The amended Cultural Heritage Law was adopted by the National Assembly less than a year ago, on 1er April 2021, with the aim of improving the preservation and enhancement of Quebec’s real estate heritage, at least the old ones. Remember that one of the key measures introduced by the legislative amendment concerns the inventory. The regional county municipalities have the obligation to adopt such a list of buildings and ensembles of heritage interest located on their territory, at least for those dating from before 1940, the inclusion of younger elements relevant for the only at their discretion. The Minister of Culture and Communications did not consider it relevant to push back this limit, despite the concerns expressed by several people and organizations about recent heritage during the public consultations surrounding the bill.
Since then, in May 2021, in Quebec City, the Saint-Louis-de-France church, the work of architect Robert Blatter whose monumental presence had been familiar on Church Road since the 1960s, has been demolished, despite its heritage interest recognized by both the Quebec Religious Heritage Council and the City. Put up for sale by the parish, the building was purchased by the government for its large lot in order to build the very first seniors’ home in the Capitale-Nationale region. A similar fate awaits the Saint-Hyacinthe courthouse, the updating of which was deemed unfeasible; the Ministry of Justice prefers to build new, on the same site, thus making a clean sweep of the building designed in 1963, by the architects Desnoyers Brodeur Mercure, which has a good presence on the Casimir-Dessaulles park.
The town hall of Sept-Îles, a civic complex signed by Affleck, Desbarats, Lebensold, Dimakopoulos, Michaud and Sise, witness to the vitality and ambition of the city at the turn of the 1950s, is in reprieve. Mayor Réjean Porlier, who wanted it to be demolished, did not stand for re-election in the November 2020 municipal elections and, for his successor, the construction of a new building to relocate the City’s administrative services is no longer a priority.
A dark picture to which must be added the danger hanging over the campus planned by the architect Jean-Marie Roy in 1957-1958, at the request of the Sisters of the congregation of Notre-Dame-du-Perpétuel-Secours established in the village of Saint-Damien-de-Buckland since 1892. The future of this complex made up of the former pavilions of the Sacré-Coeur orphanage and the large building of the Normal School, which became Saint-Damien College in 1971, is seriously compromised. In December 2021, the Minister of Education announced the construction of a new building for the elementary school and, in the same vein, the demolition of the high bar owned by the Center de services scolaire de la Côte-du -South.
In these pages, on January 22, Jean-François Nadeau reported the comments of the mayor of Saint-Damien, Sébastien Bourget, who both deplores the decision and is delighted with it. We can understand, given the extent of the built heritage of the congregation of Notre-Dame-du-Perpétuel-Secours located on the territory it administers. In addition to the modern complex located on the heights of the agglomeration, it includes the parent company located in its heart as well as the more eccentric area of Lac-Vert. In December 2020, the nuns donated this old farmhouse to the municipality, which was a hospice after having been a monastery. Last April, a municipal development committee was created to oversee the future of this bucolic site. Moreover, Saint-Damien is about to become the owner of the convent. This denier has been cited under the Cultural Heritage Act since 2013, and the Lac-Vert estate and the Saint-Damien College are listed in the inventory of the MRC de Bellechasse carried out by the Société d’histoire de Bellechasse and published in the Répertoire du patrimoine culturel du Québec.
The first two orientations of the Action Plan for the application of the recommendations of the report of the Auditor General at the origin of the legislative revision, a plan made public by the Ministère de la Culture et des Communications in October 2020, aim to better support the citizens and to strengthen the partnership with the municipalities. Saint-Damien-de-Buckland, whose patrimonial responsibility is immense given the extent of the heritage of the sisters and where citizens oppose the demolition of the College of Saint-Damien, the interest of which is appreciated locally, isn’t it an ideal partner to implement such a collaboration in order to ensure the sustainability of ancient and modern heritage?