Saint John — Mayor Mel Norton has had enough of the complaining and hand-wringing about Montreal’s sewage release into the St. Lawrence River. In his first public comment on the caca commotion in the City of Saints, Norton says he’s done listening to the whining about wee-wee and it’s time for Montreal to just get it over with already.
“In 1993, we were releasing 23 million litres per day of nasty raw sewage directly into the harbour. Every single day,” he said. “When the tide was out, the entire uptown smelled like a truck stop men’s room on Chili Tuesday and no one batted an eyelash for a very long time. That’s like ten Olympic-size swimming pools every single day. It took us 17 years to get that down to 16 million litres per day.
“Our city smelled like a sauna full of burning diapers for decades, and everyone is making a big deal about this one-time sewage release because it’s Montreal. ‘Oh no… not Montreal!’ Well, la-di-frickin’-da. If it was OK for us to put up with it for over 100 years I think they can stop being pussies, deal with this one-time thing and move on.”
Norton is referring to Montreal’s controversial plan announced on Sept. 29 to dump raw sewage into the St. Lawrence River to facilitate upgrades to its waste-water infrastructure. Once the plan became common knowledge, protests erupted from all corners of the region and Environment Canada also intervened. At one point, famed environmental crusader Erin Brockovich also voiced her concerns, calling it “pure TNT — turds ‘n’ tampons.”
On Nov. 9, Catherine McKenna, Canada’s new environment and climate change minister, said Montreal could proceed with its duty dump plan once it meets the conditions for monitoring and minimizing the environmental impacts. The poopy purge started on Nov. 11 at midnight.
“Puh-lease,” chortled Norton. “Environment Canada wasn’t monitoring very closely or minimizing impacts when our harbour smelt like your older brother just sat on your face and farted directly into your open mouth. I guess when it’s Montreal instead of Saint John, everyone gets all nervous.”
He continued, “I mean really, how much sewage are we talking about here? What did you say? Eight billion litres!? Billion with a ‘b’? Wow… that’s ah… that’s a lot of sewage. That’s like a year’s worth of Saint John’s 1993 sewage all at once. Whoa. Are they sure that’s safe? I mean… wow. Holy shit.”