Royal Bank LetterPublished by Royal Bank of Canada

Vol. 73 No. 4 July/August 1992

In Praise of MontrealA t 350 years of age, the great metropolis on theSt. Lawrence is celebrating a rich and colourfulheritage. Its society is built on understanding,tolerance and generosity. As such, it representsa rare experiment in human relations. Its specialspirit is more relevant than ever this year ...

Montreal is not just any city. Its age alone sets it apartfrom most North American communities, which aremere pups compared. It is extraordinary in manyrespects: the second-largest French-speaking city in theworld in the midst of an English-speaking continent;a great international seaport 1,600 kilometres fromthe nearest coast; a major land transportation centreon an island cut off from the mainland by broad andtumultuous stretches of river; a dense concentrationof people and vehicles amid a maze of hills and valleyscovered with traffic-snarling ice and snow for muchof the year.

It is fitting that the chronicles of such an unlikelyplace should begin with a mystery. When JacquesCartier first sailed up the St. Lawrence River fromQuebec in October of 1534, he found a village ofabout 1,000 souls called Hochelaga. The Bretonexplorer was hospitably greeted by the natives, whotook him up the mountain which he named MontRéal. But when other Frenchmen returned to the spota few years later, Hochelaga had disappeared.

Montreal’s founding is similarly rooted in romance.The story goes that in 1639 a French rm-al tax collectornamed Jér6me Le Royer de La Dauversiére was onhis knees at mass when he heard a mystical voiceinstructing him to establish a medical mission in NewFrance. He joined forces with a Parisian priest namedJacques Olier who had also received a mysteriouscommand to found a mission on Montreal island.They organized a syndicate to launch an expeditionled by a devout professional soldier named Paul deChomedy, Sieur de Maisonneuve.

Not the least remarkable feature of Montreal is theprominent role women have played in its history. Atde Maisonneuve’s side when his party of 45 landedon the island in May of 1642 was a 35-year-old nursenamed Jeanne Mance, who presently opened the

H6tel Dieu hospital, still very much a going concern.A draft of settlers from France in 1651 brought inMarguerite Bourgeoys, who started the settlement’sfirst school in a converted stable and foundedCongrégation de Notre Dame, the well-knownteaching order. Later, Marie Marguerite d’Youvilleformed the charitable order called the Grey Nuns,setting Montreal on the road to becoming amanufacturing centre by putting the sisters into thebusiness of sewing clothing, tents and sails.

In the meantime another legend was born. Whena flood threatened to destroy his tiny colony, deMaisonneuve prayed for deliverance and the watersreceded. In thanksgiving he planted a large woodencross on Mount Royal. His gesture is commemoratedtoday in the illuminated cross on the crest of themountain. It is to Montreal what the Eiffel Toweris to Paris -- the landmark by which the city is chieflyidentified.

The formative years of Ville Marie de Montréalwere ones of hardship and mortal peril. The Frenchand their Algonquin and Huron allies were at warwith the Iroquois. The habitants risked lethal ambushevery time they strayed from the wooden stockadewhich enclosed their houses. Nevertheless, VilleMarie’s population had climbed to about 3,000 at theend of the 17th century.

The crude habitation of a few years before wasbeginning to realize its destiny as a metropolis -- acentre which controls activity in the hinterland.Missionaries, soldiers and traders used it as a basefor expeditions after a truce was struck with theIroquois. Place-names in the present metropolitan areahave echoes over large parts of North America whereexplorers from New France sowed the seeds ofsettlement: La Salle, Joliet, Marquette, Duluth,Cadillac, etc. Their journeys gave their mother country

a claim on an immense swath of territory from theRocky Mountains to the Gulf of Mexico. Theestablishment of trading posts such as Detroit andSault Ste. Made launched Montreal on its career asa head office venue. From it, the remote branchesof the fur trade were supervised, supplied andfinanced.

Montreal has always stood stage centre in Canadianaffairs, never more so than in the British take-overof the country. Contrary to popular belief, the Frenchregime did not end on the Plains of Abraham in 1759.It actually ended in Montreal almost a year later --on September 8, 1760. Then, the governor of NewFrance, Marquis de Vaudreuil, surrendered hisremaining 2,000 men to a much more powerful Britishforce.

