Let’s talk big money and follow the money. The money intended for the arts and literature. The most expensive cultural project in Quebec is neither the new Espace Riopelle attached to the Musée national des beaux-arts du Québec ($84 million); nor the development of the new Musée national de l’histoire du Québec in the Camille-Roy pavilion of the Séminaire de Québec ($94 million); nor even the expansion of the Musée d’art contemporain de Montréal (estimated at around $120 million).
The largest cultural construction site in Quebec is in Laval. We repeat: in Laval, a city that intends to fill part of its cultural infrastructure deficits.
Quebec’s third-largest city, with some 450,000 residents, approved funding in mid-August for the construction of a 24,000-square-metre cultural complex near educational institutions. The site is expected to be completed in 2028. The $150 million real estate project will generate spending of several tens of millions more on equipment of all kinds (including the purchase of tens of thousands of books) to enable its operation.
“We are very happy,” said Laval Mayor Stéphane Boyer. “I think it will take Laval elsewhere. We will never be comparable to Montreal or Quebec, which have networks of museums and performance halls built during the last century, but it takes us up a step that is important.”
The mayor was interviewed as part of a report by Duty on the interregional gaps in the funding of culture by Quebec, discrimination which in a way creates two hyper-pampered oases (Montreal and Quebec) in the middle of more or less sparse spaces.
Laval is becoming a city in its own right. The pandemic has also accelerated the desire to live locally, without moving around too much.
The city of Île Jésus received only $18 million in state cultural funding in 2021-2022. This is the unenviable national record (of weakness) of $40 of public spending in specialized sectors per year per inhabitant, which is ten times less than in the neighboring metropolis. Laval remains, by and large, a vassal city of Montreal in cultural matters.
“I think it’s a sad reality that some regions of Quebec are often systematically underrepresented in the investments of the Quebec government, whether in culture, transportation or other areas,” says Mayor Boyer. “In our case, it also comes from the fact that historically, Laval was a dormitory town, offering few services. Laval residents went to Montreal to have fun, study and work. That’s less true now. Laval is becoming a city in its own right. The pandemic has also accelerated the desire to live locally, without traveling too much.”
But infrastructure is still needed to meet these needs. The city already has the André-Mathieu concert hall, annexed to Montmorency College, neighborhood libraries and a handful of small museums. Laval is also paying for its own mistakes, with previous administrations having almost completely neglected spending on culture.
Laval, for example, is at the bottom of the hold of the recent national portrait of public libraries, produced with 2019 data by the Association of Public Libraries of Quebec and members of the Biblio Network. The Quebec network has more than 1,000 establishments.
The survey estimates that the Laval region is short of a total of 145,000 square metres of space to reach the standard met by the fifth of the best-equipped regions. In this regard, the region’s score is only 40%, 26 points below the national average, which is already quite low. The result is even worse for seating, with a score of 36%, or 38 points below the average.
The new complex, which will be built near the Montmorency metro station, will include a central library and an artistic creation centre as well as community spaces, an auditorium, a games library, creative studios, a digital laboratory and an exhibition space. In total, around fifteen specialist organisations will occupy creative or dissemination spaces there.
The construction contract for this cultural infrastructure project, the largest in Quebec since the beginning of the decade, was awarded to Groupe Montoni at the municipal council meeting on August 13. The budget for the three-year capital expenditure program 2014-2026 was increased from $145 million to $148 million. Quebec provided $44 million. The rest will come from the City.