The working hum of the silos faded long ago and the bustle of “The Vic” gave way to silence after 122 years of service when it merged with the city’s superhospital at a new site in 2015. All that these structures house now is empty space, something a new local organization called Entremise is fighting hard to reverse.

Entremise was started after its founders struggled to answer why, when there are so many people and projects needing space, any building should sit idle. With funding from and in partnership with the city, the Maison de l’innovation sociale (MIS) and the McConnell Foundation, the non-profit has as its first pilot project transformed a formerly vacant public industrial building in the city’s Griffintown area into a 5,000 square foot co-working space and incubator for a diverse group of tenants (think startups, artists, creative industry companies and other non-profits). Demonstrating what can be achieved with some new paint and fresh thinking, the Young Project has clearly taken the late urbanist Jane Jacobs’ axiom that “new ideas need old buildings” and placed it at the core of its vision.

The Young Project is not designed to last, but the concept behind it is. Before Entremise’s involvement, the city already had cemented plans to demolish the building to make way for social housing. But now, instead of leaving it mothballed during the months and possibly years it will take for that to be realized, Entremise is filling a much-needed societal gap by matchmaking deserving and innovative tenants with affordable, flexible and temporary space. The term for this “in-between” use of buildings is called transitional urbanism, and the Young Project represents this promising idea in action by demonstrating that you can regenerate and requalify urban space in a totally different way. It is a model that Entremise hopes will serve as a paradigm shift in the way we think about urban planning in North America.

“When a building is empty, immediately it deteriorates exponentially,” says social entrepreneur and Entremise co-founder Mallory Wilson. “There are squatters, illegal occupancy, danger for young urban explorers, and drug dealing. If it sits idle for a while, the chances of it being demolished are significantly elevated. You also have sustainable development, heritage, symbolism and history lost. The list is pretty long.”

The costs to owners of an empty structure are also significant as their insurance fees go up, while property values can go down by as much as 18 per cent, according to Wilson. In 2016 alone, six heritage buildings in Montréal were lost forever to fire, another unfortunately common hazard of deadbolting an unoccupied edifice.

From empty Gothic churches and art-deco theatres to mid-century post offices and Victorian-era mansions, Montréal’s portfolio of empty heritage buildings is vast and varied. For Dinu Bumbaru, Héritage Montréal’s policy director, the transitional urbanism model represents a new way for the city to put its heritage to good working use.

“Heritage buildings often are complex situations – they can be very iconic, and they can provide a lot of embedded meaning – they’re more than square footage,” explains Bumbaru on these buildings’ character and personality. “They resonate with people’s minds and hearts.”

According to Bumbaru there is a growing sense in the heritage community that participants in the public, private and non-profit sector need to work together to bring new life to these buildings, make them part of the fabric of their neighbourhood and connect them to the larger urban environment.

“We can have a non-demolition strategy, but increasingly we are looking at a revitalization and repurposing approach to conservation,” says Bumbaru on why Héritage Montréal has a strong interest in taking the kind of approach to buildings that Entremise has been exploring. “Unlike a painting or a sculpture or an artefact that you can put in any safe environment,” he explains, “the way to preserve a building is to use it properly, to occupy it and make it useful. It’s a heritage which is made to earn a living in society.”

The City of Montréal also believes that filling the close to 900 vacant buildings that Entremise has recorded (approximately 120 of which are heritage designated) is ultimately the best conservation strategy for the metropolitan and has made it a part of its Heritage Action Plan. “Initiatives such as the Young Project help maintain safer neighbourhoods and promote Montréal’s economic vitality by providing a lever to businesses that are growing but still need a little help,” says Montréal Mayor Valérie Plante on how the Entremise approach addresses a number of important issues in the city.

What attracted the McConnell Foundation to support the launch of the Young Project was the social inclusion aspect of the venture and the broad potential for adopting the model Canada-wide. Jayne Engle, the program director and lead for the Cities for People initiative at the foundation, says that all cities have unmet social needs, but they also have resources available to address them. Too often though, cities are not adept at best matching the two. “Transitional urbanism fits with what I call seeing the city as a commons,” says Engle. “It’s about seeing the city as a set of shared resources and actually better using them in a way that adds up to collective good.”

The success of the Young Project has its founders envisioning a network of spaces like it throughout Montréal and in all Canadian cities. Maybe one day soon, having any building – no matter its size, type or heritage – vacant for an indeterminate amount of time will be a thing of the past.

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One other area where La Belle Province is setting a distinct trajectory is in the policies it has adopted to fight climate change.

The environment has been a major priority for the Quebec government for more than a decade, and even the person currently responsible for it has a combative title you won’t find anywhere else in politics. David Heurtel is the minister of sustainable development, environment and the fight against climate change, and he asserts that the Quebec government’s view on the environment stems from a deep conviction that climate change is among the major challenges of this century.

“Our mission is to build a low-carbon and resilient economy with the development and implementation of climate change solutions,” Heurtel explains. “It is an opportunity to foster economic development, innovation and to increase the well-being of Quebec’s citizens.”

Quebec has taken the lead on several occasions recently when it comes to the environment. Cap and trade is an ambitious and key component of Quebec’s approach in the fight against climate change, ensuring that carbon cost is taken into account in individual, organizational and collective choices. The Quebec cap-and-trade system, which has received broad support across the political spectrum, has been operating for almost five years.

When the province linked its system with California’s in 2014 it suddenly formed the largest carbon market in North America. “The implementation of carbon pricing and the recycling of its revenues in Quebec’s Climate Change Action Plans,” says Heurtel, “enables the government and Quebec society to support its ambitions and actions.”