But for religioustolerance, it mightbe an American

city today

Accompanying the British were several hundredcivilian businessmen engaged in supplying the army.

The majority of thesoldiers and traders wereProtestants who forsome time held servicesin Catholic churcheswith the blessing of thecurés. The first non-Catholic place of

worship to be built was not a Protestant church, buta synagogue for Jewish traders. This was appropriatefor a city which would one day contain Canada’slargest Jewish population, and whose culture wouldbe richly influenced by Jewish ways.

Religious tolerance is an abiding Montreal theme,with episodes of intolerance serving to emphasize thenormal state of good will by contrasting with it. Hadit not been for a British law guaranteeing CanadianRoman Catholics freedom of worship and otherrights, Montreal might be an American city today.This was the Quebec Act, passed only months beforeMontreal was captured by a revolutionary Americanarmy in November, 1775.

The occupying army issued an appeal from GeorgeWashington to the Canadiens to "unite with us inan indiSsoluble union." The local folk rejected itmainly because they did not trust the Americans torespect their religion and civil laws. The greatBenjamin Franklin made an arduous journey northto persuade them to join the United States, but, asone historian put it, they "gave him the coldshoulder." Commanded by the famous GeneralBenedict Arnold, the Americans withdrew in June,1776.

The end of the Revolutionary War brought aninflux of American loyalists. They joined a burgeoningpopulation of immigrants from England and Scotland

seeking their fortunes in the new world. One of theprincipal ways of making a fortune, particularlyamong the Scots, was fur trading. In the early 1790sthe local traders banded together to form thelegendary North West Company, with its enormousfreighter canoes manned by hardy voyageurs.

Among the Scots who prospered in the fur tradewas James McGill, whose benefactions established thecity’s first university. When McGill opened its doorsin 1843, it had a ready-made medical faculty whichhad been operating in the Montreal General Hospi-tal since 1822. The city would go on to achieve greateminence in the world of medicine. Some of its mostillustrious citizens have been medical pioneers: SirWilliam Osier, Wilder Penfield, Hans Selye, PaulDavid, Jacques Genest, and (though he is rememberedfor other reasons) Norman Bethune.

Montreal’s other three universities and associateseats of learning all have their areas of distinction.For example, Ecole Polytechnique, the engineeringschool of Uuiversité de Montrral, is Canada’s largestproducer of engineers. And any listing of respectedbusiness schools in North America must include"HEC" -- t~cole des Hautes I~tudes Commerciales-- which has played a seminal role in the burgeon-ing commercial-industrial network known as "Que-bec Inc." The National Theatre School and the uniqueEcole du Cirque (a feeder of talent to the world-renowned Cirque du Soleil) bring the city distinctionof a less earnest kind.

Montreal losesits status as

Canada’s capital

From its earliest days, Montreal has served as ahub for continental transportation. This role wasstrengthened in 1825 with the completion of the

Lachine Canal to bypassthe rapids on the St.Lawrence which hadblocked access to thesouthern Great Lakes.With a population ex-ceeding 22,000, the littlecity then was booming.

Among the new buildings raised at around that timewas Notre Dame Basilica, incorporating exquisitewood carvings by Canadien artisans. Its twin tow-ers, added in the early 1840s, were the precursors ofMontreal’s lofty skyline; for many years they werethe tallest structures in Canada.

In the latter 1840s a great wave of immigrationcame as a result of the potato famine in Ireland. LikeNew York and Boston, Montreal became a reposi-tory of Irish culture, now manifested in its St.Patrick’s Day parade. The parade has evolved intoa celebration of the city’s multiculturai character. Ev-ery year, thousands of participants of all ages and

ethnic origins march before crowds of hundreds ofthousands. Montreal’s Irish dement is honoured inthe shamrock on its flag, which also displays the sym-bols of Bourbon France, Scotland and England --the fleur de lys, thistle and rose.

