Montréal

1. Introduction

Montréal is the largest city in eastern Canada and after Paris, the second largest French-speaking city in the world. Located on an island at the junction of the St. Lawrence and Ottawa rivers, to the north of New York state. Montréal is a center for trade and exchange. The stockaded settlement of Hochelaga predated the arrival of the first white explorers, such as Jacques Cartier. European settlement dates from 1642 when Maisonneuve established a small fort, Ville Marie, on the St. Lawrence River. Montréal takes its name from Mt. Royal, an imposing hill in the center of the city. The location of the city has ensured Montréal's position prominence in shipping, manufacturing, and until recently, finance. Although today its manufacturing industries are in decline, Montréal remains an important port for both ocean-going freighters and shipping on the St. Lawrence Seaway and the Great Lakes. Initially settled by the French, Montréal's population has been divided between an English-speaking business elite and a poorer working French-speaking class.

Montréal's ethnic complexion and its importance in both English Canada and Québec has changed. Under pressure from Québec Nationalists, major businesses and the English-speaking elites who dominated them have departed for Toronto and English-speaking Canada. Québec City, the provincial capital, has surpassed Montréal as the center of Québec political life. Although Montréal, particularly the eastern part of the city, remains French, Francophone middle classes have departed for the suburbs. Immigrants from southern and eastern Europe and other parts of the world have made Montréal an ethnically diverse city. The city remains an important cultural center and a destination for North American and European tourists enticed by its restaurants, entertainment, neighborhoods, and the character of its older city. Narrow cobblestoned streets, stone buildings, and numerous cafes give Old Montréal a more European character than any other North American city except the provincial capital Québec City.

2. Getting There

Montréal is easily accessible by road, rail, water, and air.

Highways

Ten super highways converge on Montréal from Toronto, Ottawa, the Laurentians, Québec City, the Eastern Townships, New England, and New York state. Principal highways include the Trans-Canada Highway, which passes underneath the downtown; Autoroute 20 from Toronto; I-89 from Vermont and New England; and I-87 from Albany and New York City. Québec City is approximately three hours away; Ottawa, 90 minutes; Toronto, five hours; and New York City, six hours by car.

Bus and Railroad Service

Montréal is a hub for both the Canadian Pacific and Canadian National Railways. Via Rail operates trains to Ottawa, Toronto and points west, and Québec City and Eastern Canada. Amtrak operates a daily service from Washington, D.C., and New York City. Montréal can also be reached from numerous points by bus.

Airports

Montréal's Dorval Airport is served by Air Canada, as well as major American and international carriers. Flights depart regularly for 130 cities in eastern and western Canada, as well as major American and European cities. There is shuttle service to Toronto, which is one hour away by air. Ottawa, Canada's capital, is 15 minutes away by plane and can be reached in 90 minutes by car. Mirabel Airport, 58 kilometers (36 miles) to the north, provides charter and freight service.

Shipping

Linked to numerous ports around the world by various shipping lines, Montréal is the leading North American container port on the North Atlantic market. Over the past decade, the Port of Montréal has handled an average of some 18 million metric tons (20 million tons) of cargo each year, including containerized and non-containerized general cargo, grain and other dry bulk, and petroleum products and other liquid bulk. In addition, the port welcomes thousands of visitors to its Iberville Passenger Terminal every year.

The Port of Montréal engages in year-round domestic and international trade. Moreover, the St. Lawrence River has been navigable year-round for ocean-going vessels for more than 35 years. A computerized dispatching system ensures that the correct number of longshoremen with the precise skills required are assigned to a ship each day. The Port of Montréal is also among the safest ports in the world as the entire port perimeter and individual terminals are enclosed, and entrances are always monitored.

3. Getting Around

Montréal is served by a metro, buses, and an extensive but sometimes traffic-choked road network. Travel by auto can be frustrating. Although the city is traversed by broad boulevards and several expressways, roadways, bridges, and tunnels to suburbs in the south are often stopped with traffic. Drivers unfamiliar with exits and entrances find it difficult to maneuver across lanes to exits and entrances, and in accordance with provincial language laws, signs are in French.

