A translation by Judith Turcotte
In my last blog, I wrote on the difficulties of giving to the population, access to the St. Lawrence River in spite of the fact that we live in the middle of a group of 234 islands located at the confluence of the St. Lawrence and Ottawa rivers. This group of islands is known as the Hochelaga Archipelago. The Montréal and Laval islands are the most important and are inhabited by 2,556,040 people. Other islands are too small to be developed; however, the Boucherville Islands National Park is an excellent example of a development that gives access to the river.
The delay in developing other islands in this archipelago lies in the widespread assumption that access to the river must include a beach. Swimming, however, is conditional on having water that is not polluted, a situation that is not for tomorrow in the St. Lawrence River. Despite this reality, the politicians allowed themselves to promise and develop the beaches as a sign that their decontamination efforts were beginning to bear fruit. It’s just a smokescreen. There is still much to do in order to clean our St. Lawrence River and it is a long-term project. Access to the St. Lawrence should not be conditional on the development of a beach.
For now, I support the idea that our governments give us access to the river by developing some of the islands surrounding us. It is possible to appreciate the St. Lawrence River without jumping into it. One island that is being developed is the Sainte-Thérèse Island located in front of Varennes. Transforming an island into a nature park is not always easy. This island with its surface area of 5.4 km is the fifth-largest island in the Hochelaga Archipelago. The island was a popular holiday spot in the 1940s and 1950s to the point that people built themselves cottages without any right of ownership to the land. Some of these residents have been going to these cottages for more than seventy years. The presence of these squatters was a problem for the redevelopment of the island and it was a complicated problem. Many of these cottages had been built with the approval of the Congrégation du Très-Saint-Rédempteur who owned the island. The residents paid a yearly rent of $20 until 1975 when the government became the island’s owner. Some of the residents maintain that their right of ownership had been recognized when the city of Varennes charged them taxes beginning in the 1980s. The municipality stopped this practice in 2000. The city of Varennes recently advised these seasonal residents that their cottages will be demolished by 2028. There was a legal challenge that was settled out of court. (Abandon the property and be compensated with a few thousand dollars.) This dispute with the occupants lasted nearly ten years. Thank you to the concerned municipal politicians to have held up their end.
The island will be transformed into a metropolitan park with landscaped trails which will allow us to admire our river. For now, the cost is estimated at 40 million dollars. Meanwhile in the Boucherville Islands National Park… (in my next blog)