Jean-François Nadeau’s article “Heritage buildings converted for the benefit of the community”, published in The duty of January 10, opens the door to the future. It presents, on the one hand, the possibility that the City of Longueuil can repair the affront that the administration of rector Guy Breton, of the University of Montreal, inflicted on the religious community of the Holy Names of Jesus and Mary . On the other hand, it suggests how good management of religious heritage can contribute to mitigating global warming in Quebec.
The community of the Holy Names of Jesus and Mary intends to transfer vast heritage buildings to the City of Longueuil so that this collective heritage does not fall into the hands of real estate project contractors, as was the case for their parent house located on Mount Royal. This convent, adjacent to the campus of the Université de Montréal, was acquired at a bargain price by the University in 2003 and became the pavilion at 1420 boulevard Mont-Royal. But the next administration, that of the Breton rector, who was seeking to develop a science complex to which the architecture of this convent did not lend itself, sold it to a private promoter to go and carry out his project at the MIL campus, located in the former Outremont marshalling yard.
However, the University could have kept Pavilion 1420 in the public domain to its advantage. To take just one example among many, as English-speaking Canadian universities do, the University could have rented 1420 by emphyteutic lease to a company or, even better, to a non-profit organization, so that the building be recycled into a residential complex intended to house visiting students and professors, a recycling all the more desirable as the building lent itself very well to it architecturally and as there are great needs on the campus to this level. She would thus have collected annual rents while benefiting from the advantages of having such equipment located a few minutes walk from the Édouard-Montpetit metro station and a REM station.
The harmful consequences of the private sale of this pavilion are very real. On the one hand, it affected the heritage value of the historic and natural borough of Mont-Royal and eliminated the possibility, as Mayor Coderre wished, of its candidacy being accepted on the tentative list of World Heritage sites in the region. ‘UNESCO. On the other hand, with the fight against climate change, everyone now agrees that we must promote active and public transportation as much as possible. However, it is to be feared that the people who will live in this former convent transformed into a condo building will prefer to use their cars rather than public transport accessible in a few minutes on foot.
Quebec has a religious heritage of considerable magnitude, unique in its kind in the country, and which is becoming less and less used. Taking Concordia University as an example, which has recycled the former convent of the Gray Nuns in Montreal into a student residence, we can argue that, if this heritage is managed properly, as is usually the case in Anglo-Saxon culture, it will contribute to enriching collective culture and landscapes while helping us to face the climate crisis. It is to be hoped.