Montreal: A Love Story

A colourful parade of some of the world’s greatest athletes closed the Olympic Games on August 1st, 1976, leaving Montrealers with a lingering sense of decline. The years that followed have often been seen as the city’s decline from greatness. But is this narrative correct? It has almost become received wisdom by some Montrealers and others that it often can seem self-evident. However, the notion of when the decline started, or if it even ‘is’ a decline, needs to be re-examined in the light of the 21st century. Montreal remains one of the great cities of the world, and stories of Montreal’s demise are greatly exaggerated.

Many people, certainly in my generation and older (Gen X and Baby Boom) put 1976 as the ‘beginning of the end’ of Montreal. Is it true? Well, 1976 was the end of an era of greatness in Montreal. It is also easily demarcated: Montreal hosted the summer Olympic Games that year and in fact, it has been the only time in Canada’s history that the games were hosted in this country. This ‘decade of greatness’ from the World Exposition of 1967 (colloquially known as Expo 67 – also hosted in Montreal) to the Olympics in 1976 fits well in our minds, since a century is impossible for any individual to imagine. There was also the build-up to Expo 67 throughout the 1960s – Drapeau’s great reforms and other social changes which amounted to the modernization of Montreal. The best example of this is the Metro, which remains as a beautiful monument to modernism as well as a practical and fast way to get around the city. There is also the skyline we know and love now which was erected in the 60s, most notably Place Ville Marie – with its signature rotating light, which can be seen in the night sky for miles around. And finally, Montreal was still Canada’s largest and most important city through that era and had been since colonial times. Today, it has been supplanted as the country’s metropole by Toronto, whose population surpassed Montreal’s some time in the 1980s.

On the other hand the prior analysis, while true in many respects, misses some deeper key facts. For one thing, the alleged decline is only a recent iteration in a city that has been evolving for centuries. As well, there is a difference between great cities and good cities: all great cities go through ups and downs, but retain a central characteristic of greatness. We can use the example of New York to illustrate this: it was significantly depressed in the 1970s, yet it maintained a core of greatness and has clearly bounced back since then. Montreal has also bounced back, in this century. Not all cities bounce back, for example Detroit (all due respect to Detroiters) has never recovered from the difficulties of the 1960s and 1970s.

Perhaps another way to gauge the transition from Montreal to Toronto would be sports teams and results. In 1966, taking the sports leagues that operate both in the US and in Canada, Montreal and Toronto only had hockey teams. Then, Montreal gained Canada’s first major league baseball team in 1967 – the Expos. So here this fits with the era ‘Montreal greatness,’ it was ‘ahead’ 2-1 on Big League teams. However, in 1977 Toronto obtained a major league baseball team – the Blue Jays. So the cities were again ‘equal’. It should also be noted that it was almost exactly around this time that the populations of the two cities converged. In other words: Montreal had been more populated, and was overtaken in the late 70s, early 80s by Toronto. And for a time the two cities were quite similar in size, until Toronto grew so much more that it became the much larger metropolis that it is today. In any case, through that period the Montreal Canadians had one of their great Stanley Cup winning streaks, taking 10 Cups from 1965 to 1979 – which added to Montreal's er of greatness of that time. Since that time however, the Habs have only won only two Stanley Cups: one in the 80s and one in the 90s. In this century, none. As well, in 2007 Montreal lost our beloved Expos when they went to Washington and became the Nationals. At the same time, the Toronto Blue Jays won the World Series twice in early 1990s, and by 1995 Toronto had an NBA team, the Raptors, which eventually won the championship in 2019. So, in terms of sports teams and victories, we can definitely see a reversal of fortune favouring Toronto over Montreal both in number of teams as well as championship victories.

Moving forward in time, in this century, Montreal has now ended the era of slow growth; it is now growing at a healthy pace and construction is booming. Putting aside the recent problems of Covid, in the last decade or so there has been a real sense of positivity that did not exist prior to the turn of the century. Many who can remember the 1990s in Montreal had a palpable sense that we were living in a city that had undergone a period of greatness and then a kind of shock. Sort of like the morning after a huge party – the tables covered with messes of bottles and half eaten cake, the ashtrays overflowing, the floors sticky, as people stumble around, hungover.

