Thank you, Mr. Moore, for the invitation.
Honourable members of Parliament,
my presentation will be done in French. I will do a very short introduction in English. but I will switch to French for the rest of my presentation.
Last summer, Pointe-à-Callière, with the support of the City of Montreal and the Quebec government, conducted a major archaeological excavation in Old Montreal on the site of the Ste. Anne market, the Parliament of United Canada, 1832-1849. By doing these digs, not only did we excavate an important site and its physical remains, but we also brought to life a capital page in the history of Canada, a page that was--a little surprisingly--known by only a very few people, in Montreal of course, in Quebec, and in Canada.
Now our desire is to make sure that this site will not be forgotten again.
Pointe-à-Callière is an archaeology and history museum which opened in 1992 on the occassion of Montreal's 350th anniversary. It is a commemorative museum built on the city's foundation site.
The museum forms a complex that regroups five historic sites recognized by the Historic Sites and Monuments Board of Canada to be of national importance. It's Canada's only prominent archaeology museum.
Pointe-à-Callière welcomes between 350 000 and 400 000 visitors per year. It has a positive media image. It has won 80 awards of excellence, a dozen of which are international. Despite its relative newness, it already has public recognition.
The museum also has a fair bit of experience organizing commemorative events.
I will give you the example of the Great Peace of Montreal, which we celebrated in 2001. It was the 300th anniversary of the signature of a peace treaty between the French and their Indian allies. For that event, we had 2.5 million visitors that summer in Montreal. Among them, we also had the event of the young ambassadors. That included a twinning of Montreal schools with Cree schools up north. They were invited to Montreal for a weekend in the celebration. So we have had experience in commemorative organizations and events.
I am here to present to you a major project undertaken by Pointe-à-Callière in Old Montreal, namely the creation of the Cité de l'archéologie et de l'histoire, a vast complex that will bring together about ten historic and heritage sites.
The first phase of this project is already under construction with the development of the Maison-des-Marins, a location for new public spaces, exhibitions and educational spaces. It will be ready in 2012.
What interests us is the second phase, to be completed between now and 2017. It is rooted in Montreal's 375th anniversary and the 150th anniversary of Confederation.
One of the major components of this project is the site of the Parliament of the United Province of Canada. It is a large archaeological site of national importance, where the foundations of a building over 100 metres long are still intact, and where bountiful occupation layers permit us to recreate the site's history.
The building was built in 1832 to house a market. It was converted into the Parliament in 1844, when Montreal became the capital of Canada, the Province of Canada, or the United Province of Canada. It became the first site of Canada's permanent Parliament. The building possessed the rather unique attribute of being built above a canalized rock-routed river, which was an integral part of the monument. All of that is still intact underneath the surface. The Parliament is located in Old Montreal, at Youville Square, in front of the Canada Border Services Agency. Some of you perhaps already know of this building, because it's where ministers stay when in Montreal.
The City of Montreal invested close to 1.5 million dollars to complete the first phase of the archeological digs last summer. Right now, we're completing the closing of the site in preparation for the winter. The goal was to establish the importance and integrity of the site, and to better understand its potential and value. The results of this work have exceeded our expectations. Tens of thousands of artefacts have been excavated, and the building's foundations found intact and in a well-preserved state at a depth of about five metres.
These archaeological digs have aroused interest from thousands of visitors and have generated at least 250 very positive reports across Canada, namely in Radio-Canada's program Découverte.
In the folder that was handed out to you, you will find a sampling of the reports that were broadcast throughout the summer. I'll admit to you that we didn't have to put in too much effort. There was an extremely surprising amount of traffic from journalists all summer long, which we were obviously thrilled about. We were frankly surprised by the attention.
The project even raised interest on Parliament Hill in Ottawa, as it related to law archives preserved in the Senate. To make a long story short, to our knowledge, a single law, dated April 1849, escaped the fire that destroyed the building the evening of April 25, 1849. That document, that law, can presently be found in the Senate archives. I had the chance to go see it for myself.
Up until now, in layers of debris from the fire, archeologists have found a few pieces of paper documents in a state that is unfortunately very fragmented. The underground vault that held the official documents has yet to be found and excavated, which gives us hope for the future. Thousands of other less-perishable objects have been collected; they document and evoke aspects of parliamentary life and Canadian society from that era. Some objects are quite touching, even.
