Jonathan Brun

Why do we remember Rome, Constantinople, Athens or other ancient cities? Culture, Art, History. No one remembers a place or an individual for their economic wealth. The few wealthy people we remember are those that gave their fortunes to charity – Rockefeller, Carney – and even then their memory fades after a couple hundred years. The people and things we remember are transmissible, they are writers, singers, playwrights, painters and sculptors. People who create.

Montréal creates. We have more world renowned artists than any other Canadian place, by far. Not only do we thrive in the arts, we also produce festivals and concerts that are known around the world. I agree we can’t spend all of our time partying, but we do build jets, amazing technology companies, trains and conduct world class research at our universities.

In addition to being a great center for the arts and sciences, Montréal is home to some of the strongest social justice activists on the continent. We have $7 a day daycare, decent free medical services, affordable housing and high social mobility. All of those services and the other ones we often don’t realize we have, cost money – they inevitably take away resources from bankers, real estate developers and other corporations who might otherwise make larger profits. Most of my anglophone educated Jewish family left in the 80s, they preferred to move away than learn a new language or change their way of being. Québec made a societal choice: we place social justice over corporate profits.

Don’t get be wrong, Montréal is far from perfect. We have corruption, infrastructure issues and a sluggish economy – but those are all more common in other cities than people care to admit. It is easy to reduce unemployment, just cut the minimum wage and abuse workers like they do in America or Germany, or destroy the environment by digging up oil and gas, like they do in Alberta and Norway. So yes, we have problems, but so does everyone else – they are just different problems.

I am born and raised in Montréal, I have traveled to many countries – both rich and poor, hot and cold – we have much to be proud of. I remain convinced that in 500 years we will be remembered. We will be remembered for a place where two languages and two religions mix peacefully, a place that fed Richler, Charlebois, Tremblay, that studied at world class universities and whose people fought for free education, free medicare and affordable housing, who built jets, trains and amazing technology companies. Yet, it is clear Montréal will not be fixed without Montréalers. We must work together to bring the city to a new level of prosperity and equality, we need every citizen’s help. What will you do?

Bibliography

This piece above is a rebuttal to this one:

http://www.ixdaily.com/grind/4685146e388222f3c65ba1eca674e86555a65395/#.Utf_G_tBNJw

Also see support for our gray lady here:

http://www.lactualite.com/actualites/politique/le-peuple-quebecois-peut-marcher-la-tete-haute/

http://ca.askmen.com/fine_living/travel/montreal-is-awesome.html