The History of Montreal Page 10

  Expansion

  Rapid postwar growth was first felt in the raw numbers. Between 1941 and 1961, the Montreal census metropolitan area (CMA) grew by nearly one million people, up from 1,140,000 to 2,110,000. The city itself reached the milestone of one million inhabitants in 1951, but people were flocking mainly to the suburbs.

  These figures can be explained by a sharp spike in births, the baby boom. Montreal in the 1950s was a city where children were everywhere: on the streets, in the lanes, and in parks and schools. Immigration then picked up again—fuelled by economic difficulties in postwar Europe—and continued practically unabated for the next 15 years. At first, the new wave brought British immigrants and European refugees to the city, followed by large numbers of Italians and Greeks. The age-old tradition of people moving from the countryside to the city had been slowed by the depression, but now hundreds of thousands of new residents flocked to Montreal from all across the province.

  All these migrants were naturally attracted by Montreal’s job prospects. And they were not disappointed as the city’s economy boomed in the postwar years. The Second World War had been a shot in the arm for the manufacturing industry, and strong consumer demand, once peace had returned, made for considerably higher production and investment levels. Meanwhile, commercial and residential construction was reaching record levels.

  Employment growth was even more spectacular in the services industry, be it for financial services, retailers, transportation, teaching, healthcare, or personal services. There was work for everyone, born in Montreal or otherwise, and the unemployment rate remained very low until the recession of 1957.

  Montreal’s economic boom came on the back of a boom for Canada as a whole, with Montreal still officially the country’s largest city. It was, however, about to be overtaken by Toronto, the darling of American investment, which was growing at an even faster clip. Since the thirties, Toronto had boasted higher stock exchange transactions, while a number of insurance companies moved their headquarters from Montreal to Toronto. The upshot was that every economic indicator showed Toronto overtaking Montreal by 1960, becoming Canada’s new financial centre. Montrealers took a while to realize what was going on.

  The return to prosperity, which began during the war, really came into its own in the postwar years. Wages rose much faster than inflation, boosting purchasing power. More and more Montrealers could now afford the durable consumer goods they had had to do without for years: a fridge, a car, a modern place to live. They embraced consumer society, a phenomenon that would become more pronounced after 1960.

  Montreal’s rapid growth could also be seen in bricks and mortar as the city expanded every which way at once. At war’s end, the city still contained vast swathes of undeveloped land annexed at the turn of the century. These became the new postwar neighbourhoods, springing up for the most part along Rivière des Prairies also called the Back river (Ahuntsic, Bordeaux, Cartierville) and to the east (Rosemont and Longue-Pointe), although things soon spilled over into the suburbs. On the island, some municipalities made quick progress: Saint-Michel, Montréal-Nord, and Saint-Léonard to the east; Saint-Laurent and Dorval (home to Montreal’s new airport since 1941) to the west. Previously rural Île Jésus, which would become the city of Laval in 1965, also got in on the act and became more built-up around the Viau and Lachapelle bridges, while a similar phenomenon was repeated on the south shore at the foot of the Victoria and Jacques- Cartier bridges.

  Cars helped the suburbs shift further and further away from downtown. The number of vehicles on the roads increased at dizzying speeds and meant suburbanites could live further away from their jobs. All of which was not without problems. Traffic got heavier and parking more difficult; drivers lamented the lack of highways and bridges. In the late 1950s, the construction of Métropolitain boulevard and the Laurentides expressway brought relief, but massive investment in the regional expressway grid would come in the following two decades.

  The new postwar suburb brought with it a number of changes to life in Montreal. Centred around the car, it helped bring about the rise of shopping malls. Urban planning in the suburbs was different to Montreal, particularly in shifting roads away from a rectangular grid. Duplexes were still built, but bungalows were everywhere, meeting the needs of young families looking for somewhere nice to bring up their children born in the baby boom.

  Urban sprawl wasn’t the only result of Montreal’s growth: the city centre got a makeover too. In 1945, the downtown area hadn’t changed much since the late twenties as construction had stalled due to the depression and war, but new projects leaped off drafting tables with a vengeance in the fifties. First came the construction of Dorchester Boulevard (today Boulevard René-Lévesque) in 1954–1955. The thinking behind this was twofold: to make the business district more accessible by car and to develop a glamorous main street that would attract real estate projects. And it was along this boulevard that the biggest building of the period was built: Place Ville Marie, which opened in 1962. Its modern architecture soon made it the poster child for a new era. Other skyscrapers sprouted up around it, making Dorchester the backbone of the new downtown area that would soon supplant Old Montreal as the place to do business. Even though this new world became especially visible after 1960, it was already in the works in the 1950s, when Montreal’s modernization was planned.

  Winds of change

  The postwar period saw strong winds of change gust across Montreal society. The strongest desire for change came from the new French-Canadian middle class. Expanding in the 1920s, it had been given a rough ride by the depression, but the return to prosperity had it back up on its feet. Professionals, small business owners, insurance agents, and the like all benefited from a richer French-Canadian clientele that was swelling in numbers before their very eyes. These professionals played a key role at the Chamber of Commerce and other organizations that had a stake in the debates over Quebec’s future.