Bus and Commuter Rail Service

The easiest way to get around the city is by Metro and bus. The Metro is modern, efficient, and quiet. Following a French design, trains run on rubber tires. Metro stations are spacious; each has a unique modern design. There are four separate lines: the green line runs east to west through the downtown; the red line runs south from Henri-Bourassa, west through the downtown and north again, intersecting the green line at Berri-UQAM and Lionel-Groulx; the yellow line runs from Berri-UQAM south to Longeuil on the opposite side of the St. Lawrence River. The Metro and bus systems are integrated: buses stop at Metro stations, and transfers are available from bus drivers or special machines at station entrances. Cash fares are __BODY__.90 per trip. Six-ride tickets, one-and three-day tourist cards, and weekly and monthly passes are also available. Bicycles can be transported in non-rush hours in the front car of each train. Dorval Airport, 18 kilometers (11 miles) west of the city, can be reached by bus, limousine, or taxi.

4. People

The city of Montréal has a population of one million, but the Montréal metropolitan area has 3.1 million people, 1.75 million of whom live within the Montréal Urban region. The population of the city is diverse. The largest groups within the population are Québecois (French Canadians, approximately 319,000) and English Canadians (301,000). However, Montréal is home to numerous ethnic and linguistic groups. The 1996 census reported substantial numbers of Italians (84,000), Irish (43,000), Scots (26,000), Jews (27,000), Greeks (20,000), Chinese (22,000), South Asians (27,000), Haitians (37,000), and Lebanese (14,000). Nearly one-fifth of the population (204,000) is composed of visible minorities. Nearly half of Montréal's population (492,000 people) is bilingual and thus capable of speaking both of Canada's two official languages; 370,000 others speak French only, and 100,000 speak English only. This is a substantial change from the past when most of the English Canadian population spoke only English. However, to the dismay of many Québec nationalists, many Francophones are moving to Montréal's suburbs. As a result, the proportion of Montréal residents speaking French is declining; there is less insistence on the use of French in bars, cafes, and restaurants.

5. Neighborhoods

Montréal grew up in the area between the St. Lawrence River and Mount Royal. Older industries are on low lands to the west. Old Montréal, the area of initial settlement, is a historic area with cafes and restaurants. The contemporary downtown is nearby, between Boulevard René Lévesque and Sherbrooke. Urban renewal projects under Mayor Jean Drapeau (1916–1999) replaced many low-rise buildings with modernistic high rises and a network of underground passages connecting shopping and office complexes.

The modern city surrounds Mount Royal, a large glacial formation in the middle of Montréal island. Residential neighborhoods have distinctive complexions. North of Sherbrooke Street, mansions line streets running up to Mount Royal and extend into West-mount, an English-speaking area to the west of the downtown core. Westmount has been a center for Montréal's English-speaking population. The east end of Montréal is a poorer and predominantly French. Housing stock here consists primarily of three-story walk-up apartment buildings, with wrought-iron exterior stairways. Further west is Notre Dame du Grace, home to middle classes and immigrant communities. The Jewish and many other immigrant communities originally settled in the heart of the city, along St. Lawrence (St. Laurent) Blvd., a north-south artery dividing the eastern and western portions of the city. Italian areas are located further north, around the Jean-Talon metro. Mount Royal, to the north of the mountain of the same name, is primarily an Anglophone area. Outremont, in contrast, is predominantly French speaking. Laval, on Jesus Island, is a French-speaking suburb. Longeuil on the southern shore of the St. Lawrence is mixed.

6. History

Montréal is one of Canada's oldest settlements. Iroquois and Algonquin Indians had established a trading post and settlement, Hochelaga, well before the arrival of Europeans. The French explorer, Jacques Cartier, sailed up the St. Lawrence in 1635 and explored the island and surrounding areas. French settlers, under Sieur de Maisonneuve (Paul de Chomedey, b. early seventeenth century; d. 1676), established Ville Marie in 1642 at Place Royale in what is now Old Montréal. Initially, Montréal was governed as a seigneury, or concession held by a religious order, the Gentlemen of St. Suplice. Ease of water transport established Montréal as the center of the North American fur trade. Montréal remained under the French until 1760 when they were displaced by the British during the French and Indian War (1755–63). The Treaty of Paris in 1763 ceded Montréal to the British.

Following the British conquest, Scottish and English merchants displaced the French and in the next 100 years established a commercial and banking empire. Construction of the Lachine canal in 1825, bypassing rapids in the river, opened up inland trade. The Bank of Montréal was established in 1817. Montréal banking interests financed the construction of the Canadian Pacific and the Grand Trunk Railways (later the Canadian National Railway), solidifying Montréal's position as a shipping and commercial center. The city of Montréal was incorporated in 1832. English migration briefly produced an English-speaking majority from 1831 to 1867, but this was reversed by migration from the countryside later in the nineteenth century. European immigration lead to further growth in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. The city's population reached one million in the 1930s and has remained stable since then. However, surrounding areas have continued to grow. Montréal island has 1.7 million people, the larger metropolitan area, 3.1 million. Water and rail transport and available work force facilitated the growth and diversification of industry.

