The History of Montreal Read online

  The revival had a spectacular effect on the real estate market. In 1994, Montreal was still in shock following the collapse of property prices at the end of the 1990 recession. The market stagnated for a number of years, and the value of building permits in the Montreal area fell by half, reaching a nadir in 1995–1996. The housing vacancy rate climbed and owners looked for new ways to attract tenants. Things began to look up by decade’s end, but the property market really took off in 2001. By 2006, building permits were worth three times as much as they had been ten years earlier and the market remained buoyant until 2012.

  Close to the city centre, promoters snapped up every vacant lot and every parking lot to build condos. By the Lachine Canal or in Old Montreal, and in many other parts of the city, old warehouses and factories were converted into homes, while new blocks of luxury condos went up close to the downtown area. In no more than a few years, Montreal eliminated thousands of scars that blotched its urban landscape.

  Gentrification—the process by which higher social classes move in to areas previously occupied by low-income groups—had already begun, but now moved up a gear. It was most visible in the Plateau and Mile End neighbourhoods, but also started to appear in the working-class neighbourhoods to the southwest, by the Lachine Canal.

  A sizable chunk of new housing projects continued to be concentrated in the suburbs, although young couples now had to move further and further out of town to find affordable homes. The second ring of suburbs was where the action was at, in municipalities like Mirabel and Mascouche on the north shore or Saint-Basile-le-Grand on the south shore.

  Contrasting populations

  Between 1996 and 2001, the Montreal census metropolitan area (CMA) grew by only 100,000 inhabitants, but between 2001 and 2006, it increased by close to 210,000, reaching 3.6 million. Population growth was slightly less rapid during the next five years and the total stood at 3.8 million in 2011.

  This increase was largely fuelled by immigration from abroad, since net migration with other parts of Canada was negative. Immigrants came mainly to live in the city itself, but since the city centre was continuing to lose residents to the surrounding area, the suburbs had the highest growth.

  The 450 area code was now shorthand for the suburbs around the island of Montreal. Experts noted growing differences in behaviour (politics, consumption, etc.) between people living there and those on the island of Montreal where the code was 514. Although the area had some small pockets where English and other languages were spoken, French was the number one language in the 450 dial code, an area that was home to half the people living in the CMA. With 368,000 inhabitants in 2006, Laval was the biggest suburban city and a case apart. On the south shore, Longueuil (229,000) trailed in its wake, while the rest of the CMA was made up of dozens of municipalities, big and small.

  Due to migration from the city centre to the suburbs, the island of Montreal had fewer and fewer people who claimed French as their mother tongue, a fact that might have an impact on use of French in years to come. People who spoke languages other than French and English, and more generally, those whose ancestors did not hail from France or Great Britain and Ireland, remained concentrated on the island at the start of the twenty-first century, thus boosting its multicultural makeup. In 2001, 31 percent of people living on the island had a mother tongue other than French or English. In the suburbs, only Brossard (27.5 percent) and Laval (18 percent) are comparable from that standpoint.

  At the turn of the twenty-first century, a new wave of immigration brought many Moroccans, Algerians, and Lebanese to Montreal. Many of them were Muslims, and mosques became a feature of the cityscape. Coming from countries that had been part of the former French empire or under French influence, these immigrants overwhelmingly chose to settle in Quebec and particularly Montreal when they moved to Canada, just like the thousands of men and women from France who have moved across the Atlantic. This gave Montreal quite a different makeup of immigrants compared to Canadian cities like Toronto and Vancouver. Moreover, immigrants from Asia (China, India, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Korea, and elsewhere), although numerous, were proportionally fewer than in Canada’s other two main metropolitan areas.