For a number of years Montreal was the capitalof Canada, then composed of the future Ontario andQuebec, and there was no reason to expect that itwould not retain this status indefinitely. Then in 1849an English-speaking mob, enraged by a bill which theyclaimed would reward the Patriote rebels of 1837-38,burned down the Parliament Buildings and stoned thegovernor-general. The seat of government was re-moved to prevent a recurrence of violence in whatwould continue to be a city subject to riots.

Still, records show Montreal in the latter 19th cen-tury to have been a pleasant and prosperous com-munity. As the population multiplied, the cityhummed with commercial and social activity. It wasthe industrial and financial powerhouse of a new na-tion bursting with natural riches. Fabulous personalfortunes were made and flaunted in magnificent man-sions in "the golden square mile."

It was a civilized and gracious place, known forits tolerance. In Harriet Beecher Stowe’s novel Un-cle Tom’s Cabin, the slave girl Little Eva finally findsa haven from persecution in Montreal. Many yearslater, the colour bar in professional baseball wasbroken when Jackie Robinson came to play for theMontreal Royals. His parent team, the BrooklynDodgers, sent him to the Canadian city because it wasrelatively free of the overt racial discrimination thenpractised in the United States.

A passion forhockey leads

to a riot

Its reputation as "a good sports town" is of longstanding. Montreal traditionally has adored its home-grown sporting heroes, such as the great weight-lifterLouis Cyr, whose statue now dominates a city square.In 1874 it hosted the first "American" football gamebetween McGill and Harvard Universities. The nextyear, the world’s first modern-style indoor ice hock-

ey game was played inthe Victoria SkatingRink, marking the be-ginning of the passionateromance between Mon-trealers and hockey.Montreal must be theonly place in the world

where the suspension of a hockey player could starta riot, as happened in the case of Canadiens starMaurice Richard in 1955.

The early 20th century was the apogee of the rail-way age, and Montreal was the heart of the rail sys-tem in Canada. It was, and still is, the capital of two

vast transportation empires -- Canadian Pacific andCanadian National, then composed of several differ-ent companies. The city still owes much of its eco-nomic importance to its position as an interchangepoint for rail, road, fresh-water and ocean-going ship-ping. It is Canada’s largest container port, fromwhence cargo is transshipped by train or truck all overCanada and large parts of the United States.

For many years it was Canada’s premier passengerport, where ocean liners landed multitudes of im-migrants from Europe. Most went west, but enoughstayed on to fuel an enormous increase in the popu-lation of Greater Montreal, which soared from400,504 in 1911 to 818,577 in 1931. Long before theocean passenger business died, Montreal had becomethe world capital of its successor, commercial avia-tion. It is the home of the International Civil Avia-tion Organization and the International Air TransportAssociation, the former an organization of govern-

A taste fornightlife and

"grands spectacles"

ments and the latter ofthe world’s majorairlines. Greater Mon-treal is also a power inthe aircraft manufactur-ing and aviation elec-tronics industries.

Among its other sin-gularities, Montreal is the only Canadian city to befeatured in Bartlett’s Familiar Quotations. Samuel Bu-tler’s celebrated line, "O Godt O Montreal!" refersto the prudery of the city’s Victorian middle class.In later days it became notorious for the very reverseof prudery. A North American Pads with appropri-ately naughty Gallic attitudes, it was the definitive"wide open town," complete with gangsters. The vicehas since been cleaned up, but that has detracted lit-tle from Montreal’s raffish reputation and sophisti-cated joie de vivre. The active nightlife helps supportthe swarms of taxis which enliven the downtownscene.

Montrealers have always liked un grand spectacle.This explains why it has been the site of both a world’sfair and the Olympic Games over the past 25 years.It also accounts for its multiplicity of festivals, head-ed by the mammoth summer jazz festival.

Many of these events, such as the film festival, haveartistic themes, reflecting the city’s growth as a cul-tural mecca. The Montreal Symphony Orchestra haslately been ranked among the world’s top orchestras,and Les Grands Ballets Canadiens has been criticallyacclaimed from England to China. Long ago, artistslike Alfred Pellan, Paul-Emile Borduas and Jean-PaulRiopelle put Montreal on the map of the visual artworld.