Montréal quickly emerged as a major city in both Canada and the province of Québec. Until the 1970s, Montréal was the center of Canadian banking and commerce, as well as an important industrial center. Although the transfer of business and commercial interests to Toronto has undermined the economic position of the city, Montréal's earlier position has left the city with a legacy of public buildings and institutions, reflected in the major museums and cultural centers described below. Montréal is also the center of Québec cultural and intellectual life, and until recently dominated the smaller, more traditional and homogenous provincial capital, Québec City. In the late nineteenth century, Montréal provided a center for French-Canadian nationalism and was at the heart of the Quiet Revolution, which transformed Québec in the 1960s and 1970s.

Relations between English and French speakers have been central in the development of Montréal, Québec, and Canadian politics. English conquest in 1763 transformed Montréal from a French to an English commercial center. Anglophone financial and commercial interests in Montréal allied with Québec upper classes, enabling English-speaking Montréal to flourish in an otherwise rural, traditional, Catholic and church-dominated province. In Montréal, English was the language of business, and French Canadians found themselves frustrated by demands to "speak white"—in English, rather than their native French. Elimination of Catholic (and thus Francophone) schools in Manitoba and other parts of western Canada cut off Québec migration to other parts of Canada, encouraging French-Canadian populations to turn in on themselves in solitude, separate from the rest of Canada. Cut off from both the rest of Canada and France, Québecois opposed Canadian involvement in both world wars. Opposition to the draft led to the arrest and imprisonment of Montréal Mayor Camillien Houde until 1944.

Social and economic change transformed Québec in the 1960s and 1970s. French Canadian intellectuals, including former Prime Minister Pierre Elliot Trudeau (b. 1919; prime minister 1968–79 and 1980–84) and former Québec Premier René Lévesque, a Montréal journalist, joined with others in a Quiet Revolution against the domination of traditional upper classes and the Roman Catholic Church. Montréal became a major center for competing views of the position of Québec in Canada. Trudeau and other federalists argued for bilingual and multi-cultural Canada while Québec nationalists, such as Lévesque, insisted on primacy for the French language in Québec and sovereignty for the Québec people. In the late 1960s and early 1970s, Québec nationalism provoked massive demonstrations and occasional acts of terrorism by organizations such as the Québec Liberation Front (FLQ). Kidnappings led to the imposition of the War Measures Act, a martial law, in Québec in the spring of 1970.

After 1976, new language laws, requiring education in the French language for all, except the children of Anglophones born in Québec, and a dominant position for French in the workplace and on signs, transformed Québec society. Sign laws—Signage—became a point of friction between Anglophones, unable to operate in French, and Québec nationalists. Québec sign laws originally permitted signs only in French, but after negative court decisions, the law was re–written to require that French lettering be at least twice the size of lettering in any other language. Anglophones unwilling to become bilingual left Montréal and the province. In the process, Montréal lost many of its head offices but emerged as vibrant center of Québec intellectual and cultural life. However, language laws demanding that the children of immigrants be educated in French became a source of friction in Montréal's many ethnic communities. More recently, tensions have subsided, in part because of Francophones. To the dismay of Québec nationalists, Montréal has regularly voted against a referenda demanding that Québec establish itself as a sovereign nation loosely associated with the rest of Canada. In turn, Parti Québecois governments have channeled badly needed investment to Québec City instead of Montréal.

7. Government

Montréal has two levels of government. The city of Montréal has its own 57-member council and a directly elected mayor. The city has a long and colorful political history. Mayor Camillien Houde was jailed during World War II (1939–45) because of his opposition to military conscription. Jean Drapeau (1916–99), mayor during the 1960s, was responsible for the urban renewal and reconstruction of the downtown core, the construction of the Metro, and Expo '67, which brought numerous visitors to Montréal. Drapeau's Civic Party governed Montréal from 1960 to 1986 when it was replaced by Jean Dore's Citizen's Union.

The City of Montréal is the largest of the 29 municipalities in the Montréal Urban Community. The Montréal Urban Community (MUC) handles police, fire protection, water supply, roads, public transportation, and regional planning for towns and cities on the island of Montréal. Created in 1970, MUC is governed by a council representing mayors and councilors from each of its 29 municipalities.

