The City of Montreal is out with a report card on itself, and it shows it's well compared with other Canadian cities — for the most part.
The evaluation measured the city against Toronto, Ottawa, Calgary and Winnipeg based on 148 different indicators.
And on those indicators, Montreal did as well or better than those cities in 61 per cent of cases.
It began the comparative study last year, and it shows some things have gotten better over the last year:
• the cost of treatment of drinking water
• more documents in libraries
• the number of people injured in residential fires
• improving transparency
However, there are other areas where the city has lost some ground, compared with other cities — and many of those areas won't be surprising for Montrealers:
• the cost of maintaining roads
• the cost distribution of drinkable water
• the cost of snow removal per kilometre of road
Executive committee chair Pierre Desrochers suggests it's not about patting oneself on the back, but rather, the study was done to help identify areas where the city could improve its performance.
"If you don't compare yourself, you have no idea where you stand," he says. "It's by comparing yourself, it permits you to evaluate whether your good or bad."
The full performance report — available in French only — can be seen here.