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Observing Montreal Island’s governing structure without plucking one’s eyes out requires an appreciation of dysfunction, a love of the absurd and possibly some very good drugs.

It takes 103 elected officials, about as many as Toronto and New York City combined, to govern the roughly 89 per cent of its population that lives in the city of Montreal. To understand exactly why the remaining 11 per cent of the island’s population in the on-island suburbs needs an additional 113 elected officials is to delve into Quebec language politics of yore. There aren’t enough column inches or good drugs to do so, and I need my eyes.

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Yet if there is one nice thing we can say about this structure, it’s that it works despite itself. The city has thrived since a short-lived attempt at unification was rolled back a dozen years ago in the crucible of tongue-related polemics. The obsession with language itself has virtually disappeared, if only because the city aptly and enduringly reflects Quebec’s French fact.