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When did the decline of Montreal really start?
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http://westislandgazette.com/bluenotes/23052 Blue Notes Thursday, May 26, 2011 When did the decline of Montreal really start? posted by BOFarrell at 7h15 I spent some of my early childhood in the beaches area of Toronto. My father was in the marine insurance business. He, like many of his colleagues, would have to go up to Montreal once a month to meet with "head office." That was when Montreal was the largest inland ocean port in the world. That was when Montreal was in charge of the country. He used to bring me back Tintin books in French, thinking that it was a way to inculcate me with culture. Luckily, there were pictures. But I did learn the phrase: "Tonnerre de Brest." I am still waiting for an opportunity to use it in conversation. Captain Haddock was my favourite character. He was crusty and drank too much. Even then I had an inkling of my own future. Those of us who can see clearly know full well the impact of Quebec nationalism and the subsequent language laws on the decline of Montreal. Those of us not protected from reality by the spin of the Quebec political class. But is it not probable that Montreal's economic decline began even before that, with the opening of the St. Lawrence Seaway in 1959? That was when trans-oceanic shipping no longer had to stop here. And trade could bypass Montreal and go directly into the great lakes. That was when the ascendancy of Toronto began in earnest. I wonder if the architects of the seaway foresaw the coming political crises in Quebec. If they understood that Montreal would end up being on the wrong side of the Quebec border and, therefore, they had to make a preemptive strike. The seaway had a large effect on the ecology of the great lakes. Ocean-going vessels brought various species into the water that had never been there before, Zebra mussels to name one. These consequences are well documented in books. But there is not much to be found on the political motives of the major players in this engineering feat, which was built between 1954 and 1959 as a federal government project by Louis St. Laurent's Liberal government. Most of the literature I could find only talks about the politics between Canada and the U.S., the rocky road to how it eventually became a bilateral project. Because it happened before the rise of Quebec nationalism, there is no discussion about that as a motive for its creation. But in retrospect it has had so many detrimental effects to the economy of Montreal that one would figure that some of its more astute architects must have foreseen them. Before it ships had to be unloaded in Montreal and the goods put on trains. Wheat and other commodities were trained from the interior to Montreal and put on ships here. That diminished after the seaway. And the national railroads that once had their head offices here have moved out. So was there a "Bay Street conspircy" of some kind? Montreal did experience its zenith in the late '60s, when it hosted Expo 67. But perhaps this is what sociologists call a "sunset effect" - just before a society is about to collapse, it goes through a colourful cultural explosion. Right after that Montreal began to lose its position as the economic metropolis of Canada. And ever since, it seems that it has been losing out to Toronto. Rick Blue is a resident of Beaconsfield and is half of the musical comedy duo of Bowser and Blue.