History of Quebec: A Captivating Guide to the Largest Province in Canada and Its Impact on French History (Exploring the Great White North) by History Captivating

Author:History, Captivating
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2023-04-03T00:00:00+00:00

Populism in Montreal (1900–1950)

Through the development of Montreal’s industrial capitalist society, the proletarianization of Montreal’s working class resulted in urban populism. In the 1880s, working-class communities in Montreal’s East End, such as Hochelaga and Saint-Jean-Baptiste, were annexed by the city, adding the weight of Francophone laborers to Montreal’s proletariat. Francophone laborers became increasingly important in the politics of a city that saw rapid industrialization, monopolies, persistent strikes in the transportation sector, and serious public health crises.

Riots broke out after the smallpox epidemic of 1885 claimed 2,500 lives. In 1913, an eighteen-meter-long crack in the city’s water circuit cut off the water supply for four days. The 1918 influenza epidemic hit Quebec the worst of all the provinces. A reported 530,000 cases resulted in 14,000 deaths in the province. Montreal achieved the worst infant mortality rates in North America when an impure milk supply caused tuberculosis and diarrhea.

It can be argued that the most shocking disaster to hit the city was the Laurier Palace Theatre fire of 1927. During a Sunday showing of the children’s film Get ‘Em Young, a fire broke out at the one-thousand-seat Laurier Palace Theatre. Seventy-eight children died, almost all of them having asphyxiated in the theater’s four stairwells. An investigation showed that the theater was operating without a permit and that safety inspections had been shoddy at best. The theater’s exits had been blocked by heavy ropes and snowbanks. The law stated that parents were required to accompany children under seventeen for all viewings. Almost none of the children had been there with their parents, and none of the victims were over the age of sixteen.

Until 1914, Montreal’s mayors exclusively represented the city’s elite. This changed with the mayoral victories of Médéric Martin (mayor 1914–1924, 1926–1928) and Camillien Houde (mayor 1928–1932, 1934–1936, 1938–1940, 1944–1954), both of whom were able to garner strong working-class support through patrician leadership and by attacking the city’s powerful corporations.

In 1914, Médéric Martin ran against George Washington Stephens. Martin was a cigar maker from the working-class borough of Sainte-Marie. Stephens graduated from McGill University and was the dominant shareholder of the Canadian Rubber Company. He lived permanently at Montreal’s Ritz-Carlton Hotel. Although Stephens’s “City Beautiful” campaign had been supported by almost all of Montreal’s newspapers and the Trades and Labor Congress, he was defeated by Martin, who campaigned against “the millionaires and rich men pretending to be working in the public interest.” Instead of appealing to progressive ideas, Martin promised pavement, patronage, and the expansion of public works projects in working-class neighborhoods. These promises, along with his working-class image, kept Martin in office for a decade. The Laurier Palace Theatre fire and the influx in infant mortality rates that stemmed from poorly pasteurized milk led to his defeat by Camillien Houde.

Houde’s background was similar to Martin’s. Houde was born into a working-class neighborhood. He worked as a store clerk, a bank clerk, and eventually became a bank inspector. Throughout his campaign, Houde exploited the fears of the Montreal proletariat with a message

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