8. Public Safety

Policing and fire protection are provided by the Montréal Urban Community. Crime rates are relatively low in comparison to American cities, but the changing composition and relative poverty of Montréal's population results in friction between police and fireman and visible minorities. Montréal crime rates are higher than Toronto but lower than Western Canadian cities, such as Winnipeg, Saskatoon, Edmonton, Regina, and Vancouver. The Montréal Urban Community employs nearly 6,000 policeman, one per 174 residents.

9. Economy

Montréal originated as trading post and subsequently developed as a cultural and industrial center of Québec and Canada under French rule. Montréal was home to the Hudson's Bay Company and a major center of the fur trade. English-Canadian commercial and banking elites emerged in the nineteenth century, making Montréal the center of the Canadian economy. Its harbor and rail lines made it Canada's premier port and a major center for manufacturing. However, in recent decades, older industries, such as textiles, have declined, and Montréal has lost prominence as a banking and commercial hub. The shift reflects linguistic conflict and changes in modes and methods of production. The rise of Québec nationalism in the 1960s and 1970s provided the opportunity for the rise of Francophone professional elites. However, successive language laws ensuring the pre-eminence of the French language forced English Canadians to relocate or become bilingual. Many took the latter course, but banks and insurance companies relocated head offices or key functions to Toronto. Linguistic conflicts coincided with the decline of older industries, such as textiles. In addition, in recent years, provincial governments have favored investment in Québec City over Montréal. One sign of Montréal's economic decline is a recent decision to shift trade in common stocks from the Montréal to the Toronto Stock exchange.

Despite the departure of corporate and banking headquarters and the decline of older industries, Montréal remains an important industrial and commercial center. Its port receives ocean-going ships, via the St. Lawrence River, and Montréal remains an important trans-shipment point for grain, agricultural, and industrial products, which arrive by rail and Great Lakes steamers. In addition to its port, Montréal is a major center for food processing, oil refining, and the production of electrical machinery and electronic equipment. Bombardier is a major producer of snowmobiles, subway and rail cars, and aircraft. Nevertheless, Montréal is plagued by an aging industrial base, making it difficult to provide sufficient employment for a workforce continually augmented by industrialization. Nearly one-fourth of the city's population lives below the poverty line.

Montréal is the home of Radio Canada, the Francophone equivalent of the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation. French and English cultural life thrive. One advantage of Montréal's economic decline is that housing is less expensive than in cities like Toronto, Ottawa, or Vancouver.

10. Environment

Montréal has an inland climate. Temperatures in winter months are cold, averaging–3°C (23°F). With an annual snowfall of 214 centimeters (84 inches), Montréal receives more snow than Moscow. Temperatures rise to 11°C (52°F) in April or October. Summers can be hot. Average summer temperatures are 26°C (79°F).

Water quality in the St. Lawrence River has improved with the clean up of the Great Lakes. However, Montréal does not yet treat sewerage, creating major pollution problems. Portions of the downtown and older industrial areas are now derelict and unoccupied, providing a sharp contrast to adjacent renewed areas of the city. Prevailing winds bring pollution from Ontario and the American Midwest.

11. Shopping

Montréal is a shopper's paradise. The city is a center of fashion and design; stores in almost any price range are easily found. The principal shopping areas are downtown, in and around St. Catherine and Peel Streets. Department stores include the Bay and Oligivies. Numerous shops are located in Montréal's underground city, an extensive network of underground malls and shopping centers. These link not only shops but also office complexes, hotels, and the central station. The principal shopping streets are St. Catherine Street from Place Ville Marie to Rue Guy. Smaller boutiques may be located along St. Catherine or Sherbrooke Street, two blocks to the north, and on the streets in between.

12. Education

Reflecting its bilingual character, Montréal has both English and French schools and universities. Until recently, most English-speaking students studied in Protestant schools, which were primarily—but not exclusively—Anglophone, while French-speaking students studied in Catholic schools. However, the province of Québec has recently reorganized its schools on linguistic rather than religious lines. Students study in public schools through grade 11 and then move on to more specialized schools (CGEPS) for an additional two years of study.

Montréal has two Francophone and two Anglophone universities. The University of Montréal, the oldest and principal French-speaking university, has an extensive campus on the north side of Mt. Royal. The University of Québec in Montréal (UQAM) is downtown at the intersection of St. Catherine and St. Denis Streets. McGill University, the principal English University has its main campus downtown, between Sherbrooke Street and Mt. Royal. Concordia University is a few blocks to the west. Numerous students live in apartments in the "McGill ghetto," located between the McGill campus and St. Denis Street, north of Sherbrooke.

