I’m mad. I have been socially involved since the mid-1970s in the working-class neighborhoods of Quebec and today I am angry. It is no longer buoyant indignation, historical patience or resistant hope that hold the upper hand in my heart as a committed citizen. It is anger.
I am more than tired of seeing political and economic decision-makers brush aside the voice of citizens and, by the same token, refuse to draw on the sources of a socially anchored democracy.
It is in the heart of the Limoilou district, of Quebec, that hovers a danger that has become commonplace in the urban neighborhoods built over time by working-class or low-income families. This danger is that of the dispossession of a territory, the destruction of a community fabric finely woven by community groups through the meshes of social injustice. A cluster of high-tech industries and a more affluent population are on the way and are even beginning to settle in luxury housing which has not had difficulty in erecting itself. The problem is not the mix, but a loss of inclusiveness.
I am angry because the City of Quebec has, for three districts of this territory, namely Maizerets, Vieux-Limoilou and Vieux-Moulin, a so-called innovation zone project. The Legault government has provided funds for the decontamination of industrial land intended for technologically advanced companies. And this in a context including the expansion of the Enfant-Jésus hospital. How not to be angry in the face of a possible invasion which will amplify, through a programmed gentrification process, an already unacceptable housing crisis?
I’m angry because this project was developed on the sly by influencers grouped together in an organization called InnoVitam. It was developed without citizen consultation and without an impact study. Or else, if there was one, the population did not have access to it.
I am angry because the members of the neighborhood council were informed of this project by the media, while the City had been carrying it out for a few years. What a democratic deficit, when the neighborhood councils, set up when the Popular Rally was in power, then constituted an original instrument of municipal democratization.
Retraining
Citizens have regained their power by mobilizing collectively in the Littoral Est citizen table. Listen to their social desire. These citizens want, among other things, the conversion of a former snow dump into an urban forest, real access to the river, the development of social housing, public land reserved for social housing, the conversion of the municipal garage into a self-managed social center . This center, inspired by Building 7 in Montreal, is thus dreamed of: a public square, a performance hall for neighborhood artists, workshops and shared equipment, a garden of medicinal plants, a barter space, culture on rooftop, an urban greenhouse, a board game area, local health services, etc.
I am angry, because the consultation process finally put in place by the City is condescending. Sympathetic certainly, but a thousand leagues from an exchange. Mayor Bruno Marchand had invited the members of the Citizen Table to participate. I was at Domaine Maizerets on the 1er last February. That evening, we had to answer, in workshops, a flood of questions, the first of which concerned the desired functions for the municipal garage.
But that is not the central question. The central question is the following: does the City want to support citizens in the conversion of the municipal garage into a self-managed social center? Citizens have a project, not a list of fragmented functions.
I am angry, because what does not fundamentally change in our society is the power of money, the power to dominate both nature and humans through legal economic cogs. We simply modify, over time, the object used to accumulate capital and we easily forget, among other things, population movements that do not make the headlines anyway.
You may have understood that despite overwhelming anger, indignation and hope remain alive. These two attitudes are revived, continuously, when I hear the voice of citizens and see the actualization of social solidarity, the thirst for democracy, the feeling of environmental urgency, substitution practices and the defense of the right to live. and live in our neighborhoods. And that, well beyond the money.