Mount Royal (french: Mont-Royal, officially Town of Mount Royal, french: Ville de Mont-Royal, abbreviated TMR, french: VMR) is an affluent
on-island suburban town located on the northwest side of the eponymous
Mount Royal
Mount Royal (french: link=no, Mont Royal, ) is a large intrusive rock hill or small mountain in the city of Montreal, immediately west of Downtown Montreal, Quebec, Canada. The best-known hypothesis for the origin of the name Montreal is the ...
, northwest of
Downtown Montreal, on the
Island of Montreal in southwestern
Quebec
Quebec ( ; )According to the Canadian government, ''Québec'' (with the acute accent) is the official name in Canadian French and ''Quebec'' (without the accent) is the province's official name in Canadian English is one of the thirtee ...
,
Canada
Canada is a country in North America. Its ten provinces and three territories extend from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean and northward into the Arctic Ocean, covering over , making it the world's second-largest country by tot ...
. It is completely surrounded by Montreal. The population was 20,953 as of the
2021 Canadian census.
In 2008, most of the Town of Mount Royal was designated a
National Historic Site of Canada
National Historic Sites of Canada (french: Lieux historiques nationaux du Canada) are places that have been designated by the federal Minister of the Environment on the advice of the Historic Sites and Monuments Board of Canada (HSMBC), as being ...
, as a "
emarkablesynthesis of urban renewal movements of the early 20th century, reflecting the influence of the City Beautiful, Garden City and Garden Suburb movements".
[ ] The town celebrated its 100th anniversary in 2012.
History
Town of Mount Royal, or TMR, was founded in 1912. It was created at the initiative of the
Canadian Northern Railway
The Canadian Northern Railway (CNoR) was a historic Canadian transcontinental railway. At its 1923 merger into the Canadian National Railway , the CNoR owned a main line between Quebec City and Vancouver via Ottawa, Winnipeg, and Edmonton.
Man ...
. The town was designed by
Frederick Todd
Frederick Gage Todd (March 11, 1876 – February 15, 1948) was the first resident landscape architect in Canada. For the majority of his life he was one of a small group committed to the art and practice of structuring urban growth in the first ...
, a planner who was heavily influenced by the likes of Sir
Ebenezer Howard
Sir Ebenezer Howard (29 January 1850 – 1 May 1928) was an English urban planner and founder of the garden city movement, known for his publication ''To-Morrow: A Peaceful Path to Real Reform'' (1898), the description of a utopian city in whic ...
and incorporated many aspects of the
Garden City Movement
The garden city movement was a 20th century urban planning movement promoting satellite communities surrounding the central city and separated with greenbelts. These Garden Cities would contain proportionate areas of residences, industry, and ...
as well some elements of the earlier
City Beautiful movement into his design. The plan was to build a
model city
A planned community, planned city, planned town, or planned settlement is any community that was carefully planned from its inception and is typically constructed on previously undeveloped land. This contrasts with settlements that evolve ...
at the foot of
Mount Royal
Mount Royal (french: link=no, Mont Royal, ) is a large intrusive rock hill or small mountain in the city of Montreal, immediately west of Downtown Montreal, Quebec, Canada. The best-known hypothesis for the origin of the name Montreal is the ...
. The company bought of farmland, and then built a
rail tunnel
A tunnel is an underground passageway, dug through surrounding soil, earth or rock, and enclosed except for the entrance and exit, commonly at each end. A pipeline is not a tunnel, though some recent tunnels have used immersed tube constr ...
under Mount Royal connecting their land to downtown Montreal. The profits from the venture helped finance the development of Canadian Northern's transcontinental railroad, which eventually became a significant constituent of the Canadian National Railway system. The town was designed by Canadian Northern's chief engineer,
Henry Wicksteed
Henry may refer to:
People
* Henry (given name)
* Henry (surname)
* Henry Lau, Canadian singer and musician who performs under the mononym Henry
Royalty
* Portuguese royalty
** King-Cardinal Henry, King of Portugal
** Henry, Count of Portuga ...
, based loosely on
Washington, D.C.
)
, image_skyline =
, image_caption = Clockwise from top left: the Washington Monument and Lincoln Memorial on the National Mall, United States Capitol, Logan Circle, Jefferson Memorial, White House, Adams Morgan, ...
The garden city’s coat of arms is composed of several significant elements:
• The royal crown, of French origin, is enclosed in the top panel and blazoned with fleurons.
