The decision of the Quebec Ministry of Culture and Communications not to protect the southern part of Morgan Park, which risks facilitating the installation of the aerial structures of the future Metropolitan Express Network (REM) in the East, does not surprise experts in heritage and urban planning. According to them, the episode testifies to the little political weight that the Ministry of Culture holds within the government when infrastructure projects come up against heritage.
With the removal of the land on which the REM de l’Est is to travel from the protection perimeter of the Ancienne-Cité-de-Maisonneuve, CDPQ Infra will not have to obtain authorization from the Ministry of Culture under the Cultural Heritage Law.
The department maintains, however, that the places protected under the classification decreed on Saturday correspond to the original plan of the Cité de Maisonneuve. The part of the lot removed from the classification notice and which belongs to the Quebec Ministry of Transport (MTQ) was not included in the historic development of Morgan Park, argues the Ministry of Culture. “Playgrounds from Morgan Park encroached on this part of the lot during a redevelopment carried out by the City of Montreal in 2015. The removal of lot 1 878 052 is motivated by respect for the limits of the historic developments of Morgan Park” , the ministry said in an email.
Political decision
Professor in the Department of Urban and Tourism Studies at UQAM, Martin Drouin sees this as a political decision. “The argument is logical, but given the context linked to the Eastern REM, we understand that there is a political negotiation. We don’t want to put a spoke in the wheels [du projet], he said. But just because you’re outside a historic site doesn’t mean you shouldn’t be careful. »
Except that the land of the Morgan mansion, which today forms a large part of Morgan park, extended from Sainte-Catherine street to Notre-Dame street when it was ceded to the City of Montreal by the Morgan family. in 1929, indicates the historian of architecture, Luc Noppen, in his work From Chemin du Roy to Rue Notre-Damepublished in 2001. This land was expropriated in the 1970s to create the right-of-way for the Ville-Marie highway, a project that never materialized.
Dinu Bumbaru also argues that the lot withdrawn from the classification notice is an integral part of Morgan Park. The director of policies at Héritage Montréal considers that this “cadastral technicality” is very convenient in the circumstances and reflects the fact that the REM “seems to be infiltrated into the political apparatus of the government”.
This episode is not without reminding him of other events. “We saw the same thing happen with the classification of Old Montreal in 1964, the northern limit of which was drawn in the middle of Notre-Dame so as not to interfere with the project for a new courthouse or call the tower into question. of the BCN on the Place d’Armes,” says Mr. Bumbaru.
The scenario repeated itself with the subdivision of the lot where the Notman house was located, protected in 1979, in order to create a separate lot for the garden targeted by a real estate project in the 2010s, he adds. ” [Le jardin] was finally able to be protected by its acquisition by the City of Montreal after several years of citizen mobilization,” recalls Dinu Bumbaru.
A ministry with limited power
“It shows that when there are projects on the table, the Ministry of Culture never weighs very heavily,” says Gérard Beaudet, professor at the School of Urban Planning and Landscape Architecture. Montreal university. “Other considerations always come first. It causes us to traffic in things like that. »
The town planner criticizes the CAQ government for considering the Morgan Park sector only on a map and for ignoring the three-dimensional reality. “It is a resignation from the Ministry of Culture. But we have known this since the 1960s: each time there are contradictory issues in relation to the heritage deal, at the table of ministers, the Minister of Culture is pushed around. It’s systematic. They have never succeeded in bringing the cases before their fellow ministers. »
This lack of consideration for the Ministry of Culture had led to the resignation, in 1964, of Georges-Émile Lapalme, the first to hold the office of Minister of Cultural Affairs – which became the Ministry of Culture –, exasperated by the deputy funding for his department and the few powers he held. “Since that time, it’s a ministry that has no means,” said Gérard Beaudet.
In order to counter the games of influence whose heritage “too often” pays the price, Héritage Montréal is calling for the creation of a national office for the protection of heritage.
For its part, CPDQ Infra indicated on Monday that it had never requested that the lot belonging to the MTQ be excluded from the protection perimeter. The subsidiary of the Caisse de depot et placement du Québec has always maintained that it would put in place measures to minimize the impacts of the project on Morgan Park.