C’était le gros dossier de MTLINTL. Félicitations à eux d’avoir mis la main là-dessus. Il y a beaucoup de jaloux à l’international et même à Toronto…
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Triste nouvelle. 
Le restaurateur Éric Luksenberg, qui était présent dans le paysage du Vieux-Montréal depuis des décennies (en tant que propriétaire des restaurants Chez Éric et Homard Fou) et qui avait choisi de quitter la métropole pour Brossard à l’automne 2021, est malheureusement décédé la nuit dernière.
Il était hospitalisé depuis plusieurs semaines, à la suite de l’explosion de son bateau en Floride.
R.I.P.
I wouldn’t say people in Toronto are jealous, considering they get more investments and bigger companies moving there than we do (and it’s much easier as well). We have the advantage for more international orgs and that’s mainly due to a strong history and relatively recent policies.
With that said though, the publicity from Bill 96 has unfortunately led to fewer companies wanting to move here or open up shop. I know there was a record amount of FDI last year, but it also includes delayed projects from 2020. We have to keep this in mind and there is legitimate fears and concerns in the business community about this, even though some are silent/play it off.
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I think it was a reference to the ISSB coming to Montreal. Sadly, if you only heard what I heard coming from Toronto at my firm, you’d agree. Apparently they were really trying to get it, and the consensus seems to be that they chose Montreal because we’re cheap and speak french (spoiler: it has nothing to do with language.)
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A lot of North American cities put in bids, we got lucky cause the government propped up all Canadian cities, vs the U.S where the enthusiasm wasn’t there at all. The main competition was MTL, Vienna and Frankfurt and it was supposed to be only one office/HQ. Toronto put in a bid but they (from my sources) were not highly considered. MTL was not the first choice either, until they decided to open multiple hubs, with MTL being the N.A HQ. Having 65 international orgs offices (66 now) was a huge plus but also because how sustainable Quebec is as a province were major factors into us being selected.
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Obviously I didn’t believe whatever my Toronto colleagues told me… What can you do, when the GTA doesn’t have something it must not have been worth it 
is that why we have more companies moving here? I dont think they care as much as you think. (and they probably also actually read the law and realise it dosent apply to them at all lol).
It applies to them yes, and this comes from me reading and analysing the law + having sources in the industry. The publicity will affect us in the short term (hence why it’s been very slow in 2022 and even late 2021).
Si vous pensez que les lois pour protéger le français au Québec nuisent à son économie. Je vous invite à lire Mario Polese. Il explique très bien pourquoi la relance de Montréal tire sa source à la loi 101. Et il le démontre très bien, en anglais, dans The Wealth and Poverty of Cities. Soyez rassuré, la protection de notre langue est une bonne chose pour notre économie.
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Cette loi a notamment permis la naissance d’une petite bourgeoisie francophone et des acteurs du Québec Inc. qu’on connait aujourd’hui. Outre ses bienfaits d’un point de vue démographique, en permettant au français de ralentir son déclin, les effets économiques positifs sont non-négligeables.
Et il reste encore du travail à faire. Je niaisais mes collègues Torontois dans mes derniers posts, mais je dois encore me battre souvent pour que des trucs soient fournis en français dans ma propre firme.
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Moi la loi 101 j’ai pas de problème. Mais je suis d’accord que le projet de loi 96 apporte beaucoup de négativité dans le sens où Legault utilise cet enjeu à des fins purement électoralistes et ça détériore le climat. Les entreprises sont forcément inquiètes des contraintes additionnelles. Par exemple quand on parle d’obliger les commerces à avoir un nom en Français plus gros que celui en Anglais. Comment des Burger King vont se conformer à cela ? Est-ce que c’est cela qui va sauver le français ? On peut être fier de sa langue sans omettre qu’il y a aussi des inconvénients qui viennent avec ces débats là. Et le souligner ne veut pas dire que l’on crache sur le français. Pas beaucoup de nuances dans ce débat que je trouve très malsain.
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Well, it took Montreal 40 years to recover. Things like the Picard report, innovation clusters, the creation of Montreal International and government funding (both levels) to help attract international organisations are the reason why Montreal is where it is today. Add that we’re 30+ year behind on development meant that the boom had us fast-tracked and is now plateauing. Bill 101 had nothing to do with our recovery, hence why it took nearly 40 years to recover.
The Bill 96 stuff I told you about is what people from the Montreal business community told me and I am also connected to companies in the U.S, mainly in tech. They’re pausing investments here until they see what happens if this draconian law passes.
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40 years to recover from what exactly though? A lot happened in 40 years and despite the desire people have to pin point a single legal event where the economy changed forever (positively or negatively), I’m pretty sure it was a complicated mix of things that involved global forces present elsewhere in north america as well. There were 2 events in particular where the city was on the brink of completely leaving Canada which seem more significant historically than a law that outlines the linguistic rights of the majority of the population of the city and province that make up it’s economy…Montréal experienced deindustrialization like the rest of the east coast metropolises, and Toronto at that point was already on the brink of being the larger city and economy anyway. Montreal also did not really decline in the sense of population loss, it experienced de-densification of its core where the number of individuals per housing unit plummeted, but the metropolitan region continued growing. A decline in prominence in Canada? That’s definitely true. But I’d argue Boston, Philadelphia and the American east coast cities outside of New York are all experiencing a decline in prominence in their own country because of the rise in importance in newer cities further west.
Canada’s largest economy being in the province that isn’t linguistically the majority in the country was never going to last imo. It was always meant to be Toronto and Montreal has taken a good position as second largest.
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Again, everything I said comes from decades of me studying this very topic. Montreal was late to the game to recover from deindustrialization, Bill 101, PQ election, succession also led to the delays of real estate projects and proper economic development. This was outlined in all reports I mentioned and the boom we witnessed was because of that backlog from political and social instability. That’s all I’ll say because this thread is about the economy and updates. But everything I’ve said has been backed by studies, reports and is what the governments and business partners have stated.
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That argument that the protection of the french language, and by association, the ascension of the french-canadians in the economy, is responsible for the “decline” of Montreal is such a debunked idea (and with anti-french overtone, yes I know where this narrative comes from and its not pretty).
First: Montreal was a mercantile hub for the British Empire, remember these two terms: Mercantile and British Empire. Montreal prominensce was linked to protectionnism within the Brit Emp and its prosperity.
Second: After WW2, these two elements were simply gone and Toronto had american investments while Montreal was stuck with an old racist british oriented economic elite. Toronto was in the middle of the American economic lung at the time, Montreal lost its economic connections.
Afterwards, the Toronto stock market had already surpass Montreal’s before any separatist party was created or bill 101.
In other words, the stance to which you seem to adhere (protection of french is bad for business) is false. This narrative surfaced in the 80s around the first referendum when a huge increase in anti-french sentiment was happening and suddenly, Quebec and Montreal are poor because they lost the divine guiding hand of english and thought their inferior language and culture was worth protecting at the cost of their economy.
You should change your discourse for a more informed one.
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I mean, if anything, fear of unionization drove companies away a lot more than language protection in my view.
For a time in the 80s we had a much stricter labour market than our neighbours.
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C’est une discussion très intéressante, surtout pour des passionnés d’histoire, mais on commence à disgresser et c’est un sujet où les opinions ne changeront pas vraiment.
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To get back on topic
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