Mount Royal, Quebec
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Mount Royal is a town located on the northwest side of Mount Royal, north of downtown Montreal, on the Island of Montreal in southwestern Quebec, Canada. pop. 18,671 (Statistics Canada, 1996).
The community is commonly referred to as the Town of Mount Royal (in French, Ville Mont-Royal), or by the abbreviation TMR (VMR in French).
History
The town was founded in 1912. It was created by the initiative of the Canadian Northern Railway. Its plan was to build a new town (or "model city" as it was called) at the foot of the mountain. The company bought 4,800 acres (19 km²) of farmland, and then built a rail tunnel under Mount Royal connecting their land to downtown Montreal. The profits from the venture helped finance the development of Canadian Northern's transcontinental railroad, which eventually became a significant constituent of the Canadian National Railway system. The town was designed by Canadian Northern's chief engineer, Henry Wicksteed, based loosely on Washington, DC.
Mount Royal has always been an upper-class community, and until the 1960s its population was almost exclusively anglophone and largely of English or Scottish ancestry. This began to change after Quiet Revolution, as francophones gained access to the well-paying careers. Mount Royal became popular with these "nouveau riche", and today the community is 46% francophone.
The town was merged with the city of Montreal on January 1, 2002. In June 2004 the residents of the town voted to demerge from Montreal following the 2002 municipal reorganization. Mount Royal was re-established as a town on January 1, 2006.
In June 2006, the town painted over the English-language designations on their bilingual street signs after repeated requests from the Quebec French-language office, a provincial agency. The media reported that it was not clear whether the signs were, in fact, illegal. Many residents complained and the town agreed to reinstate the English lettering on the signs.
Geography
Two main thoroughfares, Laird Boulevard and Graham Boulevard, cut across the borough diagonally and meet at Connaught Park, a green space located in the centre. Mount Royal Train Station (Gare Mont-Royal) is located adjacent to this park, a commuter train station on the AMT Deux-Montagnes Line. Trains going through the Mount Royal Tunnel link the station to downtown Montreal in 9 minutes.
Mount Royal is surrounded on three sides by a highway, a rail line and a fence.
The highway is Metropolitan Boulevard, a major constituent of Autoroute 40. It was built as an elevated highway throughout, except when it passes through Mount Royal (between Sainte Croix Avenue and l'Acadie Boulevard), since the town council requested that it be built on the ground, in order to separate the town from the industrial area to the north.
The rail line is the last portion of Canadian Pacific's Adirondack subdivision. It originally ran through the northern part of the district of Côte des Neiges. However when the town became part of the City of Montreal in 2002, the part of Côte des Neiges north of rail line was incorporated into the Mount Royal borough.
The fence is erected on the eastern border with Park Extension along l'Acadie Boulevard. The stated purpose of the fence is to prevent children and house pets from running into the busy thoroughfare, but many contend that it was built to keep residents of the working-class Park Extension neighbourhood out of the town. This fence originally had several gates built into it, which the became a subject of controversy when they were locked one year at Halloween, preventing children from Park Extension from trick-or-treating in the town. The town council responded by removing the gates so that the fence could be crossed at any time at any of the six crosswalks along the 1.2 km boulevard.
Government
Municipal
The current borough mayor is Vera Danyluk.
The borough is divided into two districts, each of which elect one councillor who, with the borough mayor, form the borough council. Only the borough mayor sits on city council.
The current borough councillors are Cliff Carrie and Nicholas Stephens.
2005 Municipal Elections
The 2005 election, which took place on November 6, involved a three-way race for mayor between incumbent borough mayor Suzanne Caron, former mayor Vera Danyluk, and Brigitte Mack-Arsenault, president of a municipal watchdog association. The election also involved municipal political parties for the first time. Both Danyluk and Mack-Arsenault formed parties, and Caron, although officially running as an independent, affiliated herself with a group of independent candidates for town council.
Danyluk won the election.
Federal and Provincial
The entire borough is located within the federal riding of Mount Royal, and within the smaller provincial electoral district of Mount Royal.
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