The gift of the former Royal Victoria Hospital to McGill University proposed by the Legault government will cost Quebec taxpayers more than a billion dollars and will have absolutely harmful consequences for French in Montreal, for Mount Royal and for the center -ville believes the Collective against the privatization of the Royal Victoria.
Considering that in 2016, McGill already estimated that such a project was worth at least $782 million, we can say that this gift that the Legault government plans to offer it will cost more than a billion current dollars to Quebec taxpayers if the CAQ persists in privatizing the public domain of the former Royal Victoria Hospital, its outbuildings and the neighboring parts of Mount Royal.
The Collective recalls that McGill University has already obtained a first grant of $ 37 million from Quebec, in 2018, to carry out a “feasibility” study of the transformation of the disused building into a research center. Last June, the Legault government also pledged to contribute up to $475 million to the expansion project of this private institution. He has also been planning for months to give him the Royal Vic, its outbuildings and vast land on Mount Royal, the total value of which could easily exceed $500 million.
The Legault government should not, by some curious reasoning, imagine that, because it gave up the donation to Dawson, it can now donate more than a billion to McGill. This project constitutes for Francophones a major act of dispossession of Mount Royal and their downtown area in favor of the abusive development of Fortress McGill.
The President of the Treasury Board, Sonia Lebel, nevertheless defended the special private bill adopted last fall aimed at facilitating the privatization of the former Royal Vic and part of Mount Royal for the benefit of McGill University, which would allow it to further extend its Anglophone real estate influence on Mount Royal and downtown Montreal. This tragic error must be avoided.
A report
In 2012, before the Royal Victoria Hospital and the Hôtel Dieu ceased their activities in the city center, the Marois government asked experts to look into the future of these institutions. Their report unanimously recommends that these remain in the public domain. Quebec must retain control of these exceptional sites. The report strongly recommends that the Government of Quebec not dispose of this land and these buildings but that it rent them out by emphyteutic lease.
Back in power, the Liberals nevertheless decided to disregard these recommendations and give McGill the Royal Vic, its outbuildings and part of Mount Royal.
Then, for inexplicable reasons, the Legault government then blindly took over from the Liberals and pledged to give this huge public domain to McGill.
No other project
In the face of protests, Higher Education Minister Danielle McCann said the government had not received any other projects, which is correct, for the simple reason that she never made a call for projects. . Be that as it may, the government must preserve the ownership of this huge complex and, for any project, proceed with a long-term lease as recommended by the experts.
Moreover, the Legault government even dismissed out of hand the request presented by a group of some fifty organizations (the Coalition Le Royal Vic pour le bien public) who wanted to obtain an equal opportunity and funding in order to prepare a project for the site in a perspective of community interest while keeping it in the public domain.
Be that as it may, it is not in the interest of Quebecers or Montrealers to sacrifice their public domain in this way for the benefit of a private institution and to make this gift of more than a billion dollars to the McGill University. The Legault government must change its mind.
For the Collective against the privatization of the Royal Vic: Andre Sirois, UN lawyer, and GillesPaquin, retired journalist