On the occasion of the April 2025 federal election, Héritage Montréal candidates and political parties that the future government of Canada will have responsibilities to fulfill, challenges to overcome, and opportunities to seize in terms of heritage and development that affect Montreal and its metropolitan area. Too often, this heritage and the built environment are mentioned out of sympathy or serve as a backdrop for announcements, without any concrete proposals or commitments.
Remember that the master plan for the Old Port promised for 2017 has not been carried out and its budgets have been withdrawn. Or that Parks Canada authorized the builders of the REM to span the Lachine Canal National Historic Site, with no requirements as to the architectural quality of this federally-funded structure, with deplorable results. Or that a federal judicial complex is under construction in the heart of Old Montreal, a protected heritage site, after lengthy planning without any public consultation.
In Canada, heritage protection is achieved primarily through legislation on culture and development, two areas in which the federal government is generally absent, apart from relations with aboriginal peoples, support for the arts, communications or the funding of certain infrastructures. In fact, it was only in March 2025 that "culture" appeared in the title of a federal minister! The federal government is nonetheless a player with obligations, as we face major protection and enhancement challenges. Particularly in Montreal and the metropolitan region, where there is an exceptional concentration - the largest in the country - of heritage buildings, ensembles, sites and landscapes.
Canada has ratified the UNESCO World Heritage Convention, which gives international recognition to Old Quebec and its fortifications dating back to the French Regime, and to the Rideau Canal, a work of the British Empire. This convention calls on signatory countries to adopt policies, legal frameworks and funding mechanisms, and to support training and scientific research to safeguard and promote heritage on their territory. While the federal government cannot be the main protector of heritage, a responsibility that falls primarily to the provinces and municipalities, it cannot shirk its duty to help and set an example.
Although the federal government has had a policy on buildings of heritage interest since 1982, Canada remains the only G7 country without heritage legislation. A bill on historic places (C-23) was tabled in the Commons in June 2022, but after a few sympathetic speeches from the parties, it languished in parliamentary procedure before dying an indifferent death in January with prorogation, for lack of real political will.
Since 2004, the Office of the Auditor General of Canada has published several reports on the state of historic sites and heritage buildings, particularly those owned by the federal government or its Parks Canada agency, highlighting their often precarious state of conservation. The federal government has broader obligations that it is neglecting, particularly in terms of recognizing and supporting the players whose work enables Canada to meet its international commitments by developing in line with current values of identity, diversity, reconciliation and socio-economic transition.
Over the years,Héritage Montréal General AssemblyHéritage Montréal addressed the federal government. While its resolution on replacing the Champlain Bridge led to exemplary collaboration (we would have liked to see REM officials take inspiration from this), the resolution on the Old Port and its commercial encroachment has gone unheeded. As for the resolution on federal government action in Old Montreal, it led to a rather fruitless meeting on the judicial complex project, for which decisions had already been made.
In light of this observation, Héritage Montréal candidates and parties running in the 2025 federal election that heritage is a real issue that the next government will have to address seriously, both for reasons of identity and to respond to social, environmental, and economic challenges.
Here are three areas where federal government action is urgently needed to :
- Preserve, requalify and develop its heritage properties and those of its organizations; for example, the Old Port, Silo 5 and Pointe-du-Moulin, the former NFB headquarters, the former Saint-Vincent-de-Paul penitentiary, port facilities, historic canals, federal bridges, barracks and other defence sites;
- Introduce tax incentives and reform the national building code to support the maintenance, rehabilitation and requalification of heritage buildings and ensembles, and even existing buildings as a whole, in response to the needs of housing, the eco-energy transition and economic development;
- Adopt rules for its real estate and infrastructure projects, or those benefiting from its funding, that include heritage impact assessments and credible consultation with Montreal heritage organizations.
Finally, we reiterate our request that the federal government support the international recognition of Mount Royal by inscribing its civic and institutional ensemble on Canada's Tentative List of World Heritage Sites.
Because of the link between nature and culture it embodies in an urban environment, Mount Royal would considerably enrich UNESCO's World Heritage List by complementing the natural, aboriginal and colonial sites currently recognized in Canada. Protected by the gouvernement du Québec since 2005 and extending well beyond the large park inaugurated in 1876, it includes sites associated with aboriginal presence, collective conservation efforts and salutary, social, sacred or scientific dimensions.
Federal heritage recognition of Habitat 67, a building of international renown that Quebec and Montreal authorities are protecting in the face of inexplicable indifference on the part of the Canadian government, is also in order.
