The History of Montreal Read online

French Canadians dominated municipal politics by then. Montreal regained its autonomy in 1921, when the administrative commission was abolished and elected officials again took up the reins of power. The city was now managed by an executive committee whose members were chosen by and from among the city councillors. The mayor’s role was now largely symbolic, but a great deal of prestige still came with the title. Médéric Martin was mayor from 1914. Though defeated in the 1924 elections, he returned to power two years later. Then in 1928, Camillien Houde, another populist politician, defeated him. With his powerful personality, Camillien Houde would leave his imprint on the city for the next two decades.

  And so the 1920s gave Montrealers a glimpse of a better life to come, for French Canadians in particular. The decade ended, however, with stock market speculation rampant… A rude awakening was just around the corner.

  CHAPTER 10

  Depression and War

  1930–1945

  From 1930 onwards, Montreal went through a rocky period that would last for some 15 years. The Great Depression nipped the hopes of the previous decade in the bud and plunged the city into a profound slump that affected its population to varying degrees. The seemingly endless depression was followed by the Second World War, which brought prosperity back, but only further delayed a return to normal life.

  The Depression

  The stock market crash of October 1929 marked the official beginning of the depression, but its seeds were sown in the excesses of the 1920s. From 1930 to 1933, the economy collapsed—and recovery would be painfully slow. Montreal was particularly affected: at the height of the depression, between one quarter and one third of its workforce was unemployed.

  Given the key role the city played in selling Canada’s raw materials abroad, Montreal took the full brunt of the worldwide slump that hit this sector. The industries that depended on the handling and shipping of these staple products, such as the manufacture of railway rolling stock, had ground to a standstill, while other sectors of the economy were indirectly affected to varying degrees. With the vast majority of workers living on low wages, the city was very vulnerable indeed to a prolonged bout of unemployment. With no savings, these people were quickly poverty-stricken and could not be relied upon to reboot the consumer market.

  Consequently, city growth came to a standstill. The island’s population (1,117,000 in 1941) increased by a mere 113,000 inhabitants over the course of the decade and the population of the city itself (903,000 in 1941) by only 85,000. Immigration more or less came to a complete halt, and some immigrants who had arrived in the 1920s went as far as returning to their countries of origin. Migration from the countryside to the city was also interrupted: farmers’ sons and daughters saw no interest in moving to a city that offered nothing but misery, and many others preferred to go back to the farm where they could at least find something to eat. Those born and bred in Montreal, meanwhile, tended to put off marriages and have fewer children.

  In such circumstances, the construction industry was very quiet indeed. Eight percent of the labour force worked in construction, not counting related industries such as manufacturing and retail of materials. Very few new homes went up during the depression and existing ones fell into disrepair since owners, who couldn’t collect rent and often lost their properties altogether, had little interest in investing in repairs.

  Living standards were declining. Many unemployed working-class families had to find cheaper places to live and buy the bare minimum of food, clothes, and furniture.

  Charities like the St. Vincent de Paul and others that traditionally helped the destitute were quickly unable to cope with the levels of poverty raging in Montreal. From 1930 on, different levels of government had to get involved. First, they chose to give workers direct assistance via charities, but starting in 1933 the city itself took charge of distributing this direct help by setting up the Unemployment Commission. The city also set up public works programs—building overpasses and public buildings, landscaping parks, and the like—that were funded in part by the federal and provincial governments and that gave jobs to thousands of the unemployed. Such programs led to the development of Montreal’s Botanical Garden and construction of the chalet on Mount Royal, for example, not to mention street urinals (what Parisians referred to as vespasiennes and Montrealers more cheekily called camilliennes, after Mayor Camillien Houde).

  A shaken society

  Insecurity and poverty therefore characterized the thirties. Those who still had a job saw their wages gouged and feared for the future, which hardly encouraged them to be consumers. French Canadians were hit harder than the English because they tended to have less money and more of them worked in construction and transportation. Factory workers were also more affected than service workers like teachers and civil servants who, even though they were not well paid, still had stable jobs. The middle class, which had ridden the wave of prosperity in the 1920s, was now crippled by the depression, especially the French Canadians. Customers of small stores and professionals had a hard time paying their bills and bought less. For many, the 1930s were synonymous with social decline and even bankruptcy.

  It was a time of broken dreams. The hopes of a better life that the 1920s had spawned quickly dissipated. Many young people had to give up promising studies; couples had to postpone wedding plans. The depression reined in aspirations. The most popular singer of the 1930s, La Bolduc, then known as the Queen of Canadian Folksingers, voiced the helplessness a whole generation was feeling.

  Some found hope in religion as hard times upped religious fervour. Crowds flocked to St. Joseph’s Oratory, among them pilgrims needing a miracle. In 1937, the death of the oratory’s founder, Brother André, deeply touched Quebec and hundreds of thousands of Montrealers came to pay homage to him one last time.

