Canadian Heritage of Quebec has properties from Montreal to Percé. Getting to Percé from Montreal is a 12-hour drive non-stop. Percé is at the far end of Quebec. The challenges vary. In some cases, the situation is easier in the regions because the craftsmen are there and are very knowledgeable. It is possible to work with people who are professionals, but who do not work for large firms, where resources and professional advice are much more expensive.
However, remoteness is an issue. We have restoration projects in Percé. I'm going to go there next week for a work weekend. If I stop twice for 15 minutes and once for 30 minutes, the trip will take me 13 hours. In addition, when the people doing the work call us and tell us they have a problem, we have to visualize it on the phone in order to give them the appropriate instructions. I cannot be on the ground.
We also have to train and supervise the craftsmen. We work with an architect on contract. We have a site meeting—in this case, in Percé—and we explain, with a plan or drawings, how to build a roof with cedar shingles or eaves, for example. It could happen, as it did recently, that, after several days, the person calls me back to tell me that, in the end, they did not understand my sketch. That is the sort of challenge we have to deal with.
Furthermore, we received a grant to restore a mill in the Éboulements region near Baie-Saint-Paul. It's a five-hour drive from Montreal. Since it was a grant, the contractor we chose was the lowest bidder. They had no training in heritage. We had to train them. One day, after a week or two of work, we went to the construction site and realized that they had not done the job properly. Their instincts about the way of doing things were contemporary, not geared toward heritage.
Remoteness is a challenge, but working in urban areas is much more expensive than in the regions, where the availability of craftsmen is a major factor. However, the building standards are the same across Quebec.