Sunday, May 25, 2003
"You're another one!" Nicole Fowler exclaimed when I revealed my Western
Canadian roots. "Since I moved to Montreal, I think I've met more people
from Calgary than I have in the rest of my life."
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CREDIT: PIERRE OBENDRAUF, THE GAZETTE |
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Red Deer, Alta.,
native Stephan Hardy at a fruit store on Sherbrooke St. W., near the
N.D.G. office of Maisonneuve magazine: "I find it quite fascinating
to be a minority speaker for a change." |
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Fowler, 33, is part of a new batch of younger people on the move - to
Montreal instead of away from it.
Although it may be tepid for now, it is not all that surprising a
trend.
My own life in Calgary was populated by people from Montreal. My dad
lived here for almost a decade before leaving in the late '70s. Our
across-the-street neighbours in Calgary were ex-pat NDGers and my best
friend's mother was Hong Kong-born and Hampstead-raised. Friends came from
Montreal when Canadian Pacific jumped ship and relocated to the prairie
town it built a century before. My mom's boss was from Outremont.
Fed up with language politics and a stagnant economy during the 1980s
and '90s, thousands of people scurried down the 401 or schlepped
themselves west to Calgary or Vancouver.
But, slowly, people are moving here. Between 1996 and 2001, the
pre-merger city actually gained 23,158 people (including those from beyond
Canada's borders) its first significant increase for at least 10 years.
And, according to recently released data from Statistics Canada, 365 more
Canadians from other provinces moved to Quebec between October and
December 2002 than moved away - the first net gain in three decades.
---
Before moving from Calgary to Montreal last year, the path appeared
well-worn. It seemed everyone I encountered had a brother or six friends
or an old roommate who had moved to Montreal. The trend was evident upon
arrival, too; a quick survey of people I've met reveals a lot of eastward
pioneers who are bucking the trends established late in the last century.
In fact, there are a lot of new people in Montreal who come from a
variety of Canadian cities, even big, booming Toronto. What makes this
somewhat perplexing is that, according to the National Post, the
Calgary-Edmonton corridor is the second-wealthiest region in the world.
Cities like Toronto and Vancouver certainly aren't hurting when it comes
to job prospects.
So why come here?
It probably isn't the economy, stupid - at least not entirely. Montreal
has a lot to offer that other cities don't, and people across Canada have
tuned into the benefits of la belle ville.
---
Fowler was born in Calgary but lived there for only six months before
her family started an inexorable move eastward, job transfer to job
transfer. She first arrived in Montreal at age 5. Half a decade later, her
family packed their bags once again and moved to Toronto, where she spent
most of the next 20 years.
After attending university and working in publishing and advertising,
Fowler grew tired of Toronto. Two years ago, eager to escape a basement
apartment and reconnect with her past, she decided it was time to head up
the highway. It was "the pull of language" - Montreal's bilingualism and
multiculturalism - that brought her here, where she has regained her
fluency in French.
Stephan Hardy, 26, found himself in a similar situation. A native of
Red Deer, Alta., Hardy moved south to study at the University of Calgary
and later worked at an ad agency.
Despite his love for Calgary, he eventually found himself restless.
While living for a summer in Toronto, Hardy began to visit Montreal on
weekends. He fell in love.
In the winter of 2001, he decided to quit his job, pack up his life and
move to Montreal. After spending a few months resting and exploring his
new home, Hardy signed on as the business manager of Maisonneuve, an
exciting little English-language magazine with ambitions to become
Montreal's New Yorker.
Like Fowler, language played a big part in the unilingual Hardy's move.
"I find it quite fascinating to be a minority speaker for a change," he
says. Being immersed in a city with layer upon layer of culture and
language is a stark contrast to relatively monocultural Calgary.
Hardy was also attracted by a more intangible aspect of Montreal's
character: here, he feels, people appreciate their surroundings.
"I think it's remarkable that a city of this size can shut down major
streets for festivals and people don't just tolerate it, they encourage
it," he says. "I just don't see that happening to the same extent anywhere
else in Canada."
In his view, the old "work to live, not live to work" maxim holds true
for Montreal. Hardy sees a big difference in attitude between Montrealers
and Torontonians: "The general attitude is just different. It's more
callous (in Toronto), a little more cutthroat."
Fowler also thinks Montrealers, unlike Torontonians, are more apt to
value their leisure time; she loves how work is rarely discussed outside
office hours.
