This text is part of the special Pleasures notebook
Falling unemployment, growing population, flourishing restaurants and a busy cultural agenda: the Mauritian city continues its development.
They are called “rebound cities.” Dormant cities, often hit by abysmal unemployment rates, that have gradually regained strength by relying on different sectors of activity. In Trois-Rivières, while unemployment was around 15% in 1992, it is now 6.8%. For Mario De Tilly, general manager of Innovation and Economic Development (IDE) Trois-Rivières, the recovery was multifactorial. “Almost all sectors grew and generated jobs,” he notes. “We had a labor problem because of the aging population, then we saw the arrival of young households who came to solve this problem.”
The former unemployment capital of Canada has notably focused on attractiveness campaigns targeting young people and, faced with the influx, the construction industry has gotten going and is now moving at high speed. “Now, we keep our students here!” adds Mario De Tilly. The Université du Québec à Trois-Rivières (UQTR) receives approximately 15,000 students per year, attracted in particular by its specialty in chiropractic, one of its preferred sectors.
Then, the pandemic accelerated the movement, as more and more Montrealers fled the metropolis in search of more spacious and less expensive housing. Trois-Rivières was no exception to the demand. “The vacancy rate in rental properties is 0.4%, which is the lowest level in Canada for cities with 100,000 or more inhabitants,” says Mario De Tilly. While real estate has caught up there, as it has everywhere else in the country, the city was starting from very far behind and therefore remains accessible, with the median price of houses being considerably below the Quebec market, according to JLR land solutions.
Reclaiming the past
To ensure population retention, Trois-Rivières has also focused on culture. At the beginning of the year, the city announced that it would devote 17% of its budget to this sector, something never seen before in Quebec cities of similar size. A shift taken a long time ago, but which is now starting to bear fruit, analyzes Nancy Kukovica, general director of Culture 3R. “The 1990s saw the affirmation of culture as a tool for the development of the city, which I have seen evolve in an extremely positive way over the years,” says the woman who came to Trois-Rivières for her studies and stayed there after university.
The city was named Cultural Capital of Canada in 2009, which led it to build the Cogeco Amphitheatre, “a unique cultural and tourist infrastructure,” according to Nancy Kukovica. This large open-air venue located on the banks of the river welcomes a large audience every year. Several Trois-Rivières festivals have also been well established for several decades, such as FestiVoix, which held its 31st year this summere edition, or the International Poetry Festival, which will celebrate its 40th anniversary in the fall.
In the more recent cultural offering, we notice a desire to re-appropriate the industrial past, like the Forges-du-Saint-Maurice. Since this summer, the Diabolus ex machina audio tour offers a fake documentary that takes the walker into the historical and legendary world of the forges through the playful glasses of storyteller Fred Pellerin.
There is also the former Canadian International Paper mill, whose history is revisited at the Boréalis Museum. The exhibition looks back at what was, for a time, the largest pulp and paper mill in the world and how it left its mark on Trois-Rivières society. The museum has just renewed its permanent exhibition, Transformationswith the desire to make a link with the past in a contemporary vision — the exhibition addresses, for example, the challenges related to the forest and the environment. Paper-making workshop, testimonies, interactive zone: Boréalis aims to be fun and open to all audiences. “We reclaim our history, while having our feet firmly in the present. We like to create heritage that is not boring!” summarizes Nancy Kukovica.
New restaurants and hotels full
The food offering has also evolved: this year, 18 restaurants have opened, including 8 in the city centre. This is the result of the “undeniable impact” of activities linked to the tourism and cultural sector, according to Mario De Tilly, who highlights “different services, more to the taste of new generations”. In the city centre, things are moving: a new UQTR pavilion is under construction and pedestrian zones are being set up, while the City has called on artists to redecorate certain streets. “We are developing a Distillery Districtlike in Toronto.”
In the meantime, while bike paths are part of the landscape, it remains difficult to get around without being motorized, a sign that the city has not yet completely moved into a new era. The general director of Innovation and Economic Development Trois-Rivières is optimistic: “We are still in Quebec, with a North American mentality, so there is still a lot of work to be done to raise awareness of alternative means of transportation. But we will get there, there is a strong municipal will behind this and the movement is well underway.”
The municipal will behind this rebound is palpable: the city has gone all out in terms of communication, including hiring actress Christine Beaulieu, a native of the region, as an ambassador. And tourists seem to be there; Trois-Rivières has one of the highest hotel room occupancy rates in the province, according to the Association Hôtellerie du Québec.
Aiming for international
This very low vacancy rate is also caused by many professional events held in the city, resulting in business tourism. The Trois-Rivières convention center, the subject of many investments, is today the 7e in importance in Quebec, according to IDE Trois-Rivières, and it is increasingly targeting international gatherings. Two meetings of global hydrogen experts, Hyports and Hyvolution, will also take place there soon.
A boon for the city, which is home to the Hydrogen Research Institute (IRH), and which wants to position itself as a champion of decarbonization in Quebec and a gateway to the green energy transition in North America. “By hosting major international events, Quebec can truly strengthen its position on the production of green hydrogen, its use in Canada and within the province, but also on its potential export to Europe,” says Bruno Pollet, co-director of the IRH. Whether with green energy or culture as a driving force, or a little bit of all of these at once, Trois-Rivières seems to have moved up a gear.
This content was produced by the Special Publications Team of Dutyrelevant to marketing. The writing of the Duty did not take part in it.