While many were “celebrating” this week the opening of the Royalmount mega-shopping centre, located at the corner of Highways 15 and 40, already the busiest intersection in Quebec, I felt sick again. Formerly co-spokesperson for the Royalement contre Royalmount coalition, whose mobilization actions unfortunately ended with the arrival of the pandemic, I am picking up my pen again because I feel like I am being dragged through the tarmac.
“The doors of Royalmount will soon open to the public… The vision of the project has always been to foster human connections, to become a place for meetings and exchanges and to participate in the establishment of inclusive luxury in the metropolis.” These are the words used by the CEO of Carbonleo and main investor in the project, whose name we will not mention so as not to honor him.
Fostering human connections
At least 350,000 vehicles travel each day at the corner of highways 15 and 40, and the promoters predict 25 million visitors in the first year, of which only 30% would use public transit. If there is a connection, it will be slow in traffic jams and with potentially significant negative externalities for the population, particularly on their mental health (stress) and physical health (air pollution).
Participate in the implementation of inclusive luxury
What an incredible oxymoron! Even Kev Lambert, who won the Prix Médicis with his novel May our joy remain (Heliotrope), whose backdrop is the construction of a shopping mall in Montreal, could not have imagined it. What violent vocabulary when the number of homeless people is increasing and children are still going to school on an empty stomach! Like the main character in Kev Lambert’s book, the “starchitect” Céline Wachowski, our developers must constantly repeat to themselves: “let our joy remain”…
A carbon neutral project, “seriously”
They dare to be proud of it. What more can be said when on the radio, another of the project’s promoters boasted of having financed the subway footbridge to the shopping center, although it was only in the face of citizen mobilization that this construction was paid for by the private sector rather than with public money? We will need some of this taxpayer money to reduce congestion and heal its effects.
In the meantime, shareholders will be able to continue to fill their pockets. In any case, as Matthieu Dugal mentioned in his show Search enginea shopping mall, by its very nature, cannot be carbon neutral. The host recalled that the day of the planet’s overshoot (our resource budget) was reached on March 15 in Canada and that the richest 10% produced 50% of greenhouse gas emissions. Hello degrowth, but their joy remains.
On social media, Kev Lambert also stated: “You have to read with your eyes closed to not see how the portrait of the city that is depicted in the novel goes against the destructive, anti-poor, anti-immigrant, pro-property owner and pro-rich policies of your government. Reading, if you get nothing from what you read, is not much use.” The author was responding to Premier François Legault, who boasted of having read his book.
Speaking of politics, let’s remember that this project is not on the territory administered by Valérie Plante. Projet Montréal did everything possible to block it, but without success. As for the Town of Mount Royal, the current mayor was elected partly on the basis of his opposition to the project. For the moment, he is opposed to the construction of luxury housing on the site. With millions flowing so freely around this luxurious project, time is on his side.
Like Celine Wachowski, the rich architect of the novel, sitting on the edge of a world that is collapsing, will we all continue to chant in chorus: “Let their joy remain”?