcalfe, 14th Floor

For more information (in French) see: http://montrealacultiver.com/.http://montrealacultiver.com/.