We must withdraw bill 69 on heritage
Photo: Alice Chiche and Marie-France Coallier Le Devoir "Bill 69 does not create an independent institutional authority to intervene in the name of heritage, and defend it as a public good belonging to all of us individually", write Serge Joyal and Phyllis Lambert.
Letter to the Premier of Quebec.
We see ourselves in the obligation to write to you to ask you to withdraw from the agenda of the National Assembly Bill 69, amending the Cultural Heritage Act, because after careful consideration, we have had to conclude that not only will this bill not resolve the fundamental cause of the constant loss of heritage in Quebec, but that, in a certain way, it will help to make protection even more difficult.
What Bill 69 does not contain is the clear and direct recognition that heritage is as intimately linked to our identity as the French language is. One without the other is like light without the sun. The French language is valued because it is common to us, but heritage is essential to us because it tells what we are in time throughout history.
However, the language in Quebec, we always want to better protect and develop it, and there are laws and organizations whose task it is on a daily basis: Bill 101 and the Office de la langue française are tools that we use. make it possible to ensure all the strength
and originality of the communication link that is common to us.
But heritage does not have any recognition. It is not recognized, by its very nature, as a public good and there is no constituted independent authority, such as an office, which would have the mandate to defend it against its withering, destruction or irresponsible neglect.
Bill 69 once again gives only municipalities and towns the responsibility for ensuring its conservation. This is a mistake that still leads us into the same dead end. The fundamental problem is that municipalities and towns, according to Bill 69, remain both judge and party. It is as if we asked the police to investigate itself, or even a judge who has already ruled to sit again on appeal.
Even more, municipalities and towns are in a clear conflict of interest vis-à-vis heritage: they have an interest in making a clean house to leave all the room for development pushed by developers, for a very simple reason, namely
to withdraw additional taxes and get rid of a financial burden.
According to popular perception, a good mayor is someone who does not increase taxes and who improves services.
Heritage conservation appears incompatible with this electoral interest.
Who speaks in the name of heritage to defend it as part of the public good linked to our identity rooted in time? The pride of a language is nourished by the quality and diversity of its expression, which are themselves strengthened and inspired by the richness of our built and natural environment. Our language will run empty if it loses its historical references. Buildings, buildings, sites speak; they speak the language of our secular continuity and of our confidence in what we have been and what we are on a daily basis.
Bill 69 does not create an independent institutional authority to intervene on behalf of heritage,
and defend it as a public good belonging to us all individually.
We ask you to intervene so that Bill 69 is fundamentally rewritten, so that it truly becomes the law 101 of our history and our roots. Left as is, this bill will perpetuate the same dynamic that has led to so many disasters. We could cite a hundred examples of our collective carelessness, older, such as the demolition by the City of Mascouche Repentigny mansion XVIII th century acquired it in 2015 in good condition and that it has abandoned to end up demolishing it last December, the 18th century house century of deputy Benjamin Beaupré in Saint-Sulpice that the municipality is willing to let demolished, until the town hall of Sept-Îles built in 1960 by the architect Guy Desbarats, a father of modernism, that the bill 69 immediately excludes its supposed protection because it post-1940.
We ask you to intervene after all these years of struggle and pleas, requests for protection from a multitude of groups from civil society, after years of senseless demolitions, witnesses of the inaction of successive governments. , while the many studies commissioned by public authorities are piling up on the shelves.
A robust and effective law on heritage is more than urgent to safeguard and enhance what remains after all these years of neglect. You should immediately entrust a working group bringing together experts, academics and members of organizations dedicated to the safeguarding of heritage, in partnership with the Minister of Culture and Communications, the task of developing the draft a bill on the basis of the principle which clearly recognizes the importance of heritage as a good of public interest, from which all of Quebec benefits. Above all, do not pass Bill 69 in its current form. It is an illusion to believe that he will stop the bleeding.
We ask you to intervene so that what we are is not diluted in the face of the combined forces of ignorance and the narrow profit generated by market forces, disdaining the essential contribution of heritage to the definition of what characterizes us as a society.
We ask you to intervene because we have spent our lives, as well as many other citizens, fighting so that Quebec can be proud of itself, appreciate what it is, value what it has been. , remains confident in its future, and that the presence of its heritage remains
one of the foundations of this deep conviction.