  A closer look at geographical distribution reveals two phenomena. First, the biggest and oldest groups formed sorts of ethnic enclaves along Saint-Laurent boulevard, before migrating in waves to other parts of the city in the second half of the twentieth century. By the end of the century, Montrealers of Italian origin tended to live in Saint-Léonard and Rivière-des-Prairies, while the Jewish community has concentrated in Côte-Saint-Luc and nearby areas. Second, so many groups have arrived since the seventies that it is impossible for each to have its own neighbourhood. Instead, multicultural neighbourhoods have emerged, with groups of different backgrounds living side by side. Côte-des-Neiges, Parc-Extension, and certain parts of Saint-Laurent are prime examples.

  These groups live in relative harmony, even when immigrants from countries historically in conflict with each other live side by side. Relations with the French-speaking majority also tend to be harmonious, with diversity now being recognized as part of Montreal’s identity. Resistance has, however, appeared occasionally over the issue of reasonable accommodation for religious groups.

  School-board reform has done much to improve inter-ethnic relations. School boards had been defined by religious denomination since the nineteenth century, with a Catholic school board on one side and a Protestant one on the other. The situation fell out of kilter with the city’s religious diversity and the secular nature of public schools and hospitals, etc. Since the seventies, the need to divide school boards along linguistic rather than religious lines had been hotly debated. A constitutional amendment making this possible was passed in 1997, and the following year a French-language and an English-language school board were set up in Montreal. The suburbs followed suit.

  Despite the return to a fair amount of prosperity, social divides have persisted in Montreal: in many areas of the city, a significant chunk of the population continues to live in poverty. Young men who dropped out of school have wound up in badly paid jobs, if not on unemployment and welfare; single-parent families, most often headed by mothers, are very often among the needy; and young people from visible minorities have found it harder than most to find employment. In short, Montreal has remained a city of contrasts, with social inequalities rife.

  A time of political change

  The 1994 Montreal elections marked a changing of the guard on the city council, with the defeat of the RCM and Jean Doré. The new mayor, Pierre Bourque, a former manager of Montreal’s Botanical Garden, might have been a political novice, but he knew the city like the back of his hand. The Vision Montréal party he founded got the majority of seats, but the “maire jardinier” or “gardener mayor” faced hard times from the get-go, given the city’s disastrous finances. His amateurish, hands-on approach soon had political observers wincing and led to defections from his party, but Pierre Bourque knew how to connect to Montrealers and remained very popular with voters, who swept him back to power in 1998.

  Bourque revived Jean Drapeau’s slogan of “Une île, une ville” (One Island, One City”) and proposed the annexation of Montreal’s neighbouring municipalities. Irony would have it that he would get his way, but would be unable to take advantage of the situation.

  Montreal’s relations with its suburbs was a hot topic throughout the nineties. One of the issues at stake was spreading the city’s costs for downtown services and public facilities across the whole Montreal area.

  At the start of the twenty-first century, two aspects of this issue were addressed. The first was managing the metropolitan area. The Communauté urbaine de Montréal (Montreal Urban Community), created in 1970, only took in part of the area and barely half the population living in and around Montreal. After much dithering, the Quebec government, led by Premier Lucien Bouchard, passed its solution to the problem in 2000. The CUM was abolished and replaced by the Communau
té métropolitaine de Montréal. The CMM was put in charge of services and facilities for the metropolitan area, as well as regional planning and development.

  The second aspect concerned municipal mergers. The Bouchard government was determined to reduce the number of municipalities in Quebec to get rid of duplication and improve administrative and fiscal efficiency.

  Bill 170 provided for the creation of a new City of Montreal on January 1, 2002, which would encompass all the municipalities on the island. It also formed a single city on the south shore that would be known as Longueuil. In both cases, in 2001 a transition committee looked into reorganizing the services that these changes would entail. Elsewhere in the Montreal area, a number of municipalities followed suit and merged in twos and threes.

  A number of towns on the island of Montreal resisted these forced mergers and tried, in vain, to have them overturned by the courts. Discontent also rumbled in a number of municipalities on the south shore. The head of the Quebec Liberal Party, Jean Charest, promised to undo the mergers, if elected.