One way to look at it is that Montreal has come back into its own in a different way: as the metropole for Quebec – repositioning itself as the centre of the ‘French Fact’ in America, while also being cosmopolitan and international in nature. Just to be clear, Quebec City is truly the centre of ‘French’ North America – geographically, culturally, and even politically – as the political capital of Quebec (as the sign says when you drive in: Bienvenue à la Capitale nationale), which was the case in the 20th century and it still is today. However: for most of Montreal’s history, we had not viewed ourselves exactly as a ‘French’ city, this started to occur in the second half of the 20th century. Even now, the claim that Montreal is a French-speaking city is quite tenuous, given its complex linguistic mix that truly demarcates it and renders it unique, in America at least. But the French language has gradually become the first language of integration for most immigrants, and that is a relatively recent phenomenon. Until the 1970s, the vast majority of immigrants sent their children to English language schools, and that trend reversed itself in the 1970s (by force of law: Bill 101). The effect of all these changes has been for the French language to gain prominence. This has not been an easy process, but it has basically been accepted in the 21st century, while at the end of the 20th, it still had not been.

Despite the fact that it is now the country’s second largest city, Greater Montreal still grew through the entire period in question, though more slowly than other places, most notably Greater Toronto. And most importantly: the things that make Montreal a great city are not just quantitative but qualitative in nature. There is long list here: bagels, the unique linguistic qualities of the city, the Habs, among many other things. More on that later on.

But the real start date of the transition of Canada’s metropolitan centre moving from Montreal to Toronto should really be 1965, with the inauguration of our current Canadian flag.

What does the change in flag indicate?

For almost all of our history, and to this day, the main foreign security threat to Canada, of course, has been the United States (post 1776). In the 19th century there was a cold war between the UK and the US, which we can still see in the leftover massive military infrastructure in this country: The Citadel in Quebec City, as well as the stone walls around that city; Fort Henry in Kingston, Ont.; the Rideau Canal. All were built to counter an American invasion, following the War of 1812. So our security was guaranteed by a foreign power: the UK. During this period, separatist sentiment would have existed among some in French Canada. But it had to be subsumed by the geopolitical reality: protection from the US by the British. This was grudgingly accepted by most French Canadians through the rise and peak of the British Empire through the 19th and 20th centuries.

However, after WW2 the British Empire fell apart, exhausted from two gruelling wars with Germany and other powers, and the new world power became the United States (at least for the Free World, of which we form a part). British colonies all over the world gained independence during this period: in Africa, the Caribbean, and most notably the Indian sub-continent. Canada, like Australia and New Zealand, had already gained political independence in the 19th century, in our case, in 1867. But our relationship with the UK had remained, hence our former flag, the famous 'Red Ensign,' which contained the Union Jack.

In any case, this geopolitical ‘changing of the guard’ from the UK to the US left a kind of ‘security vacuum,’ and I believe led to a crisis of identity in Canada. During this process, the obvious linguistic duality was questioned, as well as the deference to English as a language over French.

In the 19th and 20th centuries in Quebec, ‘bilingualism’ (which was guaranteed in Quebec in the BNA Act of 1867) was frequently a cover for Anglophones to simply be able to live their lives entirely in English. This was the leftover remnants of a colonial system, and it is this Quebec (briefly in Saint Jean sur Richelieu, then settling in Montreal) that my grandparents and my mother immigrated to in the mid 1950s.

So as the British Empire fell away, in the security vacuum a sentiment began to develop in Quebec towards full independence. Again, and to be clear: this was simply the allowance of expression of a sentiment that had existed in the French Canadian population for centuries. Originally, it had been channelled into ‘Canadian’ nationalism: O Canada. Our national anthem, was originally written in French by Calixa Lavalée. But in this Post World War II era, where everything was up for grabs, the nationalistic focus moved towards a bolder goal: creating a new independent Quebec state. Most importantly: there were no longer any colonial masters in London to say otherwise. So this new ‘Quebec’ brand of nationalism began to gain ground.