In addition to its four universities, Montréal is also home to the Biblioteque Nationale, Québec's principal library, housed in buildings near UQAM. McGill attracts students from across the country and from the United States, and the University of Montréal attracts students from all over the province of Québec. Concordia and UQAM typically enroll larger percentages of local students.

13. Health Care

The Province of Québec, like all Canadian provinces, provides universal health insurance for all its citizens. Montréal is home to 20 hospitals, including the Royal Victoria Hospital, Montréal General Hospital, Saint-Luc, Sacré-Coeur, Hôtel-Dieu, Jewish General, Montréal General, and others. Many hospitals are affiliated with either the McGill or University of Montréal Medical faculties. In addition to hospitals, 56 community health centers have been instrumental in providing health care, particularly in poorer neighborhoods. However, both medical centers and hospitals have been hit by funding cuts, resulting in closure of beds and cutbacks in services.

14. Media

Montréal is a center for both Francophone and Anglophone media. The principal French-language newspapers are Le Devoir, La Presse, and Le Journal de Montréal. The Montréal Gazette serves Anglophone Montréalers. Numerous ethnic groups are also served by weekly ethnic newspapers. Montréal has 33 AM and FM radio stations and is home to Radio Canada, Canada's public Francophone radio and TV network. Canada's National Film Board (NFB) is based in Montréal. Available television includes Radio Canada and the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, as well as numerous private broadcasters. Cable connections augment local broadcasting, providing among other things, access to the American media.

15. Sports

The most important sports in Montréal are hockey and baseball. The city's sports teams include the Montréal Canadiens. The Canadiens, winners of 24 Stanley cups, were one of the six teams that originally made up the National Hockey League. Fans flocked to Montréal Forum, particularly to watch Montréal deal with its rival, the Toronto Maple Leafs. Known for its intimacy, the Forum was recently replaced by a new arena, the Molson Centre. The Alouettes, Montréal's Canadian Football League (CFL) team, play at McGill stadium. Montréal has also been home to minor and major league baseball. The Montréal Expos play National League baseball in Montréal's Olympic Stadium. The Expos team has had difficulty maintaining its standing in the league and attracting sufficient fans to fill the cavernous stadium that the Expos inherited. The one time that the Expos were close to winning the national league pennant, strikes forced the cancellation of the remainder of the season.

16. Parks and Recreation

Montréal's most famous park, Mount Royal, occupies most of the mountain by the same name. Designed by Frederick Law Olmstead (1822–1903), Mount Royal contains wooded land, trails, gardens, a skating rink and ski area, and sports fields along its base. A large iron cross, commemorating the original settlement, dominates the skyline, and two lookouts provide spectacular views of the city, particularly the downtown core, harbors, and the St. Lawrence River.

The Parc des Îles (Park of Islands) is located on artificial islands in the St. Lawrence River. Originally built with fill from the construction of the Metro, the islands were the site of Expo '67, the 1967 World's Fair. The Parc des Îles contains the Stewart Museum, exhibition space, an open air gallery with ten sculptures (including Alexander Calder's L' Homme), the Floralies Gardens, sculptures, and the Biopshere, a large globe built to house the former U.S. pavilion at Expo '67. The Biosphere now houses the Ecowatch center, an interactive museum that focuses on the complex ecosystem of the Great Lakes and St. Lawrence River. The islands also house a casino and Le Ronde, the amusement park built for Expo '67. Other parks include the Botanical Gardens (East on Sherbrooke) and Andrigon, in the western part of the city.

Several parks and recreation areas are a one-to two-hour drive from the city. Mont Tremblant, in the Laurentian Mountains, is north of the city. The Eastern Townships, a region of glacial hills and lakes just to the north of Vermont and New England, provide summer and winter recreation. Lake Champlain, Vermont's mountains, and the Adirondack region of New York are also in easy reach of Montréal.

17. Performing Arts

Montréal is a major center for music, dance, and French-language theater. The Place des Arts contains several large theaters and exhibition centers and is home the Montréal Symphony Orchestra, the Montréal Opera, Les Grandes Ballets Canadiens, and the Feux Follets, as well as numerous ensembles and quartets. Theater companies include Le Theatre du Nouveau Monde and Le Theatre du Rideau-Vert. Clubs and frequent festivals supplement regular offerings, ensuring that music for any taste is readily available.