  In November 2001, elections were held all the same to give the new city an administration. Mayor Bourque came away with a majority of seats in the former city, but lost out to Gérald Tremblay, head of the Union des citoyens et citoyennes de l’île de Montréal (Montreal Island Citizens’ Union), who won more seats in the former suburbs and was elected mayor. It was something of a paradox that some members of the team now governing the new city were working towards its demise.

  The law creating for the new city included the creation of 27 boroughs (arrondissements). Managed by elected officials, these boroughs provide community services and keep the municipal administration in touch with the people. In other words, the boroughs were created to devolve powers away from the centre. Boroughs had to manage local budgets, services, and staff. The Tremblay administration took this devolution process a step further, with the officials elected to manage boroughs later becoming borough mayors.

  In 2003, Jean Charest became Quebec premier and kept his word on allowing demergers. The tightly overseen procedure called for referendums to be held, the results of which would be valid only if participation rates were at least 35 percent. In June 2004, 15 former municipalities on the island—all but one of which were on the West Island—were given the go-ahead to demerge from Montreal. On the south shore, four former towns chose to separate from Longueuil. These reconstituted towns did not enjoy as broad a range of powers as before, however. On the island, they were in a minority against Montreal in the new agglomeration council that managed budgets and common services.

  When the dust settled, Montreal kept a number of its former suburban towns, including Saint-Laurent, Outremont, Verdun, LaSalle, Montréal-Nord, Anjou, and Saint-Léonard. It brought almost 90 percent of the people living on the island under its umbrella.

  In November 2005, an election was held that would test the new city’s mettle. Gérald Tremblay was re-elected mayor and his councillors won a majority of seats—in the boroughs of the old city, as well. It was a disaster for Pierre Bourque, who left municipal politics soon afterwards, and a result that proved Montreal had begun to integrate old and new. Mayor Tremblay won again in 2009, but with a reduced majority.

  In just a few years, Montreal had undergone a series of sweeping political changes, and its leaders had to adapt quickly to this new reality. Montreal’s expansion had given it new stature, and the means to become the metropolitan leader.

  In the fall of 2012, the city’s pride was dealt a severe blow. A provincial inquiry commission on corruption in the construction industry revealed an extended graft system in Montreal’s public works. A crisis ensued with the resignation of Mayor Tremblay and the partial collapse of his party. A new chapter in the lively political history of Montreal was opening up.

  Conclusion

  This look at Montreal’s history has set out various milestones along the way. On a piece of land that once belonged to the Iroquoians, a tiny missionary colony took root in 1642. After difficult beginnings, it became a bustling trading centre, built first around the fur trade, then around a diversified commercial system. From the mid-nineteenth century onwards, industrialization transformed the small town into a sprawling city abuzz with activity. Then, over the course of the twentieth century, the development of the services sector broadened the city’s role. The Swinging Sixties came and went, and Montreal went through a period of major upheavals that sparked serious efforts at modernization.

  From its beginnings, Montreal enjoyed a host of advantages, not least its location on the St. Lawrence River. But in order for these advantages to be driven home, Montreal required a great deal of entrepreneurship and no small amount of creative thinking from a host of men and women who were devoted to their city and determined to equip it with the most vibrant of institutions. Paul de Chomedey de Maisonneuve and Jeanne Mance led by example, but each generation that followed supplied its own contingent of visionaries. Behind the big names, millions of ordinary men and women, business people, members of the Church, artisans, factory workers, office workers, intellectuals, and artists worked in their own special way—often in obscurity—to make Montreal the exceptional city it is today.

  Throughout its long history, one of the key features behind Montreal’s je ne sais quoi has been its French roots. The French of New France became Les Canadiens, then French Canadians, and finally Quebecers over the years, but whatever they have been called, they have always played a crucial role in every stage of the city’s development. They have marked every facet of life in Montreal. They developed an original culture, constantly looking to bridge their French heritage and Quebec culture and the cultures of the many people from all over the world who have come to call Montreal home. They made their city the beating heart of modern Quebec.