  New professionals such as economists, labour relations specialists, social workers, and psychologists were also making up a growing share of Montreal’s elite. As in the twenties, university professors like François-Albert Angers, Michel Brunet, and Pierre Elliott Trudeau ventured onto the public stage. Montreal’s unions saw new leaders emerge, and the likes of Gérard Picard, Claude Jodoin, Roger Provost, and Louis Laberge quickly became household names.

  The media was another vector of change, especially CBC/Radio-Canada’s television station, which started broadcasting in 1952. Its news programs opened the eyes of Montrealers and put them in touch with the world of culture. Radio, television, and newspaper journalists—the Judith Jasmins, André Laurendeaus, and René Lévesques of the province—became stars and made a huge contribution to shaping public opinion.

  The world of education was also a harbinger of change. Even though French Canadians had done less schooling than English-speaking Canadians, the levels attained were on the rise from one generation to the next, as demonstrated by the expanding high school and vocational training sectors. For part of the French-Canadian population, education had become synonymous with social mobility. Nothing symbolized this better than the classical colleges—which grew in leaps and bounds. Many new colleges opened in Montreal and older ones expanded to meet demand.

  Montreal society after the war had a real hunger for modernization. This desire was expressed by a group of artists led by Paul-Émile Borduas in the Refus global manifesto of 1948, but it was also increasingly prevalent among the new French-Canadian elites as people looked for a counterbalance to the traditionalism of the Church and the Duplessis government by calling for greater freedom of thought and profound social and political reforms. With new means of communication and travel now easier, Montrealers also now had first-hand knowledge of what Americans were up to, and the United States became a model to be followed.

  This desire for change ran up against resistance from the Church, which remained on the defensive. Religious observance was on the wane in Montreal, es
pecially among the working class. Moral standards were harder to uphold given the rise in modern communications and new social and cultural practices in a diversifying society. The Church was unable to cope with rising demands in education, hospital care, and social services and increasingly had to turn to secular staff, who were wary of the control the priests and nuns exerted over them. The episcopate of Archbishop Joseph Charbonneau (1940–1950) nevertheless gave lay workers an opportunity to become more involved in the Church’s endeavours. The archbishop proved willing to adapt the Church to the new realities of a modern, cosmopolitan city, but the Church in Montreal hardened under Paul-Émile Léger, who was appointed archbishop in 1950 and a cardinal in 1953 and who sought to exercise the Church’s authority in a manner more in line with tradition. This position was untenable in the long term, and by the late fifties Cardinal Léger had softened the Church’s stance and started a dialogue that would overhaul its role in the wake of the Quiet Revo­lution and Vatican II.

  The winds of change blowing over Montreal did not affect just the Church. French-speaking elites grew increasingly uncomfortable with the second-class status of French Cana­dians in their own city. The privileged position of English Canadians was perceived to be the cause. Anger mounted at the influence of the English language in Montreal life, given the bilingualism imposed only on French Canadians and the fact that many organizations and businesses used only English in their dealings with French-speaking customers. Discontent also rumbled on due to the discrimination against French Canadians on the job market, where they were paid less and had problems being promoted and moving into senior management. The “Château Maisonneuve” scandal of 1954–1955 stoked the fires of resentment when the president of the Canadian National Railways refused to reconsider his decision to call the new hotel his company was having built “The Queen Elizabeth.” And tensions went up another notch in 1955 when the suspension of Canadiens hockey star Maurice Richard was taken to be a national affront, sparking the Richard Riot. The anger among French Canadians would come to a head in the 1960s.

  The political battlefield

  The political scene was not spared the winds of change. Since 1940, Montreal had been living under a new regime that had set democracy back on its heels. With 99 city councillors divided into three categories and a third of them unelected, municipal politics had become a complex affair, a battlefield for varying interests. Various clans on the city council sought to broaden their influence and more than anything hoped to be represented on the executive committee, the real seat of power. They cobbled together alliances and relied on give and take to pursue their agendas and access the system of patronage that was the crux of political life. In spite of everything, “Monsieur Montréal” Camillien Houde, who won back the mayoralty from 1944 to 1954, and J.-O. Asselin, chairman of the executive committee from 1940 to 1954, steadied the ship.

  A wave of reform, stirred by an investigation into public morality, rose up in the early 1950s. Pacifique (Pax) Plante, a lawyer and the former assistant head of the Montreal police department, set the ball rolling when he was relieved of his duties in 1948. In a tell-all series of newspaper articles later published as a pamphlet, Montreal sous le règne de la pègre (Montreal in the grips of the underworld), Plante exposed the extent to which prostitution and illegal gambling permeated Montreal life—and the blind eye police officers and politicians turned to such activities, making Montreal an “open city” where anything went. A number of associations joined forces to form a public morality committee and successfully called for a public inquiry into police activities, chaired by Judge François Caron. Pacifique Plante played a key role in proceedings, along with a young lawyer by the name of Jean Drapeau. From 1950 to 1954, Judge Caron called witnesses and wrote up a report that confirmed Plante’s claims and condemned a string of police officers.