In Quebec a distinction is often drawn between ‘soft’ and ‘hard’ nationalists. A soft nationalist is a person who sees him or herself as primarily a Quebecer (usually a Québécois) but also believes that Quebec can prosper within a loose federation called Canada. While ‘hard’ nationalists do not care about Canada, or any other supra-national, non-French dominated state. They want their French majority country, period, and never wanted anything to do with the British or Canadian incarnations that have existed since the British conquest of 1763.

So to maintain Canada from dissolution, the goal (in Quebec at least) became a rearguard action: attempt to make the Canadian nation just attractive enough to the soft nationalists. As to the hard nationalists, anyone who knows anything about that population knows that it is (and has always been) impossible to make anything other than a French dominated, independent state attractive to them. So anyone concerned about the integrity of Canada knows not to bother with them, it is (and was then as well) impossible to make Canada attractive to them. In effect, it became a battle for the hearts and minds of French Canadians – specifically those who were ‘on the fence.’ So this brings us back to the flag: the idea of changing it is an example of this attempt to say to those French Canadian soft nationalists: “Hey, Canada is a welcome place for you, it is flexible enough to adapt to your concerns.” What better way to signal to them that this was a serious gesture than to change the primary national symbol, the flag?

As a result, in 1965 we got our new flag, which was scrubbed of the most obvious connection to the faltering British Empire: the Union Jack. We should pause here to note that our brother countries in the southern hemisphere, Australia and New Zealand, have not been able to do this ‘modernization,’ despite a number of attempts, including some by referenda. Their flags maintain the Union Jack.

What is the difference then? Why were we able to carve out a more unique space for ourselves to show the rest of the world, while the Australians and New Zealanders have not been able to? Well, obviously one could name many differences between Canada and those two countries. But one obvious difference jumps out: neither country is officially bilingual, neither has a large minority population who speak a language other than English, and who have rarely felt any real connection to the UK. Quite the contrary: in many instances French Canadians are outright hostile to the British monarchy. Another factor is that the population is centred in one of the provinces, making the threat of separatism even more real. If French Canadians were more dispersed across the country, it would be a much less of a threat to the integrity of the country. For evidence of this: look at Black American nationalists/separatists such as Louis Farrakhan: they were faced with the obvious problem that Blacks are more or less evenly distributed throughout the country. So in Canada, this concentration of the minority population in one of the provinces creates the possibility of a separatist threat, and thus a battle for the hearts and minds of the French speaking population of Quebec, and the new flag of 1965 was a turning point at that signalling process.

So 1965 may well have been the start of the great transformation that many of us have seen throughout our lives: that of Montreal passing the baton to Toronto in the role of the country’s metropole, and the change of focus in Montreal to becoming economic, cultural and spiritual centre of Quebec -- and not Canada. And the simultaneous transformation of Canada from being integrated into the world via the British Empire (which had never sat well with the country’s francophone population) to being integrated into the post-colonial world as a ‘middle power,’ trying, with some success, to chart our own course in the world.

There are other reasons as well, some much more mundane for Montreal repositioning itself in relation to the rest of the country and the world. For example, when my mother and grandparents arrived in Montreal, in the 1950s, they arrived by boat. My mother described in great detail her memories of the crossing. Even to a boy hearing the stories in the 70s and 80s it sounded like the stuff of something from a different century. She recalled when land was sighted, the joy that went through the ship; the journey up the mighty Saint Lawrence, which took days, and landing at the Port of Montreal. Almost nobody immigrates by boat now. So it stands to reason that Montreal’s position as a deep-water international port is no longer as important in an era when almost all immigrants arrive in Canada by air. Even Montreal’s significance as a port city has not kept pace with other cities – it is now second in Canada to Vancouver – despite Vancouver being a smaller city than Montreal. Some of that is obviously due to the rise in trade with East Asia (Trans-Pacific trade is now greater than Trans-Atlantic trade). Another factor is the rise of container shipping as well as increased vessel size: the largest ships can’t make it up the Saint Lawrence, and containers can often be landed at other ports, in the United States, and shipped via rail or even truck. And with greater economic integration with the United States, notably through the 1989 Free Trade Agreement, that became even easier to do. These are mundane factors, but they do speak to the diminishing of importance of Montreal overall, relative to other cities.