I brought with me a bit of a scoop—an interesting artefact that was found on the site. We can perhaps examine it during question period. I'll nevertheless give you a sneak peek. These are eyeglasses which were found in the debris of the fire. When the fire broke out, ministers were still in parliament that night. There was a quick evacuation. How is it that these particular eyeglasses were found in the debris, and how did they manage to be found intact?
Being an archaeologist myself, I know that in our profession we like to tell stories. You can easily imagine these glasses belonged to an MP who had to leave the building during all the commotion. We could tell a bunch of other stories too. Yet some stories are true and documented.
As you know, we will celebrate the 150th anniversary of Confederation in 2017 as well as the 375th anniversary of Montreal. These are significant circumstances. Since the Pointe-à-Callière Museum opened on Montreal's 350th anniversary, we will also be celebrating our 25th anniversary. So, what does the 2017 project entail?
It is a part of a major archaeological and historic complex that comprises three distinct sites, including the parliamentary site and the stone canal of the little river, which is a genuine jewel of civil engineering. It dates from the first half of the XIXth century. You can physically enter the sewer main and walk through it. The stone vault is extraordinary. In all of North America, it's probably the oldest subterranean stone canal. Canadians can really be proud of this. Given that it's not open to the public, it isn't very well known; but our goal is to make it accessible to all. Finally, there will be a new exhibition hall underneath the building that houses the Canadian government's customs agency. We are already in talks with people from Public Works Canada regarding the use of the site.
What is the importance of the Montreal Parliament site? It's a major symbol in Canadian history. In 1848, it was there where the responsible government law was voted upon. Louis-Hippolyte La Fontaine and Robert Baldwin were in power. That law was sanctioned by the Governor General of that era, Lord Elgin. Other important laws were also voted upon there. We should also mention that the Fathers of Confederation sat at the Montreal Parliament, namely John A. Macdonald, George-Étienne Cartier, and Alexander Galt.
The project intended for 2017 is one of togetherness. It has the capacity to touch all Canadians. It is also one of identity, because it addresses the sensitive issue that is the agreement between peoples. We have a lot to learn from that period of history. It also underlines, in a tangible way, a founding element of Canadian democracy. This project embodies Canadian values that are important to share and transmit to current and future generations. Those values are ones of democracy, respect, and freedom. We are convinced that because of its importance and renown, the site of the Montreal Parliament will also become a major tourist site.
In conclusion, we recommend that this project become Canada's heritage legacy on the occasion of the 150th anniversary of Confederation. The fact that it coincides with the 375th anniversary of Montreal enables us to join two important commemorations. Very few cities have the privilege of knowing their founding site, of having preserved the physical traces of every era of their history, and, above all, of having the ability to render it accessible to the Canadian population.
We have the exceptional opportunity to access a strongly symbolic and unifying space that is still intact under the surface and that, though unknown until recently, has already inspired great interest from the media and public alike. We need your support to ensure that this site does not once again sink into oblivion. Given that we're discussing loss and memory, I'd like to tell you a little story.
Last year, when we announced the project for the archaeological dig of the Montreal Parliament site, a collector came to us and offered us an extraordinary object.
I'll do my best to explain the reality of this emotional moment. This object was the coat of arms of Great Britain, which supposedly came from the Parliament that was in Montreal in the 19th century. This collector bought the object in an antique fair in New York state about 15 or 20 years ago.
When he bought it, he thought the object was interesting. The seller told him that it came from the Parliament in Montreal. The man didn't believe this story, but he found the object interesting, so he bought it and put it in the living room of his apartment in New York. When he read the article in The Globe and Mail last year, he realized that maybe the story was true. He came to us with the object and offered the coat of arms to Pointe-à-Callière. He asked us to do the research to check if the story could be true.
As you will see in the documents that we gave you today, I was very surprised and amazed that this object was, in fact, in the room of assembly, which is the equivalent of today's Chambre des communes. It was above the seat of the president of the assembly. Nobody knew that this object had been removed from the Parliament. We thought that except for the 20,000 books that were burned in the fire, only the portrait of Queen Victoria—which is now at the Senate in the Parliament here in Ottawa—had survived the huge fire.
We now have new information that there is this object. You have a picture in the documents we have provided. It's quite a big object and needs to be restored. It suffered from the event of the 19th century and the strange subterranean life that it had after it left the Parliament. Now it's brought back into the light again. The image of this project is that it's a very strong and emotional project for people.
I thank you for your attention.