  As in 1909–1910, the corruption scandal led to a cleanup. Politicians were tainted by the scandal and Mayor Houde chose to retire from political life. Flushed with success after his role in the Caron inquiry, Jean Drapeau ran for mayor. He became head of the Civic Action League (Ligue d’action civique), a political party he had created with city councillor Pierre DesMarais. It was the first time a true political party had appeared on the municipal scene, which had been dominated until then by loose groupings of independent councillors. In the 1954 election, Drapeau won the mayoral race and his party was rewarded with a sizable number of seats on the city council, if not a majority. With the backing of the Category C unelected councillors, the League took control of the executive committee, with DesMarais as chairman.

  The League’s opponents learned from the experience and formed their own party, the Ralliement du Grand Montréal (Greater Montreal Rally). They were supported by the Union nationale, which had a score or two to settle with Drapeau, a prominent opponent of Premier Maurice Duplessis. In the elections of 1957, the Ralliement du Grand Montréal managed to have Sarto Fournier elected as mayor. The party won fewer seats on the council than the Civic Action League, but took a leaf out of Drapeau’s book to earn the support of the Category C councillors and obtained the chairmanship of the executive committee.

  Throughout this period, since neither group enjoyed a majority of seats, the city council became a real battlefield where opposing clans clashed. Even the most straightforward of projects would lead to endless debate, paralyzing the city’s administration. Elections, in 1957 especially, were held before a backdrop of violence. The city appeared to have become ungovernable, particularly between 1957 and 1960, which explains the sea change that occurred in 1960.

  That year saw Montrealers decide in a referendum to do away with Category C city councillors. Henceforth the council would be made up of 66 elected officials, half Category A (elected by property owners alone), half Category B (elected by owners and tenants alike).

  Jean Drapeau chose this moment to make his comeback. Shortly before the elections, he set up a new political party, the Parti civique (the Civic Party). He offered voters the chance to breathe new life into municipal politics by electing a majority government to put an end to the squabbles that had paralyzed the council in previous years. Montrealers were indeed disgusted with a situation that had prevailed since 1957 and voiced their discontent by electing Drapeau mayor and awarding two thirds of seats to Civic Party councillors.

  It was quite the turnaround. With a clear majority in the council, Drapeau had six councillors from his own party elected to the executive committee. As with the National Assembly in Quebec City and Parliament in Ottawa, Montreal would now be managed by an administration formed entirely by members of the party that held the majority. The city enjoyed unprecedented levels of unity and efficiency.

  In the hectic politics of the postwar years, various issues monopolized public opinion. One of them—the management of public utilities by private businesses—was resolved at last. Since the turn of the century, a number of groups had periodically campaigned for the nationalization of public utilities. Electricity was the first when in 1944 the Quebec government acquired Montreal Light, Heat, and Power to form Hydro-Québec. Then, in 1951, it was the turn of the tramway company that was replaced by the Commission de transport de Montréal or the Montreal Transportation Commission, a public body dominated by the City of Montreal, although the suburbs were also represented. The Commission oversaw the systematic replacement of tramways by buses, a process that ended in 1959.

  Another hot-button issue was the ability of municipalities on the island of Montreal to work together, a matter of greater urgency since the city’s suburbs had taken off after the war. There was much discussion of regionalizing some services that were provided by each municipality. But there was great distrust between Montreal and its suburbs. The Commission métropolitaine de Montréal—Montreal Metropolitan Com­mission—had been up and running since 1921, but its powers were limited. It was replaced in 1959 by the Corporation du Montréal métropolitain (Montreal Metropolitan Corpo­ration), with the city centr
e and suburbs each having an equal number of seats and its chair appointed by the government of Quebec. The corporation was scarcely more efficient than its predecessor, however, and it was not until 1970 that the issue of the regional management of certain municipal services was settled once and for all.

  Much debate was also devoted to urban renewal in the 1950s. Slums in the older neighbourhoods of Montreal were regularly denounced, but no solution to the problem could be agreed on. In 1954, a major renewal project, the Dozois Plan, proposed demolishing many of the slums near downtown Montreal and replacing them with affordable housing. The plan was debated endlessly, with disagreement over whether to turn this part of the city into a residential neighbourhood or a business district and what type of buildings there would be. In spite of the opposition, Habitations Jeanne-Mance were at last built in the area between de Montigny (now Maisonneuve) and Ontario street to the east of Saint-Laurent boulevard, but represented a very limited response to the problem posed by rundown housing in the city.

  For politics and society as a whole, the postwar years paved the way for the Quiet Revolution and the sweeping changes it would bring. Growing prosperity led to grander aspirations and a hunger for change that would be satisfied after 1960.

  CHAPTER 12

  Fireworks

  1960–1976

  The Swinging Sixties were a particularly lively time in Montreal, with the excitement of the Quiet Revolution and the most modern of makeovers for the city. Expo 67 only added to the fever. All this excitement nevertheless masked the slide towards economic slowdown and a demographic downturn that even the 1976 Olympics could not conceal.