However, all of the above are measurable, quantitative and factual. As already mentioned, the greatness of Montreal is much more qualitative than quantitative. How do we put a number on the taste of a bagel, freshly hot to the point of almost burning your tongue? Or on the pleasure it gives me every time I walk through a typical Montreal alleyway, replete with vegetable gardens in the yards and colourful clothes lines? The cramped and intimate nature of those alleyways fascinates me. St. Joseph's OratoryOr the awe that comes with spending time at St Joseph’s Oratory? For me personally, I can still remember the first time I visited the Oratory, at about age 10. One of the most striking things I remember was walking into the room with the thousands of canes and crutches hanging on the wall, and my friend’s mother pointing at them and saying: “See all those? They were left there after people came here to be cured by the great Brother André.”’ And now, as an adult, I know there must be some reasonable explanation for that, that it cannot have been his wizardry as a medicine man, but there was something unshakeable about it, and it seems connected to that space and building. And even if I were to learn some rational explanation for his curing of all those people, I doubt it would shake the sense of awe I still feel when I walk into that room. The legend of Brother André and the Oratory has a kind of sacred meaning to me, and I am not a French Canadian or even a Catholic.

Then there is the obvious: the unique linguistic and cultural mixture that is Montreal. Many cities in America are multi-ethnic, and there are even unique differences in the mixture of those ethnicities depending on the city. So, to give a couple of examples: New York has many cultures but there are very high numbers of Puerto Ricans and Dominicans; while Chicago has a preponderance of eastern Europeans. But in neither of those cities is there a permanent duality of language that persists over centuries that exists in Montreal between the French and English languages and their respective populations. Montreal not only has a preponderance of North Africans and Haitians, but all immigrants arrive in a place where attaching to the local identity is at times complex and confusing because there appear to be two main languages and consequent national identities to attach thereto. In one sense, this is a problem for national cohesion – adding a kind of ‘extra step’ of confusion for newly arrived people who almost always genuinely want to attach and acculturate themselves to their new country. On the other hand, it also leads to a cosmopolitan uniqueness not found elsewhere, in the large cities of America at least. It also leads to the citizenry being simultaneously proudly cosmopolitan (world oriented), Canadian, and Québécois. And yes, I listed those in order of (what I believe) importance to most Montrealers. Though I can easily imagine many switching the order to put Québécois in front of Canadian, and at times I probably would put them in that order too. But there is no doubt that most Montrealers would see themselves first and foremost as cosmopolitan, and world oriented citizens of the great city of Montreal.

So in the end, I return to where I started: the deep attachment I have to my city. My mother arrived in and grew up in the city’s former incarnation while my Montreal has been mostly the redefined city that we all know and love. Both versions of Montreal were cosmopolitan in their own way: the former, while constrained internationally mostly within the confines of the British Empire, was in fact very interesting mixture of French Canada, English Canada, and some religious variation as well – Protestant and Catholic, but also with an important significant Jewish population, which my family formed a part of. The more modern city is cosmopolitan in a wider sense: Canada now has its own flag, and a mostly ‘origin blind’ immigration policy, though language forms a part of that, and part of the re-orientation of Quebec has been to get almost complete control over the selection of immigrants, which has led us to the preponderance of the nationalities mentioned above (Haitian, North and Sub-Saharan African) since those are places where French is commonly spoken. But this tectonic plate shift was not the first that my beautiful city went through, nor will it be the last.

Long live Montreal!

—Jason Mcdonald