As Prime Minister, you have the responsibility to decide today what will become of us in the future, by leaving to future generations
the pride of their identity, which is closely linked to the vitality of our heritage.
We see ourselves in the obligation to write to you to ask you to withdraw from the agenda of the National Assembly Bill 69, amending the Cultural Heritage Act, because after careful consideration, we have had to conclude that not only will this bill not resolve the fundamental cause of the constant loss of heritage in Quebec, but that, in a certain way, it will help to make protection even more difficult.
What Bill 69 does not contain is the clear and direct recognition that heritage is as intimately linked to our identity as the French language is. One without the other is like light without the sun. The French language is valued because it is common to us, but heritage is essential to us because it tells what we are in time throughout history.
However, the language in Quebec, we always want to better protect and develop it, and there are laws and organizations whose task it is on a daily basis: Bill 101 and the Office de la langue française are tools that we use. make it possible to ensure all the strength
and originality of the communication link that is common to us.
But heritage does not have any recognition. It is not recognized, by its very nature, as a public good and there is no constituted independent authority, such as an office, which would have the mandate to defend it against its withering, destruction or irresponsible neglect.
Bill 69 once again gives only municipalities and towns the responsibility for ensuring its conservation. This is a mistake that still leads us into the same dead end. The fundamental problem is that municipalities and towns, according to Bill 69, remain both judge and party. It is as if we asked the police to investigate itself, or even a judge who has already ruled to sit again on appeal.
Even more, municipalities and towns are in a clear conflict of interest vis-à-vis heritage: they have an interest in making a clean house to leave all the room for development pushed by developers, for a very simple reason, namely
to withdraw additional taxes and get rid of a financial burden.
According to popular perception, a good mayor is someone who does not increase taxes and who improves services.
Heritage conservation appears incompatible with this electoral interest.
Who speaks in the name of heritage to defend it as part of the public good linked to our identity rooted in time? The pride of a language is nourished by the quality and diversity of its expression, which are themselves strengthened and inspired by the richness of our built and natural environment. Our language will run empty if it loses its historical references. Buildings, buildings, sites speak; they speak the language of our secular continuity and of our confidence in what we have been and what we are on a daily basis.
Bill 69 does not create an independent institutional authority to intervene on behalf of heritage,
and defend it as a public good belonging to us all individually.
We ask you to intervene so that Bill 69 is fundamentally rewritten, so that it truly becomes the law 101 of our history and our roots. Left as is, this bill will perpetuate the same dynamic that has led to so many disasters. We could cite a hundred examples of our collective carelessness, older, such as the demolition by the City of Mascouche Repentigny mansion XVIII th century acquired it in 2015 in good condition and that it has abandoned to end up demolishing it last December, the 18th century house century of deputy Benjamin Beaupré in Saint-Sulpice that the municipality is willing to let demolished, until the town hall of Sept-Îles built in 1960 by the architect Guy Desbarats, a father of modernism, that the bill 69 immediately excludes its supposed protection because it post-1940.
We ask you to intervene after all these years of struggle and pleas, requests for protection from a multitude of groups from civil society, after years of senseless demolitions, witnesses of the inaction of successive governments. , while the many studies commissioned by public authorities are piling up on the shelves.
A robust and effective law on heritage is more than urgent to safeguard and enhance what remains after all these years of neglect. You should immediately entrust a working group bringing together experts, academics and members of organizations dedicated to the safeguarding of heritage, in partnership with the Minister of Culture and Communications, the task of developing the draft a bill on the basis of the principle which clearly recognizes the importance of heritage as a good of public interest, from which all of Quebec benefits. Above all, do not pass Bill 69 in its current form. It is an illusion to believe that he will stop the bleeding.
We ask you to intervene so that what we are is not diluted in the face of the combined forces of ignorance and the narrow profit generated by market forces, disdaining the essential contribution of heritage to the definition of what characterizes us as a society.
We ask you to intervene because we have spent our lives, as well as many other citizens, fighting so that Quebec can be proud of itself, appreciate what it is, value what it has been. , remains confident in its future, and that the presence of its heritage remains
one of the foundations of this deep conviction.
As Prime Minister, you have the responsibility to decide today what will become of us in the future, by leaving to future generations
the pride of their identity, which is closely linked to the vitality of our heritage.
Le Devoir Serge Joyal et Phyllis Lambert
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