  The Church was also going through a difficult time. Its charities were struggling to meet the needs of the destitute and had to make do with reduced resources as needs soared. The situation was made worse by the fact that certain religious orders and parishes had not invested wisely and were having financial troubles of their own. Members of the clergy intervened in public debates all the same and put forward solutions to the interminable crisis. For example, the École sociale populaire, headed by the Jesuit Joseph-Papin Archambault, put forward its social restoration program in 1933.

  The crisis also roused a strong nationalist movement. Its leading light, priest and historian Lionel Groulx, inspired a whole generation of young nationalists like André Laurendeau and Paul Gouin, who would go on to make their mark on politics. The Jeune-Canada movement was founded in 1932 to express the frustrations of young French Canadians towards a society that appeared to have little to offer them. It channelled French Canadians’ demands and spoke out at their exploitation by large monopolies controlled by English Canadians.

  Economic difficulties also revived ethnic tensions across a city where linguistic divisions often papered over the cracks of social divides. The traditional rivalry between French and English Canadians reared its head in a host of ways, political nominations and how public funds were to be spent, among them. For example, the appointment of the first French Canadian as president of the Harbour Commission provoked the ire of the English-language press, which deemed the post to belong by rights to an English Canadian, while the appointment of a unilingual English-speaking head manager of the Montreal customs office was perceived by the French-language press to be an insult to French Canadians.

  Another type of intolerance also expressed itself more openly in some people’s attitude towards Jews. The thirties were blighted by an upsurge in anti-Semitism across Western countries, and Montreal was not spared: though covert discrimination was a fact of life in English-language organizations, some French-Canadian leaders came out with anti-Semitic statements, Jewish businesses were attacked. There was, however, none of the widespread violence that many European countries endured. Tensions were somewhat eased by the open-mindedness shown by parts of the press an
d the public as a whole, as well as cooperation among ethnic groups who demonstrated side by side in the trade union movement.

  Anti-Semitism was but one face of a troubled 1930s society, however. A potent cocktail of ideas and movements, ranging from the extreme left to the extreme right, was exploding all over town. Although limited in number, communists were making headway and spreading their message at assemblies and in publications and organizing groups for the unemployed and factory workers. Socialists were also making their voices heard and became more organized with the creation of the CCF, the Co-operative Commonwealth Foundation, in 1933. The two groups were especially active among English Canadian intellectuals and within the Jewish community, already familiar with leftist ideas from its time in Europe. And it was in the Cartier riding in a Jewish and French-Canadian neighbourhood that Montreal’s—and Canada’s—lone communist MP, Fred Rose, was elected in 1943. It was also here among the communists of Montreal that renowned doctor Norman Bethune began the thought process that would lead him first to Spain with the Mackenzie-Papineau battalion that fought in the civil war that was raging, then to China where he died. The parties of the left had a hard time making inroads with French Canadians whose distinctive cultural identity and aspirations they didn’t really grasp. Communists in particular also met with fierce resistance from the Catholic Church.

  At the other end of the political spectrum were the fascists, who won over followers within parts of the Italian community, and a Nazi-inspired group led by journalist Adrien Arcand. Both were fringe groups, but managed to grab the headlines.

  In French-Canadian circles, reactions to the crisis came mainly from the nationalists and the École sociale populaire, which proposed a Christian approach to social problems that drew on papal encyclicals. They both put forward a traditional vision of the French-Canadian nation, while also exploring novel solutions, leading a campaign to bring public utilities—notably electricity—under government control, for example, as was already the case in other large cities such as Toronto.

  A city in trouble

  The upheavals that were upsetting Montreal society also shook up the political scene. Voters at all levels expressed their discontent by switching governments. At the municipal level, the eventful career of Camillien Houde was typical of the turbulent times. Mayor of Montreal since 1928, he was defeated by Fernand Rinfret in the 1932 elections before winning back his post in 1934, only to lose it again in 1936, this time to Adhémar Raynault. But Houde never gave up and was back as mayor by 1938.

  Houde upheld the tradition of populist politicians by fighting for the little guy and for French Canadians. Like other populists before him, he met with resistance from the elites, particularly the English-speaking business establishment. How the city was managed was again front and centre in the debate.

  It must be said that the depression had sacked the city’s finances. Montreal had to pay a fair chunk of unemployment assistance, but its revenues were not enough and it consistently had to borrow to make up the shortfall. For years, property taxes had been too low to meet the needs of a city the size of Montreal, which had been growing rapidly since the turn of the century. Religious, educational, and social organizations were exempt from property tax, yet they all enjoyed access to municipal services. Throughout the crisis, tax collection was tricky and property values plummeted as the city’s debt rose.

  Business circles blamed the state of affairs on politicians’ mismanagement and the cost of patronage; they clamoured for expenditures to be slashed. For his part, Mayor Houde pointed the finger at the high costs of helping the unemployed. He stood up for the jobless and refused to reduce the already meagre help meted out to them. Instead, he tried to get the provincial and federal governments to increase their contributions, but in vain. And so, in 1935, he resigned himself to imposing a series of new taxes, including, for the first time in the history of Quebec, a sales tax. Nevertheless, these measures were not enough to right the municipality’s finances before the decade was out.