• Two heraldic roses, of English origin, are stylized wild roses with two rows of five petals separated by pointed sepals.
• The stylized mountain refers to the Town’s geographic situation at the foot of Mount Royal.
• The outline of the shield ending in a point recalls the shape of the shields of ancient Greece and Rome.
• Inscribed on the scroll beneath the shield, the motto, Regium Donum, means “gift of the king.”
• Town of Mount Royal’s official signature includes the coat of arms as well as the Town’s name in French and English. The coat of arms has evolved over the years; the current version dates from 1993.
One notable feature of the town is the naming of some of its streets, and also its occasionally idiosyncratic numbering system. Some streets which pass through the town may thus bear two names (in whichever language). For example,
Jean Talon Street
Jean Talon Street (officially in french: rue Jean-Talon) is one of the longest streets on the Island of Montreal. It runs from Decarie Boulevard in the west through Anjou in the east to Galeries d'Anjou. Jean Talon was the first Intendant of New F ...
, a large East-West thoroughfare crossing Montreal for kilometres (miles), goes a few hundred metres (yards) through TMR under the name of Dresden Avenue, only to recover its Montreal name on the other side of the town. This situation has been recently addressed by putting the two names on the street signs. On these few hundred metres, TMR uses a house civic numbering totally different from that of Montreal on either side. This sort of change in the numbering system also occurs on smaller streets shared by both Montreal and TMR (for example, Trenton, Lockhart and Brookfield avenues, where the TMR numbering system decreases from East to West, only to jump from 2 to 2400 on the few metres (yards) of the street that still belong to Montreal.
In the beginning, the Town was a small farming community, known for its melons. The Daoust family farm grew the celebrated
Montreal melon, also called the Montreal nutmeg melon. Green-fleshed and uniquely flavourful, the melons weighed up to 9 or 11 kg. So special was the Montreal melon that it was exported to New York, Chicago and Boston, where, in 1921, people paid as much as $1.50 a slice to taste it. Farming was abandoned over the years, with the gradual urbanization of the Town.
On January 1, 2002, as part of the
2002–2006 municipal reorganization of Montreal
Montreal was one of the cities in Quebec affected by the 2000–2006 municipal reorganization in Quebec. On January 1, 2002, all the municipalities on the island of Montreal were merged into the city of Montreal.
However, following a change of ...
, it was merged into
Montreal
Montreal ( ; officially Montréal, ) is the second-most populous city in Canada and most populous city in the Canadian province of Quebec. Founded in 1642 as '' Ville-Marie'', or "City of Mary", it is named after Mount Royal, the triple ...
and became a borough. However, after a
change of government and a
2004 referendum, it was re-constituted as an independent town on January 1, 2006.
Geography
![TMRTrainStation](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/8/83/TMRTrainStation.JPG)
Two main thoroughfares, Laird Boulevard and Graham Boulevard, cut across the borough diagonally and meet at Connaught Park, a
green space located in the centre.
Mount Royal Train Station, a
commuter train
Commuter rail, or suburban rail, is a passenger rail transport service that primarily operates within a metropolitan area, connecting commuters to a central city from adjacent suburbs or commuter towns. Generally commuter rail systems are cons ...
station on the
Exo
Exo ( ko, 엑소; stylized in all caps) is a South Korean-Chinese boy band based in Seoul formed by SM Entertainment in 2011 and debuted in 2012. The group consists of nine members: Xiumin, Suho, Lay, Baekhyun, Chen, Chanyeol, D.O., Kai ...
Deux-Montagnes line
Deux-Montagnes or Two Mountains Line (also designated exo6 and formerly Red Line) was formerly a commuter railway line in Greater Montreal, Quebec, Canada. It was owned by Exo, the organization that operates public transport services across this ...
is located to the east of this park. This line is now undergoing construction to upgrade it for the new
REM network. Trains going through the
Mount Royal Tunnel
The Mount Royal Tunnel (french: tunnel sous le mont Royal, tunnel du mont Royal) is a railway tunnel in Montreal, Quebec, Canada. The tunnel is the third longest in Canada, after the Mount Macdonald Tunnel and the Connaught Tunnel, and connects ...
link the station to downtown Montreal in eight minutes. Both avenues end at
Jean Talon Street
Jean Talon Street (officially in french: rue Jean-Talon) is one of the longest streets on the Island of Montreal. It runs from Decarie Boulevard in the west through Anjou in the east to Galeries d'Anjou. Jean Talon was the first Intendant of New F ...
and close to the
highway
A highway is any public or private road or other public way on land. It is used for major roads, but also includes other public roads and public tracks. In some areas of the United States, it is used as an equivalent term to controlled-acces ...
