The Quebec state finally acquired the house in New Carlisle, in the Gaspé, where René Lévesque lived early in his life.
As the new owner, the Quebec government “has appointed a firm of architects specializing in heritage which will establish in the coming weeks the state of“ health ”of the building in order to plan its restoration and ensure its sustainability. and to enhance it ”.
The poor condition of the building has been denounced several times in recent years: Quebec says it wants to restore “all its luster to this building whose condition has been considered worrying for a few years”.
This acquisition by the Quebec state was announced Monday, in the middle of the federal election day.
[Québec] appointed an architectural firm specializing in heritage which will establish in the coming weeks the state of “health” of the building
For more than 30 years, various groups have been concerned about the future of this wooden house built in 1904.
Historical values
Maison René-Lévesque was first recognized as a historic monument in 1995, in the name of “its historical and architectural values”.
Nevertheless, she continued to wither away, even after that it was officially protected by the State, in 2012, this time under a new Heritage Act.
In 2017, the federal government granted a grant of $ 750,000 to the Fondation de la Maison René-Lévesque to support the creation of a heritage circuit on the outskirts of the residence.
The house itself was not included in the project, as the Foundation failed to come to an agreement with its owner. Two years later, the Quebec Ministry of Culture was authorized, by decree, to expropriate the latter, but the man had challenged the operation in court.
Last summer again, the president of Patrimoine Gaspésie, Jean-Marie Fallu, as well as a representative of Espace René-Lévesque, Yannick Desbiens, denounced the trampling in this file. It is therefore only at the end of a long saga that this wooden building now belongs to the public domain.
A change of course
The decision of the Quebec state to preserve the site constitutes a reversal of a decision rendered in 1989, less than two years after the death of the founder of the Quebec Party and father of the nationalization of electricity in Quebec.
That year, in fact, the Quebec state refused to consecrate these places as a symbol to be preserved. For its part, for a long time the Municipality of New Carlisle did not wish to do more either, for fear, she said, of “stirring up social tensions”; the local statue of René Lévesque has been vandalized in the past.
Great reporter and popularizer
Born in Campbellton, New Brunswick, in 1922, René Lévesque took an early interest in the world of communications. In 1936, at the age of 14, he was already announcer-host at CHNC, the New Carlisle radio station.
At the end of the war, he was known as an outstanding reporter and popularizer.
Having become Minister of Jean Lesage’s Liberal Party, he is credited with the nationalization of private hydropower companies. After launching the Parti Québécois in 1968, he became Premier of Quebec on the evening of November 15, 1976. He held this position until 1985. He died two years later, while he was at home, to Montreal.
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