  In 1940, Montreal was unable to repay maturing debts when the banks refused to lend the city more money. For the banks, it was a means of leaning on the provincial government so that it would change the way the city was managed. Montreal was put under the trusteeship of the Municipal Commission and would remain there until 1944. The city council was also overhauled. It now had three categories of city councillors, each with a third of the seats. Category A councillors were elected by property owners alone, Category B by both owners and tenants, and Category C by university, employers, and trade union organizations. This major reform removed power from the populists’ hands and boosted the say of property owners, the business community, and English-speaking Montrealers.

  World War II

  In 1940, the economy was again transformed: Canada was at war. And the Second World War (1939–1945) had a bigger impact than the war of 1914–1918, both in Montreal and across Canada.

  Montreal factories, still running almost on idle at the end of the 1930s, now had to work flat out to meet the growing demands of an economy entirely focused on the war effort and meeting the Allies’ needs. Munitions factories were built, a brand new Canadair airplane factory went up in Saint-Laurent, and the Canadian Vickers shipyards—like Canadian Pacific’s Angus Shops—churned out military materiel. In all, Montreal’s heavy industry grew strongly. French geographer Raoul Blanchard has calculated that 38 percent of the manufacturing labour force in and around Montreal was either employed by the metallurgical industry or was making transportation equipment and electric appliances.

  Light industry also benefited from the favourable market conditions. It produced khaki fabric along with army boots and uniforms while civilian production climbed as consumer demand increased.

  The war brought with it a return in prosperity, putting an end to years of crisis. Full employment replaced high unemployment levels. Workers enjoyed stable jobs, good wages, and the possibility of overtime. Income levels for the population as a whole shot up. Even the municipality profited. Money no longer had to be spent on unemployment assistance and Montrealers were again able to pay their taxes, turning the city’s finances around under the watchful eye of the Municipal Commission.

  But the war again raised the issue of Canada’s involvement. Even though French Canadians enlisted in greater numbers than for the previous conflict, enrolment rates were still proportionally lower than those of English Canadians, causing, as in 1914–1918, ethnic tensions. In 1940, Mayor Camillien Houde publicly came out against national registration and was arrested and sent to an internment camp, where he remained until 1944. A considerable number of Montreal Italians, suspected of sympathizing with the enemy, and communists, mostly Jewish, were also arrested and interned at that time.

  Conscription for overseas service was again front and centre in the debate. Most French Canadians were against it, most English Canadians for it. In 1942, the federal government organized a plebiscite in which it asked all Canadians to release it from the promise it had made not to impose conscription. Montreal’s nationalists—led by Maxime Raymond, André Laurendeau, and others—spearheaded resistance and played a key role in organizing the Ligue pour la défense du Canada. Widespread public assemblies for the “no” camp were held in Montreal. In the April 1942 vote, 72.9 percent of Quebec residents opposed conscription, while in the other provinces 80 percent voted in favour. In Montreal, only the western English-speaking districts were in favour. Conscription for overseas service would eventually be imposed in 1944, this time without the violence the city had seen in 1917.

  Perhaps this time around Montrealers found it easier to accept the price of a war that was bringing them prosperity. It should also be mentioned that government propaganda was intense and probably convinced a good number of citizens of the conflict’s importance. Radio was an important propaganda instrument. In the 1930s, radio had become part of the mass media and, despite the crisis, had found a home in many Montreal households (85 percent of whi
ch had one in 1941). At first a means of entertainment featuring music and very popular radio dramas, it also became a means of education. During the war, entertainment was overtaken by the news, helping make Montrealers aware of realities abroad.

  An increased interest in the world around it was only one of the social changes the war brought to Montreal. Women joined the workforce more than ever, and the war industry offered them better-paid jobs than the positions they had traditionally filled. All women, housewives in particular, were also asked to contribute to the war effort in their own way, by recycling, taking in boarders, or volunteering.

  Rationing was also part of life in wartime Montreal, although most Montreal workers found it easy to endure after the hardships of the depression. There was more food to go around and restrictions mainly affected durable consumer goods. With higher incomes that they could not spend in their entirety due to rationing, Montrealers set aside savings that would later boost the postwar economy.

  Things took a more dramatic turn when it came to housing. Construction grinding to a halt during the depression had started to pose serious problems in the late 1930s, when there were too few homes to keep up with demand. The situation worsened during the war, with building materials needed by the military. A serious housing crisis would play a leading role in the explosion of urbanization after 1945.

  CHAPTER 11

  A Modern City Emerges

  1945–1960

  The postwar period was a boom time for Montreal in terms of the city’s population, economy, and size. The period was spent making up for lost time, after the hardships of depression and war. It was also a time when a strong desire to modernize swept across a broad range of areas.