Saint-Gédeon-de-Beauce is making headlines with its convent thanks to the whistleblowers who, it should be noted, are doing their duty. This is the minimum that our society must do.
Over the years, I have taken a few dozen photos of convents, especially in villages, while traveling across Quebec to admire and put on image no less than 400 presbyteries. Éditions GID found it worthwhile to do something about it. Not for profits; to contribute to the dissemination of knowledge about our built heritage.
Then there was the story of the convent of Saint Elizabeth, founded by the Sisters of Providence. That of the village of my childhood. A building with a lot of history, property of the Government of Quebec, near which the bulldozer had the engine running. The sun and The duty sounded the alarm. How did the Pierre Desjardins and Clément Locat, distinguished defenders of built heritage, manage to put the demolition on hold? I’m still amazed.
Their determined intervention prompted me to take action through one of my aunts, a nun of Providence from Sainte-Élisabeth (Thérèse Drainville, now deceased). She “passed the pen” to the direction of the Sisters of Providence, who managed to convince Minister Nathalie Roy to do something. Two-thirds of the front wall will be kept, and this minimalist solution has been concocted intelligently.
Locally, this affair took on another color. The rescue delayed for several years the construction of a seniors’ home and the return of important jobs for the regional economy. The municipality, moreover, had its hands full with two files (presbytery and church). She still has the case on her hands. The heritage dimension is part of the burden, but the considerations are more of a social, political, financial and “cultural” order. The case of the Berthier convent has similarities with the previous one.
Age and helping realism, I stopped my actions of cultural promotion of built heritage. I will not make a second tour to take hundreds of photos of our old convents, which are still superb. The marginal output of whistleblowers and knowledge disseminators in this area is leveling off. Why ?
It is, in my opinion, a question of identity change. Our history, through which the built heritage can express itself so well, has become a burden. We are from a crumbling culture, selfies to be taken with our convents in the background.
So how can the mayor of Saint-Gédéon give priority to the conservation of beauty, to the usefulness of the old, to investments that the majority of his constituents will not support? At the national level, the same phenomenon, except that communication experts can mute the bells a little better.
I end with innovative funding suggestions for Premier François Legault. Why not introduce a “Lotto heritage”, a “Heritage Savings Scheme” or “Public-private Regional Funds”?