I went for a stroll in Hochelaga the other day and passed by École Baril on rue Adam, a pretty, leafy street in that area. The school’s a handsome hundred-year-old pile taking up the entire end of the block, and it’s now boarded up with a temporary fence around it. Two copies of the sign shown at right are affixed to the front of the building with unintentional irony now.
This Radio-Canada piece has a photo of how the building looks now; Images Montréal has a few views of how it looked before the boarding-up. I liked the old motif above the double front door, which is shown at left. The Radio-Canada piece repeats recent news that air in many school buildings is full of mould but the CSDM has no budget to deal with this, and in some cases it’s bad enough that buildings like this one have been condemned. However, a recent report said they do have plans to rebuild the school from scratch, which makes me wonder who expects to profit from the construction project. Also, rue Adam has a peaceful old-worldy vibe that won’t be improved by a construction site and a garish new building, but nobody’s talking about that.
The displaced students from École Baril have been moved to another school whose air is not much healthier, according to the Radio-Canada report.
Blork 13:56 on 2013/06/19 Permalink
The elephant in the room is that “how much it costs to have federal services that duplicate ones already offered by the province” can just as easily be said as “how much it costs to have provincial services that duplicate ones already offered by the feds.” (Quebec being the only province that does most of this duplication…)
Kate 13:56 on 2013/06/19 Permalink
Indeed. It depends on your default, doesn’t it.
jeather 14:21 on 2013/06/19 Permalink
Yeah, it’s extremely unsubtle wording.
Noah 14:33 on 2013/06/19 Permalink
Their public platform is to pick fights with the feds – this is a transparent case of that.
Kate 15:01 on 2013/06/19 Permalink
You know, because I linked a CJAD story up there, I thought maybe I’d picked on a translation that was unnecessarily pugnacious, so I went to look for other versions. Here’s the official announcement.
That’s a very angry document.
Marc 15:16 on 2013/06/19 Permalink
It’s part of their “Gouvernance Souverainiste” agenda. 100% political.
Poutine Pundit 16:31 on 2013/06/19 Permalink
@Blork – In many cases, the services ARE duplicated by the Federal government since they were earmarked for the provinces in the 1867 British North America Act. Quebec is not the only province where duplication takes place.
Take the field of heritage for instance: the ability to enact laws to protect and preserve built heritage was delegated to provinces in 1867. Nevertheless, the federal government created the Department of Canadian Heritage, The HSMBC, and Parks Canada. Having worked on several heritage projects, I can testify to the fact that these duplicate structures create lots of unnecessary red tape, wasted time, and wasted money. I suspect this is not the only case.
I agree the study will have a heavily-skewed outlook, and that it definitely shouldn’t cost $500,000 to produce this study, but federal government incursions into provincial competencies are a major problem that needs to be addressed.
JaneyB 17:28 on 2013/06/19 Permalink
Maybe so with heritage – though I think much of QC’s film budget comes from the federal ministry and I doubt if anyone is unhappy with duplication there….but the double tax system…ughhh. Worse, they don’t even communicate with each other. Double the fun.
Jack 17:56 on 2013/06/19 Permalink
Its an angry document because they have to shore up their base. Their numbers are Charest like with one exception, no blokes or immigrants.
William 19:13 on 2013/06/19 Permalink
I wonder what the Ministry of International Relations makes of all this.
Kevin 19:21 on 2013/06/19 Permalink
There are three ridiculous things about this.
1) The mere notion that anyone would be surprised that Quebec and the federal government have some duplicate departments. Off the top of my head: finance, Parks, heritage, language, international diplomacy, indian affairs, immigration. I’m sure there are others.
2) Of course the PQ will see any duplication as la faute du federale. Duh. It’s their raison d’etre and they’ve been saying it for decades.
3) We get to experience a summer and fall of PQ politicians stirring up the shit for no purpose except to make voters angry.
Ian 20:25 on 2013/06/19 Permalink
I’d love to know how much our provincial immigration dept. costs annually – it’s a great example of duplication that exists only chez nous. All provinces get to decide how many immigrants they will take and where to put them, but only Quebec makes them go through a separate application process on top of the federal process.
William 21:17 on 2013/06/19 Permalink
I’m glad I got to go through Immigration Quebec. Citizenship and Immigration Canada is a national embarrassment.