“A great nationalist,” François Legault wrote about Maurice Duplessis in March after reading a biography of Le Cheuf. “Our flag, our taxes,” the Prime Minister said on Twitter.
He could have added: “Our heritage”.
Yes, Monsieur Grande-Noirceur, the one who bought votes with bits of asphalt, was also a champion of Quebec heritage. In 1956, Duplessis even amended the law to allow the State to expropriate the owners of buildings with exceptional heritage value, in order to give these buildings a public status that would save them forever from destruction, disrepair or architectural carnage.
The first owners to be expropriated were those of the superb Maison Chevalier, in the heart of Petit-Champlain, in Quebec. At the time, the neighborhood was falling apart. The Duplessis government and those who succeeded it spent tens of millions to restore it.
Over time, we realized that this project had done much more than save a few old stone houses. At the end of the major projects in the 1970s, Quebecers had rediscovered their French roots, historian Pierre Lahoud reminded Radio-Canada.
Read the Radio-Canada article
The restoration of Place Royale had not only transformed Old Quebec into a postcard landscape; it allowed us to rediscover the heritage of our ancestors in all its splendor and to forge an identity.
She had made us, collectively, proud.
And now the Legault government, which wants so much to continue to make us proud, which is so keen to preserve our collective heritage, decides to secretly sell a large piece of the cradle of the nation to a private company, the Tanguay Group, which wants to make its head office.
It is beyond comprehension.
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The paradox escapes no one. On the one hand, the government promises “blue spaces”, a kind of patriotic museums intended to cultivate Quebec pride, in each region of the province. On the other, he sells off one of the rarest and most magnificent heritage gems with an inexplicable, unforgivable carelessness. Without discussion or consultation. Like it was junk.
This is not the only aberration in this case.
Built in 1752, the Maison Chevalier is one of the few buildings in the Place Royale sector still open to the public. One of the only buildings where everyone could dive back to the days of the first French in America.
Well, almost everyone. As the Maison Chevalier is a classified heritage property, it was not possible to fit ramps or elevators. It was not accessible to people with reduced mobility.
We could have made an exception, shown creativity or a little flexibility. But no. Since we could not comply with the standards, we decided to sell the building.
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Everyone and his brother speak out against this mind-boggling decision. Since the announcement of the sale, 12 days ago, elected officials, editorial writers, historians and architects have asked Quebec to back down. In vain.
Staggering, because without Maison Chevalier, “there probably would not have been Old Quebec, or at least not the same. And probably no UNESCO World Heritage listing ”, underlined the architectural historians Lucie K. Morisset and Luc Noppen in a tribune in The sun.
Read Morisset and Noppen’s op-ed in The sun
“There are things that cannot be privatized,” write the two teachers at the University of Quebec in Montreal (UQAM). Here, it is the heart that is sold out; it is this heritage that gives meaning to all the others. ”
And how much do we sell off this heart? The selling price is unknown, but would revolve around the property value of the building: $ 2.2 million.
Another aberration, in this story which does not lack: the CEO of the Museum of civilization, Stéphan La Roche, explained to the To have to that he had not made a public call for projects because he feared having to “manage eccentric requests” …
So, so as not to have to deal with outlandish requests, the Museum sells to the first interested entrepreneur. The logic, once again, is relentless.
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Make no mistake, I have nothing against Groupe Tanguay, a furniture dealer. It could have been a merchant of works of art, maple syrup or souvenirs made in China (it is missing in this corner, if I remember correctly).
What I mean is that I would have been against selling Maison Chevalier to any private owner. This one, the Tanguay Group, swears that it will not disfigure the building and that it will leave part of it accessible to the public.
Very good, but how can he guarantee that he doesn’t end up changing his mind – or selling himself? Since when does the State leave it to the private sector to manage the heritage for it?
Even Duplessis thought it didn’t look good!