Westward shift for anglos

BY MARC LALONDE

marc.lalonde@transcontinental.ca



In search of affordable housing, a better quality of life and lower taxes, a new exodus of anglophones is taking place — but it’s a much shorter trip than Toronto.

Young families — both English and French — are flocking to Vaudreuil-Dorion, St. Lazare, Hudson, Ile Perrot, Notre Dame de l’Ile Perrot in huge numbers and the effect is beginning to show in the way the Lester B. Pearson School Board is closing schools in the West Island while at the same time opening new ones and expanding existing ones in the off-island. Since 2000, four English-language public schools have opened in the off-island area while only one – Margaret Manson elementary school in Kirkland – has opened in the West Island.

Last week’s announcement that Westwood High School’s senior campus will receive $3.1 million from the provincial and federal governments to expand the former Hudson High School building, coupled with last year’s $3.4 million renovation of the Westwood High School junior campus a few kilometres away in St. Lazare, is a clear indication that the English community is making its way westward, off the island.

“There’s been significant growth in the western sector, while at the same time we’ve had to close or merge a number of schools on the island,� said Pearson chairman Marcus Tabachnick. “We’ve opened four new schools and have seen two important investment projects (in the off-island) in the last few years. Things have changed, demographics have changed and the needs for the next five years must be addressed. This money will solve a lot of the expansion problems.�

The phenomenon is widespread.

“It’s going on all across Montreal,� Tabachnick said. “The population is, in increasing numbers, moving out to the ‘couronne’ around the island. For us, the population is moving westward and off the island completely.�

Quebec Justice Minister Yvon Marcoux, also the Vaudreuil MNA, speculated that new residents are arriving in droves for the quality of life and lower taxes, along with young families looking for a home they can actually afford paired with facilities to serve those families.

“When parents arrive in a place, they look at the facilities available for their children and their quality of life, as well as services that are available,� he said.

Vaudreuil-Dorion has seen a huge surge in commercial development, with a Loblaws, a Home Depot, Canadian Tire, among others, having gone up in recent years alongside thousands of new homes in the section of the city west of St. Charles Boulevard stretching to the Lake of Two Mountains – all the types of places frequented by families with an interest in maintaining their new homes.

The Westwood High School senior campus expansion is another one of those services the government is making available to families. The expansion, upon which construction will begin next summer and should be complete by December 2007, will see nine new classrooms constructed, science labs enlarged and some current classrooms expanded.

The expansion will make room for 270 more students in the school building.

“The population growth of the Vaudreuil-Soulanges area is among the highest in the province,� said Soulanges MNA Lucie Charlebois. “It’s tough on kids to have to travel a long way to get to school and it will give them more time to spend on their studies and not on getting to and from school.�

Along with expansion work performed on Westwood High’s junior campus in St. Lazare last year, 540 new pupil-places have opened at the school in the last 12 months.

The big statistic, as far as the Pearson school board is concerned, is the number of young families moving into or out of an area – those are its future clients.

And right now, that demographic is moving off the island into more affordable developments. Brand-new two- and three-bedroom homes with garages are going for about $180,000. In the West Island that price might get you a shabby townhouse, or a handyman’s special on a busy boulevard. It simply makes economic sense for young families to move out to the off-island.

“Eighty per cent of my clients are young families. That’s why the people come here – not just for the area alone. Prices in the West Island are too expensive,� said Vaudor Construction president Robert Sabbah. “People end up going a little more west, and that’s off the island.