.
TMR is surrounded on three sides by a
highway
A highway is any public or private road or other public way on land. It is used for major roads, but also includes other public roads and public tracks. In some areas of the United States, it is used as an equivalent term to controlled-acces ...
, a
fence
A fence is a structure that encloses an area, typically outdoors, and is usually constructed from posts that are connected by boards, wire, rails or netting. A fence differs from a wall in not having a solid foundation along its whole length.
...
and a rail line.
The highway is Metropolitan Boulevard, a major constituent of
Autoroute 40. It was built as an elevated highway throughout, except when it passes through TMR (between Sainte Croix Avenue and L'Acadie Boulevard), since the Town council requested that it be built on the ground, in order to separate the town from the industrial area to the north.
A fence runs along the eastern border with
Park Extension
Park Extension (french: Links=no, Parc-Extension) is a neighbourhood in the city of Montréal, Québec. It is located in the borough of Villeray–Saint-Michel–Parc-Extension and has a population of 33,800 and an area of 1.6 km² (400 acres ...
at L'Acadie Boulevard, a six lane thoroughfare. The stated purpose of the fence is to prevent children and house pets from running into the busy thoroughfare but some have contended that it was built to keep residents of the working-class Park Extension neighbourhood out of the town.
The rail line is the last portion of
Canadian Pacific's Adirondack subdivision. It originally ran through the northern part of the district of
Côte-des-Neiges
Côte-des-Neiges (, ) is a neighbourhood of Montreal, Quebec, Canada. It is located at the geographic centre of the Island of Montreal on the western slope of Mount Royal and is part of the borough of Côte-des-Neiges–Notre-Dame-de-Grâce.
Côt ...
. However, when the town became part of Montreal on Jan 1, 2002, the part of
Côte-des-Neiges
Côte-des-Neiges (, ) is a neighbourhood of Montreal, Quebec, Canada. It is located at the geographic centre of the Island of Montreal on the western slope of Mount Royal and is part of the borough of Côte-des-Neiges–Notre-Dame-de-Grâce.
Côt ...
north of rail line was incorporated into the Mount Royal borough. When the town demerged on Jan 1, 2006 this part, known as Glenmount, reverted to Côte-des-Neiges.
Demographics
In the
2021 Census of Population
The 2021 Canadian census was a detailed enumeration of the Canadian population with a reference date of May 11, 2021. It follows the 2016 Canadian census, which recorded a population of 35,151,728. The overall response rate was 98%, which is sli ...
conducted by
Statistics Canada, Mont-Royal had a population of living in of its total private dwellings, a change of from its 2016 population of . With a land area of , it had a population density of in 2021.
Government
Municipal council
Mayor Peter J. Malouf was elected 7 November 2021, defeating former municipal councillor Michelle Setlakwe, the first mayoral election in 16 years. Voter Participation was 48.7%. Despite the COVID pandemic, 6,779 residents voted by mail or in person.
In 2020, TMR was divided from six into eight electoral districts to reflect its growing population of 22,000 residents. The Town mayor sits on the Agglomeration Council of Montreal.
2021-25 Municipal Council (100% new slate of elected officials):
*Mayor: Peter J. Malouf – 55.47% (3710 votes)
*Councillors:
** District No. 1: Antoine Tayar - 54.89% (578 votes)
** District No. 2: Maryam Kamali Nezhad - 53.85% (385 votes)
** District No. 3: Daniel Pilon - 57.42% (511 votes)
** District No. 4: Maya Chammas - 53.48% (430 votes)
** District No. 5: Julie Halde - 51.97% (408 votes)
** District No. 6: Caroline Decaluwe - 51.60% (387 votes)
** District No. 7: Sébastien Dreyfuss - 50.74% (448 votes)
** District No. 8: Sophie Séguin - 66.43% (550 votes)
Former mayors
The first mayor of the Town of Mount-Royal was Thomas S. Darling, elected in 1913.