Last year Quebec became the first Canadian province to move in the direction of adopting a zero-emissions vehicle (ZEV) standard, joining California and several Northeastern states that already have standards in place to increase the number of electric vehicles (EVs) on their roads. Remarkably, the measure was passed with the full support of all four major political parties in the National Assembly of Quebec.

Bill 104 requires that as of the 2018 car model year, 3.5 per cent of vehicles sold in Quebec must be electric or plug-in hybrids. This number steadily increases over time, reaching 22 per cent by 2025. Companies that fail to meet this threshold can purchase credits from those who have an excess.

To prep for the surge of these new EVs, charging stations are sprouting up all over the province (1,250 and counting) as part of the Electric Circuit, the first public electric charging station network for EVs in Canada.

It’s a cultural thing

Steven Guilbeault is the cofounder and senior director of Équiterre, the Montréal-based non-profit environmental advocacy organization that is widely considered to be the most powerful in the province. He blames Europe (in a good way) for what he feels is Quebecers’ greater appetite than other Canadians for politicians to make proactive decisions on environmental issues.

“There is a greater cultural proximity in Quebec to Europe than the rest of the country has, while English Canada tends to be culturally closer to the U.S.,” explains Guilbeault. “We have that bit of European culture where there [are] arguably more things being done on environmental issues, transportation and energy efficiency and renewable energies.”

Another important element that helps place Quebec a few notches higher in terms of environmental awareness is the fact that its electricity production is pretty green. Hydro-Québec, the government-owned electrical power juggernaut, looms large in the province.

Considered one of the major renewable energy producers in the world, Hydro-Québec accounts for close to 45 per cent of all hydropower generated in Canada, while its infrastructure includes the most extensive transmission system in North America.

“The fact that Hydro-Québec still belongs to Quebecers, I think gives people some form of pride that we are greener, whether or not this is true,” says Guilbeault. “We are talking perception here, and perception can play a big role when it comes to policy-making and decision-makers feeling that they have the necessary support to do things that might seem unpopular,” he adds.

When it comes to perception, nothing is more potent at influencing it than media, and Quebecers consume theirs uniquely. Ici Radio-Canada, the French-language public television and radio network owned by the CBC, is immensely popular and has strong penetration among Quebecers. The public broadcaster tends to spotlight environmental issues and take a stronger (read progressive) position on them than do private networks.

“Two of Radio-Canada’s scientific shows announced that they would no longer present the two sides of the coin on climate change,” says Guilbeault about where the broadcaster stands on the debate, “because, they argue, there are no two sides.”

Business tends to function differently here as well. Guilbeault finds that the big lobbies are less present in the province than they are in the rest of the country. “We [often] have the Quebec version or the affiliate of a big board of trade and things like that,” he says, “but even they tend to be more open to working on environmental issues.”

Équiterre is part of the steering committee for a provincial green alliance coalition called Switch. Guilbeault points to its members, which include the Employers Council of Quebec, an organization filled with CEOs from the largest private sector companies in the province. “They’re pro-electrification, reducing our dependency on oil, pro-green economy and we do work with them often,” says Guilbeault. “So even what would normally be considered an anti-environmental lobby will be far less anti here than they could be in the rest of the country.”

One business mogul in Quebec having a big impact on the future of transportation in the province is Alexandre Taillefer. A serial entrepreneur, and perhaps best known as the former judge on Quebec’s version of Dragon’s Den, Taillefer is now Montréal’s newest taxi king. A powerful local business figure on a mission to shake up the cab industry and urban mobility in general, Taillefer in 2015 launched Téo, an app-based, all-electric taxi company. Téo’s green and white branded Teslas, Kia Souls and Nissan Leafs are becoming a ubiquitous sight on Montréal roads, battling head to head with the industry’s old guard and Ubers alike.

When it comes to electric vehicle adoption, Quebec is leading the charge in Canada. With 14,390 registered EVs on its roads, the province is home to close to 50 per cent of all electric cars in the country.

The government recently launched the Industrial Cluster for Electric and Smart Vehicles, with Taillefer tasked with heading the cluster’s board. The cluster’s aim is to place Quebec among the world leaders in the development and deployment of electric and intelligent vehicles and products and services related to them.

Taillefer feels Quebec is well positioned for an initiative like the cluster because of the growing number of companies in the province operating in the electrification space, often in niche sectors. “I don’t think Quebec obviously has the capacity to compete with the car manufacturers,” he explains, “but when it comes to trucks and buses we have a lot of manufacturers here, and it’s really ours to seize. We need to identify where the niches are and how we can contribute to a better future.”

Players forming part of the cluster include Saint-Jérôme-based Lion, a company developing a range of electric heavy vehicles, including a school bus and a class 8 truck, and Nova Bus, which recently put into public transport service, for the first time in North America, its 100 per cent electric buses on Montréal routes. Nova Bus, headquartered in Saint-Eustache, is owned by Volvo buses.

Taillefer isn’t positive whether Quebec business leaders are more pro-sustainability than those in other provinces, but when it comes to transportation in the province, he says more of them are waking up to the economical benefits of going electric. “In our case we’re reducing our operating costs by around 12 per cent,” he says of Téo.

“In the truck business, fuel can represent up to 35 per cent of your operating costs. If you’re able to reduce that to five per cent it makes a lot of economic sense to do it,” he says. Taillefer will soon be launching an electric transport truck project between Montréal and Toronto.

While the environmental movement has just taken a few major steps back under the Trump presidency, Taillefer feels it will actually be a boon for companies in the cluster. “What’s really surprising is the fact that Trump’s position regarding green energy and cleantech has strengthened the willingness of states to become greener faster,” he explains, “so, there’s a lot of opportunities in the U.S. for Quebec companies.”

As the transition to a low-carbon world intensifies, the environment is perhaps one aspect of Quebec politics the rest of the country can get behind.

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