18. Libraries and Museums

In addition to the Biblioteque Nationale and its university libraries, Montréal is home to numerous museums. The Montréal Museum of Fine Arts contains classical and modern collections and hosts numerous traveling exhibitions. Located on Sherbrooke Street, the museum is housed in a neoclassical building, and a modern annex faces it on the opposite side of the street.

The McCord Museum concentrates on the history of Montréal, the Province of Québec, and Canada from the eighteenth century to the present. Its collections include paintings, drawings and photographs, costumes and textiles, and ethnographic objects from native peoples.

The Cinémathèque Québécoise tracks trends in Québec, Canadian, and international film, television, and visual media. Photos, books, posters, scripts, clippings, and other documents are housed at an ultramodern location on Boul. De Maisonneuve East. Although films and tapes are stored in special vaults in Boucherville, the Cinémathèque in Montréal regularly screens films, old and new, and is a major centre for exhibitions and meetings.

The Montréal Museum of Decorative Arts on Rue Crescent contains major collections on twentieth-century decorative trends, including furniture, glass, ceramics, jewelry, textiles, and graphic and industrial design.

The Canadian Centre for Architecture is a museum, library, and research center devoted to architecture, landscape, and urban design, past and present. Exhibits and collections focus on the relationship between architectural trends and their relationship to natural and social environments. Collections are drawn from societies, past and present, in all parts of the world. Reflecting its interest in the interplay between past and present, the Centre is housed in a modern building located in a garden built to restore the surrounding urban area. The center includes Shaughnessy House, one of the few nineteenth-century Montréal homes still open to the public.

McGill University's Redpath Museum focuses on the history and diversity of the natural world. One of the cities oldest museums, the Redpath functions both as a university teaching facility and a natural history museum for elementary and high school students. However, budgetary cutbacks have forced the museum to restrict the hours in which it is open to the public.

Other museums include the Stewart Museum, an original fort with exhibitions documenting the settlement of the new world, located in the Parc des Îles.

19. Tourism

Montréal's rich history and its status as North America's only bilingual city make it a tourist's delight. Tourists come to enjoy not only its museums, galleries, and shops, but also a wide range of restaurants, theater, music, and an active night life. Old Montréal, adjacent to the port and a short distance from the downtown, is a regular stop on tourist itineraries. Located between the present downtown and the St. Lawrence River, Old Montréal provides access to the river and port. Gray stone buildings line cobblestone streets and squares, such as Place-d'Armes and Place Royale. The Champ-de-Mars, a public park is nearby. Attractions include the nineteenth-century domed Bonsecours Market, the City Hall, the Customs House, the Saint-Sulpice Seminary (Montréal's oldest building) Notre-Dame-de-Bonsecours Chapel, and the Notre-Dame Basilica, noted for its richly gilded neo-gothic architecture. Other attractions include visiting St. Helene, the artificial island built to house the 1967 World Fair Expo, and strolling along streets lined with cafes and restaurants, such as St. Laurent, St. Denis, or Prince Arthur. In addition, there are numerous exhibitions and festivals. The Oratory of St. Joseph is a domed church on the north side of Mt. Royal; it attracts pilgrims who climb its many steps on their knees to seek salvation.

20. Holidays and Festivals

MARCH-APRIL
Good Friday

MAY
Victoria Day

JUNE
Saint-Jean-Baptiste Day

JULY
Canada Day

SEPTEMBER
Labor Day

OCTOBER
Thanksgiving Day

21. Famous Citizens

Pierre Elliot Trudeau (b. 1919), Prime Minister of Canada, 1968–79 and 1980–84.

Former Mayor Jean Drapeau (1916–1999), architect of the city's urban renewal.

Humorist and economist Stephen Leacock (1869–1944).

Novelist Mordecai Richler (b. 1931).

French-Canadian intellectual Henri Bourassa (1868–1932), founder of the influential newspaper, Le Devoir.

Although not born in Montréal, the first Parti Québecois premier, René Lévesque (1922–87), spent much of his journalistic career in the city before entering politics.

22. For Further Study

Websites

Tourisme Montréal. [Online] Available http://www.tourism-montreal.org (accessed January 7, 2000).

Tourist and Convention Bureaus

Infotouriste
1001 Square Dorchester
Montréal (Québec) H3B.1G2
(514) 873-2015
(800) 363-7777

Books

Hamilton, Janice. Destination Montreal. Minneapolis, MN: Lerner Publications, 1997.

Lloyd, Tanya. Montreal. Vancouver: Whitecap Books, 1998.

Water, Paul, ed. Montreal & Quebec City. Halifax, NS: Formac Publishing, 1999.