![Rocklandtmr](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/d/dc/Rocklandtmr.jpg)
* Thomas S. Darling (1913-1934)
* Frederick (Fred) Johnson (1934–1935)
* Samuel (Sam) H. Hanson (1935)
* John Arthur Dakin (1935 – 1937)
* Robert Smith (1937 – 1941)
* Maynard Albert Metcalf (1941– 1945)
* Richard Earle Schofield (1945–1951)
* Reginald John Partridge Dawson (1951–1987
* Vera Mystic Danyluk (1987–1994)
* Harry Schwartz (1994–1999)
* Pierre Brisebois (1999 interim)
* Ricardo Hrtschan (1999 – 2001)
* Suzanne Caron (2002 – 2005)
* Vera Mystic Danyluk (2005 – 2010)
* Philippe Roy (2010 –2021)
* Peter J. Malouf (2021 – )
Federal and Provincial
The entire borough is located within the federal riding of
Mount Royal
Mount Royal (french: link=no, Mont Royal, ) is a large intrusive rock hill or small mountain in the city of Montreal, immediately west of Downtown Montreal, Quebec, Canada. The best-known hypothesis for the origin of the name Montreal is the ...
, whose best-known MP for nearly 20 years was
Pierre Trudeau, and within the smaller provincial electoral district of Mount Royal. The Mount Royal riding has been a Liberal stronghold since 1940.
The riding encompasses Côte St. Luc, Hampstead, Côte des Neiges and the Town of Mount Royal.
Since 2015, Mr. Anthony Housefather has served as Member of The House of Commons - Mount Royal
Mount Royal shares its provincial territory with
Outremont
Outremont is an affluent residential borough (''arrondissement'') of the city of Montreal, Quebec, Canada. It consists entirely of the former city on the Island of Montreal in southwestern Quebec. The neighbourhood is inhabited largely by fran ...
since 2018, making it the
Mont-Royal–Outremont
Mont-Royal–Outremont is a provincial electoral district in Quebec. It was created from parts of Mont-Royal and Outremont districts. It was first contested in the 2018 Quebec general election
The 2018 Quebec general election was held on Octo ...
provincial electoral district. Since
October 2022, the riding is represented by Liberal
Michelle Setlakwe that replaced the long time MP
Pierre Arcand.
Education
The ''
Commission scolaire Marguerite-Bourgeoys
The Marguerite-Bourgeoys School Board (') was a French language public School Board on Montreal Island, Quebec, Canada. Its headquarters was in the Saint-Laurent borough of Montreal. Its education centre was in LaSalle, also in Montreal. It wa ...
'' (CSMB) operates Francophone public schools.
Secondary schools:
* ''
École secondaire Mont-Royal
École may refer to:
* an elementary school in the French educational stages normally followed by secondary education establishments (collège and lycée)
* École (river), a tributary of the Seine flowing in région Île-de-France
* École, Sa ...
''
* ''
École secondaire Pierre-Laporte
École may refer to:
* an elementary school in the French educational stages normally followed by secondary education establishments (collège and lycée)
* École (river), a tributary of the Seine flowing in région Île-de-France
* École, Sa ...
''
Primary schools:
* ''École primaire Académie Saint-Clément''
* ''École primaire Saint-Clément Ouest''
* ''École primaire Saint-Clément Est''
The
English Montreal School Board
The English Montreal School Board (EMSB, french: Commission scolaire English-Montréal – CSEM) is one of five public school boards on the island of Montreal.
At 92.4 percent, the English Montreal School Board has the highest rate of students wh ...
(EMSB) operates Anglophone public schools in the town.
* Carlyle Elementary School
* Dunrae Gardens Elementary School
École Dunrae Gardens School
/ref>
The Town has its own library, Reginald J. P. Dawson Library
The Reginald J. P. Dawson Library (french: Bibliothèque Reginald-J.-P.-Dawson) is the public library of Mount Royal, Quebec, Mount Royal, Quebec, Canada. It was founded in 1952 and moved to its current facility at 1967 Graham Boulevard in 1967. In ...
, which is independent from the Montreal Library Network.
See also
* List of enclaves
* List of former boroughs
* Montreal Merger
Montreal ( ; officially Montréal, ) is the second-most populous city in Canada and most populous city in the Canadian province of Quebec. Founded in 1642 as '' Ville-Marie'', or "City of Mary", it is named after Mount Royal, the triple-pe ...
* Municipal reorganization in Quebec
A municipality is usually a single administrative division having corporate status and powers of self-government or jurisdiction as granted by national and regional laws to which it is subordinate.
The term ''municipality'' may also mean the g ...
References
External links
*
{{Authority control
Cities and towns in Quebec
Populated places established in 1912
Planned cities in Canada
National Historic Sites in Quebec
1912 establishments in Quebec
Bilingual cities and towns in Quebec