The metropolis of French-speaking Canada haslong rivalled Paris as a prolific producer of French-language films and television programs. It is the head-quarters city of the National Film Board, which hasproved to be an incomparable trainer of film-makers,and of Radio-Canada, which has played a similar rolein radio and TV. In popular music, Montreal overthe past 30 years has been the cradle of an astonish-ing flowering of distinctive cultural expression, witha galaxy of vedettes ranging from Robert Charleboisand André Gagnon to Beau Dommage, Céline Dionand Roch Voisine. All have become as well-knownin other French-speaking countries as they are inQuebec.

Montreal has always been in the forefront of Cana-dian literature both in French and English, prose andpoetry. Not only has it been home to some of ourfinest writers, it has provided the setting for a greatmany books, not to mention films. Much of its ap-peal to writers emanates from its cosmopolitan at-mosphere. Immigrants have brought new vitality tothe city throughout the century, bolstering its well-deserved reputation for glamorous and charmingwomen -- and, of course, for gastronomy.

One of the prime attractions of the city is its end-less variety: here you get a glimpse of Paris, there ofNew York, there of London, Rome, Lisbon, Athens.Yet as it heads towards the 21st century, Montrealis definitively itself.

It remainsone of the

world’s mostliveable cities

Its climate helps to make it unique: among its peers,only Moscow must cope with such long, cold, stor-my winters. Montrealers accordingly have developedone of the world’s most extensive "indoor cities," anetwork of underground passages linking commer-cial and residential buildings for 24 kilometres andgiving access to a vast variety of stores, hotels, cine-mas, restaurants, and other amenities. It is tiedtogether by a swift, smooth-running subway system.The Métro reaches 51 stations with some

50 kilometres of under-ground track.

With a population ap-proaching 3 million,Metropolitan Montreal isapproximately the 40thlargest city in the world,roughly the size of Rome

and Washington. It is the ninth largest urban centrein North America, smaller than Chicago or Detroit,but bigger than Boston or Dallas. Though it lost its

position as Canada’s largest metropolis to Torontosome years ago, it is nonetheless huge by Canadianstandards. More people live in it than in all but threeof the provinces: Ontario, Quebec, and BritishColumbia. It is over two-thirds French speaking, yetthe number of English-speaking people it containsmakes it the third-largest "English" city in Canadaafter Toronto and Vancouver.

It may haveproblems, but#’s never dull

In the past 20 years or so Montreal has fallen onbad times. Few cities have had to absorb such sweep-ing and rapid economic and social changes. As Cana-da’s oldest industrialized area, it has suffereddisproportionately from the rationalization imposedby the post-industrial age. There has been an exodusof English-speakingMontrealers to otherparts of Canada, spurredby political uncertainty.On top of all that, itshares in other problemsthat beset North Ameri-can cities in the late 20thcentury -- street crime, drugs, homelessness, a run-down infrastructure, a paucity of public funds.

Still, Canadians everywhere might achieve a clear-er picture of it if they view in the perspective of citiesin other countries. When international statisticianscompile their "shopping baskets" of quality-of-lifefactors, Montreal consistently ranks among theworld’s very best places in which to live. As big ci-ties go, it is remarkably safe and peaceful. Yet it hasnot achieved these virtues at the expense of dullness.Problems or no problems, it remains a constantly in-teresting place to be.

Those problems tend to be exaggerated in anyevent. Ethnic frictions look a lot more serious in printand on the television screen than they are in reality.On the level at which Montrealers of French, English,and other mother tongues live and work together,there is a degree of co-operation, mutual respect andamity that would be the envy of many places in aworld wracked by communal strife.

The special spirit of Montreal is neatly summed upin its civic motto, Concordia Salus, which may beroughly translated as "health in harmony." That mot-to has never been more relevant than in this year, the350th anniversary of the city and the 125th anniver-sary of the country of which it has always been sovital an element. Let us hope that Concordia Saluswill never cease to describe the city it represents.