Of course, not everyone has the nerve to leave a career, friends and
family like Hardy or Fowler. Sometimes the decision to stay is just as
important as the decision to come. Like a sort of benign Venus flytrap,
Montreal's universities pull thousands of unsuspecting students into
Montreal.
Once fully ensconced in the heaven that is the undergraduate's
Montreal, the city's charms become so intoxicating some find it hard to
leave. Matthew Hays, associate editor of the cultural weekly Montreal
Mirror, is one. "It's hard not to fall in love with Montreal," he says
with a smile.
Hays, 38, grew up in Edmonton, but left as a teenager to study film at
Concordia.
In 1991, he graduated in the midst of a nationwide recession and, to
his chagrin, was compelled to return home to Edmonton. Despite being the
"leftist bastion" of Alberta, Hays says he feels out of sorts in his
hometown.
"People have a limited view of what you can do with your life," he
notes. When they learned of his studies in film, some of his friends'
reactions were downright hostile.
"They said, 'What the hell are you going to do with that?' " Hays
recalls. One year after his return to Alberta, he managed to come back to
Montreal. He has lived here ever since.
Michael McKenna's situation is similar. Born in Toronto and raised in
Halifax, he came to Montreal in 1995 to study English literature at
McGill. He later lived for a year in London, but found himself
uncomfortable in his new role as expatriate. McKenna, 24, who now writes
and studies journalism at Concordia, came back to Montreal and discovered
that, of all the places he had lived, this was where he felt at home.
"Montreal is the spiritual centre of Canada," he says, wryly. "When I
moved here it just tied together all these different aspects of my
Canadian childhood."
This was Canada's metropolis for most of its history, McKenna notes,
and many, if not most, of Canada's foundations were laid by Montreal
institutions.
According to McKenna, the interplay and tension between two cultures is
one of the key factors that distinguish it from other Canadian cities.
"There's two ways of getting (cultural) tension," he says. "You can
either be an imperial power like London or New York, where it comes by
nature, or you can have a duality of cultures, like Montreal."
Hays agrees: he's fascinated by the tension between different cultural
and linguistic groups in Montreal. "A lot of people don't like it and I
think that's why they moved away," he says, but for him, it is one of the
most unique and appealing parts of Montreal's character.
Culture is one of Montreal's biggest draws. Jaime Frederick, the arts
and entertainment editor of Fast Forward, a Calgary alternative weekly,
points out that Quebec offers many incentives for the more creatively
minded, with plenty of grants offered by organizations like the Conseil
des arts et des lettres. While Calgary has a vibrant cultural scene, the
Alberta government "is just not committed to arts funding."
In fact, several prominent members of Calgary's arts scene have left
for Montreal in the past year alone, including filmmakers Paul Spence,
Dave Lawrence and Michael Dowse, the creators of last year's cult hit
FUBAR.
---
You can talk about culture all you want, but it doesn't change the fact
that the economy does bear some importance - and Montreal's economy is
still lacklustre compared with those of Calgary and Toronto. In one year
alone, Hays lost five close friends to New York and Toronto.
But the local economy is improving, and Montrealers may be more
ambitious than their reputations suggest.
Fowler, who works with new media, thinks Montrealers have a very
creative, even entrepreneurial spirit. Thanks in part to Québécois
cultural insularity, people in Montreal care less about how they are
perceived by outsiders. Montreal is not a "wannabe city," says Fowler, and
this attitude allows for more experimentation, both in terms of art and
the workplace.
As for Hardy, he thinks Quebec and Alberta are the two most exciting
places in Canada, brimming with potential and energy.
Still, Montreal's complex and dynamic atmosphere give it that extra
oomph cities like Calgary lack. Frederick concedes that Calgary suffers
from a suburban, corporate-minded populace.
"Many corporate Calgarians live in the suburbs while much of the
cultural life of the city happens downtown and in the inner city," he
notes. "It's a huge challenge for many arts groups to keep their audiences
downtown after work."
That's what sets Montreal apart. Though he holds no grudge against
Calgary, Hardy doesn't think a magazine like Maisonneuve could flourish
there.
"I love Calgary, but I don't think people elsewhere look to it as this
beacon of multiculturalism or interesting urban dynamism," he says.
It's that dynamism that makes Montreal such a magnet for creative young
Canadians. It also helps that Montrealers are keen supporters of the
culture that gives this place is creative zest, which makes for an
irresistible magnet of a city.