Mount Royal ( , officially Town of Mount Royal, Ville Mont-Royal, abbreviated TMR, ) is an affluent on-island suburban town located on the northwest side of the eponymous

Mount Royal Mount Royal (, ) is a mountain in the city of Montreal, immediately west of Downtown Montreal, Quebec, Canada. The city's name is derived from the mountain's name. The mountain is part of the Monteregian Hills situated between the Laurentian M ...

, northwest of

Downtown Montreal Downtown Montreal (French language, French: ''Centre-Ville de Montréal'') is the central business district of Montreal, Quebec, Canada. The district is situated on the southernmost slope of Mount Royal, and occupies the western portion of the ...

, on the

Island of Montreal The Island of Montreal (, ) is an island in southwestern Quebec, Canada, which is the site of a number of municipalities, including most of the city of Montreal, and is the most populous island in Canada. It is the main island of the Hochelag ...

in southwestern

Quebec Quebec is Canada's List of Canadian provinces and territories by area, largest province by area. Located in Central Canada, the province shares borders with the provinces of Ontario to the west, Newfoundland and Labrador to the northeast, ...

Canada Canada is a country in North America. Its Provinces and territories of Canada, ten provinces and three territories extend from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean and northward into the Arctic Ocean, making it the world's List of coun ...

. It is completely surrounded by the city of

Montreal Montreal is the List of towns in Quebec, largest city in the Provinces and territories of Canada, province of Quebec, the List of the largest municipalities in Canada by population, second-largest in Canada, and the List of North American cit ...

. The population was 20,953 as of the

2021 Canadian census The 2021 Canadian census was a detailed enumeration of the Canada, 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%, whic ...

. In 2008, most of the Town of Mount Royal was designated a

National Historic Site of Canada National Historic Sites of 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 of national historic significance. Parks C ...

, 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 Canada, 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 Edmonto ...

as a means of generating funds for the tunnel to be built under the mountain, which would connect the railway to downtown Montreal. 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 wh ...

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 Green belt, greenbelts. These Garden Cities would contain proportionate areas of residences, i ...

as well some elements of the earlier City Beautiful movement into his design. The plan was to build a model city at the foot of

. The company bought of farmland, and then built a rail tunnel 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, based loosely on

Washington, D.C. Washington, D.C., formally the District of Columbia and commonly known as Washington or D.C., is the capital city and federal district of the United States. The city is on the Potomac River, across from Virginia, and shares land borders with ...

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, 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 (yards), 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 (20 or 25 lb). 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

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

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 service that primarily operates within a metropolitan area, connecting commuters to a central city from adjacent suburbs or commuter towns. Commuter rail systems can use locomotive-hauled tr ...

station on the

Exo Exo (; 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 Zhang, Lay, Baekhyun, Chen (singer), Chen, Chanyeol, ...

Deux-Montagnes line Deux-Montagnes (also designated exo6 and formerly Red Line) was an electrified Commuter rail in North America, commuter rail line in Greater Montreal, Quebec, Canada. It was owned by Exo (public transit), Exo, the organization that operates publ ...

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 link the station to downtown Montreal in eight minutes. Both boulevards end at Jean Talon Street and close to the

highway A highway is any public or private road or other public way on land. It includes not just major roads, but also other public roads and rights of way. In the United States, it is also used as an equivalent term to controlled-access highway, or ...

. TMR is surrounded on three sides by a

, 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 net (textile), netting. A fence differs from a wall in not having a solid foundation along its ...

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 (, ) 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). The name derives from the fa ...

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. His ...

. However, when the town became part of Montreal on Jan 1, 2002, the part of

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

According to the

Office québécois de la langue française The (, OQLF; ) is an agency of the Quebec provincial government charged with ensuring legislative requirements with respect to the right to use French are respected. Established on 24 March 1961 by the Liberal government of Jean Lesage, the ...

, Mont-Royal has been officially recognized as a bilingual municipality since 2005-11-02. In the 2021 Census of Population conducted by

Statistics Canada Statistics Canada (StatCan; ), formed in 1971, is the agency of the Government of Canada commissioned with producing statistics to help better understand Canada, its population, resources, economy, society, and culture. It is headquartered in ...

, 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

* 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

, whose best-known MP for nearly 20 years was

Pierre Trudeau Joseph Philippe Pierre Yves Elliott Trudeau (October 18, 1919 – September 28, 2000) was a Canadian politician, statesman, and lawyer who served as the 15th prime minister of Canada from 1968 to 1979 and from 1980 to 1984. Between his no ...

, 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 since 2018, making it the Mont-Royal–Outremont 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'' (CSMB) operates Francophone public schools. Secondary schools: * '' École secondaire Mont-Royal'' * '' École secondaire Pierre-Laporte'' 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 (official name: Commission scolaire English-Montréal English-Montréal School Board; CSEM or EMSB) is one of five public school boards and one of two English-language school boards on the island of Montreal in Q ...

(EMSB) operates Anglophone public schools in the town. * Carlyle Elementary School * Dunrae Gardens Elementary SchoolÉcole Dunrae Gardens School
/ref> The Town has its own library,

Reginald J. P. Dawson Library The Reginald J. P. Dawson Library () is the public library of Mount Royal, Quebec Quebec is Canada's List of Canadian provinces and territories by area, largest province by area. Located in Central Canada, the province shares borders with ...

, which is independent from the Montreal Library Network.

References

External links

* {{Authority control Cities and towns in Quebec Populated places established in 1912 Enclaves and exclaves Planned communities in Canada National Historic Sites in Quebec 1912 establishments in Quebec Bilingual cities and towns in Quebec Island of Montreal municipalities