Could artists leverage Montreal conference centre's ambitions?

The new head hombre of Montreal's Palais des Congres wants to double the number of events held there over the next five years and increase the economic impact of its conferences and conventions for the Montreal area to $300 million per year.

According to an article in French in today's La Presse, the new President and CEO, Marc Tremblay, intends to attract major international events to Montreal by getting to know everything there is to know about the 6,500 congresses that exist on the face of the earth and by "making them offers they can't refuse." It looks to me like M. Tremblay is well on his way to a great start. It also looks to me like he and Canadian artists could be of much assistance to one another.


The Palais des Congres de Montreal with sculpture by Jean-Paul Riopelle, "La Joute" (The Joust") in the foreground.

Presently, the Palais des Congres already ranks first in Canada and third in North America in terms of number of international events held.

Tremblay expects to grow this, for one thing, by exploiting a specialization for Montreal in the the environmental and sustainable energy fields. Beginning with the world summit on climate change in 2005 Montreal has been establishing itself as a presence in this area. The 21st World Energy Congress will be held here in 2010, and the Eco City conference is slated for 2011.

Tremblay pitches the Palais as a super eco-friendly facility, in walking distance to thousands of hotel rooms, with direct access to Montreal's groundbreaking "Bixi" bike-borrowing service, and with a Metro station in the complex.

This all sounds great and good. And it looks like Tremblay is off to a high energy start, just a few weeks into his mandate.

I think that the Palais team has always had an adequate appreciation of the importance of art for a city in its efforts to maintain a really powerful international profile among conference planners and decision makers. Regardless, when we see that a Times U.K. online survey with 1.4 million responses fails to name Jean-Paul Riopelle among the top 200 artists of the 20th/21st Centuries, or any more than a mere one Canadian (Jeff Wall), then we can be sure that we are up against a little problem. Whereas, if we would find 5-10 Canadian artists in this list of 200 noted artists of our times, which would be normal to expect, then I think it would only stand to reason that the cultural influence of Canada and Montreal on attracting worldwide congresses would be that much stronger.

It could also be expected that all Canadian artists could benefit from corresponding raised profiles and international status in general, leading in turn to greater recognition for Canada as a cultural center to be reckoned with.

So, how can the Palais des Congres help Canadian artists? I acknowledge it will not be a simple job to increase the standing of Canadian artists in the international milieu and anything that a conference centre could possibly do would be of relatively small impact. Competition in the world of art, and amongst the cultural forces of countries, is fierce, just as it is in the business of conferences. So every little bit of help is needed and I see this as an issue of 'you scratch my back I scratch yours'.

And, it would certainly seem to be in the interest of the Palais des Congres and Marc Tremblay to include promotion of Canadian art as an important consideration together with each and every activity the Palais undertakes. So maybe there is some way to facilitate and develop this idea further.