The first victim of our deficient municipal taxation is the environment. Because it no longer responds to the missions of cities, this two-century-old tax system strongly encourages urban sprawl. This deficiency, however, makes another victim, too often forgotten, culture. Everywhere in Quebec, each municipal budget brings many heartbreaks, including this one: do we repair the streets or invest in culture?
Posted at 6:00 a.m.
The first national portrait of the state of Quebec public libraries, published this week1, clearly gives us the answer: we choose asphalt. Renewal of acquisitions, increase in opening hours and the number of seats, to bring our libraries up to standard, there is considerable catching up to do. There are even 283 municipalities that do not have a library service.
You would tell me that our streets are pitiful despite everything? You would be right. But, until municipal taxation is reformed, the choice of elected officials will be to decide what they will neglect the most… and neglecting libraries is the worst choice.
Victor Hugo was both a poet and a politician. It’s rare and it’s precious. It summarizes in a single paragraph the immense power of libraries and the duty of elected officials towards them. He spoke these words at the International Literary Congress of 1878. At the time, libraries came not after asphalt, but after street lighting. Different infrastructure, same fight:
“You take care of your cities, you want to be safe in your homes, you are concerned about this danger, to leave the streets dark; think of that greater peril still, of leaving the human mind obscure. Intelligences are open roads; they come and go, they have visitors, well or ill-intentioned, they can have fatal passers-by; an evil thought is like a night thief, the soul has malefactors; make daylight everywhere; do not leave in the human intelligence those dark corners where superstition can nestle, where error can hide, where lies can lie in ambush. Ignorance is a twilight; evil lurks there. Consider street lighting, yes; but think also, think above all, of enlightening minds. […] The light is in the book. Open the book wide. Let it shine, let it be. Whoever you are who wants to cultivate, vivify, edify, soften, appease, put books everywhere…”
Yes, our social, cultural and economic future is played out in the gray matter of citizens. It is said that the two main determinants of a child’s academic success are the level of education of the mother and… the number of books in the house. If the house does not contain any, the public library can compensate.
The more we are educated, the more we read, the richer and happier we will be. Citizens also seem to know this, because libraries, despite their shortcomings, are the most frequented municipal service (yes, yes, before all sports!). They are also the busiest cultural venue in Quebec, well ahead of cinemas and museums. However, they really need love.
The most common argument against libraries is that everything is accessible on the Internet anyway. To say this is to ignore the role played by libraries today. After home and work, it is a third living environment. There are, yes, books, but also public computers, films, documentaries, board games, toys, magazines and newspapers from all over the world, cultural activities, conferences, spaces for to chat or to read the newspaper while the teenagers play on the computer, francization activities for immigrants, etc. The whole family can find something for themselves here.
Libraries are vectors of quality of life, centers of intellectual activity, places that enrich people and the city.
They are also, more and more, places of beauty, sometimes modern, sometimes ancient. In your visits to Quebec, go see the spectacular library of Memphremagog, the House of Literature of Quebec (established in an old neo-Gothic church of 1848), the Laure-Conan library of La Malbaie, The Morrin Center of Quebec, the Donalda library -Charron in Gatineau, the Pierre-Georges-Roy library in Lévis, the Paul-Mercier library in Blainville, the library of the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts, the oldest in Canada, the Boisé de Saint-Laurent library, the Marc-Favreau library in Rosemont, etc.
These are all places that also cultivate a taste for beauty, the arts, and literature.
In this week of taking the oath of a new government, I leave you with this definition of literature that Victor Hugo gave in this same speech of 1878: “Literature is the government of the human race by the human spirit . We can spend on asphalt, but above all we must invest in the human spirit.