Twenty years ago, the face of Montreal smiled when the Quartier des spectacles sprouted from its core. Art was going to be democratized on the garden side. Its temples, its agoras and its flagship companies came together to better shine. With an architecture of peaks and squares and many cut trees, the Place des Festivals buzzed, sweated and sparkled to the rhythm of the greatest musicians. Three steps to the east, Place Émilie-Gamelin, still shaded, attracted more wildlife underground. Many people today find places less green, less safe and more supervised, especially in the evening. Suspicious passers-by hasten their steps.
Human misery is stark in the face of visitors and festival-goers, as in many city centers around the world. Homelessness has increased. The drugs used are harder than in the past, including the deadly fentanyl. Promoters consider this climate harmful to the cultural industry and dream of celestial harmonies. But the social fabric changes and the vocation of places of culture mutates in turn.
For a long time, public libraries, without shouting it out loud, courted a select clientele inhaling the smell of books. From now on, computers attract users of all kinds more than gilded or poorly printed books.
Cultural centers have become living spaces where people meet, collide or chat. Itinerants and lonely people come to stay there and check their emails while fleeing the heatwave or the snow in contact with readers, researchers and students. These institutions appear to be open and inclusive, reflecting the knowledge sowed freely within their walls. Is this really the case?
Last week, the headlines caused unease: the City of Montreal, pushed by certain district councils – but waiting for everyone’s green light – intends to adopt from 1er January a modified regulation. This would allow its public libraries to chase away people with questionable hygiene likely to inconvenience their neighbors. Furthermore, it would be forbidden for anyone to sleep there. And this, under penalty of fines (even for insolvent people!!!), and prolonged bans if repeat offenses.
This project makes you blush. Will we support models that keep people clean on the inside and messy on the outside? Itinerant associations have cried out for the repression of their members and called for respect for human dignity. The media denounced the prospect of a stench sentence. And which employees should handle the odor detector? Many are already called upon to manage sensitive situations, without social training to boot. Users also have the right to read in peace. But these are times of intolerance and acute tensions that are causing people to lose their way.
The controversy makes Montreal look bad. So Mayor Valérie Plante promised to modify the wording to make it more inclusive. It remains that municipal officials could only reform the semantics of the regulation, discarding dubious terms in favor of calming words. Because the homeless, never named in writing, remain at the center of the game. Of course, the municipal decree targets the bibliophile clientele as a whole, but who needs to snooze on a table or an armchair if not a homeless person? Several of them behave very well in libraries, familiar with the attendants, surfing the Internet, in the heat, without creating bickering, clean like the good-looking users who give them a black eye. Except that others don’t have a bathroom to take a shower in. And some claim to catch bedbugs in shelters. Social housing is sorely lacking.
The Grande Bibliothèque, in the city center, welcomes many homeless people. Outside the municipal network by status, it establishes its own measures and regulations, requiring those who frequent it to wear appropriate clothing and hygiene to match. Without raising the specter of punishment. Pest control seats have been installed, a designated employee puts out fires when tensions rise. Of course, this mega-institution has more impressive resources than modest municipal establishments. But they should take advantage of his expertise before starting to play the bogeyman. And Montreal would benefit from financially supporting its public libraries to help them better manage cohabitation. Because the punishments envisaged are much more stinking than humans chased from the temples of knowledge in the name of the rose and its perfume.