  For two and a half centuries, the city has also absorbed British and English-Canadian influences, and that interaction with French-speaking Montreal has created a society like no other. The sizable British contingent made a lasting contribution to the city, shaping its economy, institutions, and architecture. Then, the past century saw Jews and Italians—and later groups from all kinds of cultural backgrounds—make contributions of their own.

  Another striking feature of Montreal’s history is its Americanness. Though European in origin, the city quickly adapted to the realities of life in North America. From the days of New France, Montrealers demonstrated a continental vision that they have kept ever since. They borrowed and benefited from the culture and technology of those around them—first the Aboriginal peoples, then their American neighbours to the south.

  Montreal has therefore been—and continues to be—a welcoming city, a melting pot where diverse cultures feel right at home, a place where people from distant lands and diverse ethnic and social backgrounds settle down and live together. It is a city of dialogue and exchange, where people, ideas, goods, money, and technology circulate freely. Of course, many other cities in North America boast similar features, but something special sets Montreal apart, no doubt due to the French and English worlds it is home to. That’s what makes it such a fascinating city.

  Selected Readings

  BURGESS, Joanne, Louise DECHÊNE, Paul-André LINTEAU and Jean-Claude ROBERT. Clés pour l’histoire de Montréal. Bibliographie. Montreal: 1992.

  Surveys

  ATHERTON, William H. Montreal, 1535-1914. Montreal: 1914. 3 vol.

  BENOÎT, Michèle and Roger GRATTON. Pignon sur rue. Les quartiers de Montréal. Montreal: 1991.

  BLANCHARD, Raoul. Montréal, esquisse de géographie urbaine. Montreal: 1992.

  COOPER, John Irwin. Montreal: A Brief History. Montreal: 1969.

  DECHÊNE, Louise. Habitants and Merchants in Seventeenth-Century Montreal. Montreal: 1992.

  DECHÊNE, Louise. «La croissance de Montréal au XVIIIe», Revue d’histoire de l’Amérique française, 27, 2 (September 1973), p. 163-179.

  FOUGÈRES, Dany, ed. Histoire de Montréal et de sa région. Quebec:
2012. 2 vol.

  The Rise and Fall? of Montreal. A Case Study of Urban Growth, Regional Economic Expansion and National Development. Moncton: 1986.

  LACHANCE, André. La vie urbaine en Nouvelle-France. Montreal: 1987.

  LANDRY, Yves, ed. Pour le Christ et le roi. La vie au temps des premiers Montréalais. Montreal: 1992.

  LINTEAU, Paul-André. Histoire de Montréal depuis la Confédération. Montreal: 2000.

  LINTEAU, Paul-André and Jean-Claude ROBERT. Le Montréal pré-industriel (1760-1850)/Pre-industrial Montreal (1760-1850). Ottawa: 1980.

  MARSAN, Jean-Claude. Montreal in Evolution: Historical Analysis of the Development of Montreal’s Architecture and Urban Environment. Montreal: 1981.

  ROBERT, Jean-Claude. Montréal (1821-1871). Aspects de l’urbanisation. Doctoral dissertation, Université de Paris l, 1977.

  ROBERT, Jean-Claude. Atlas historique de Montréal. Montreal: 1994.

  RUMILLY, Robert. Histoire de Montréal. Montreal: 1970-1974. 5 vol.

  Monographs

  BRADBURY, Bettina. Working Families: Age, Gender, and Daily Survival in Industrializing Montreal. Toronto: 1993.

  BRADBURY, Bettina and Tamara MYERS, ed. Negotiating Identities in 19th- and 20th-Century Montreal. Vancouver: 2005.

  BRADBURY, Bettina. Wife to Widow: Lives, Laws, and Politics in Nineteenth-Century Montreal. Vancouver: 2011.