Marie-Christine P.-M.

It was at La Place de l’engagement (The Commitment Place) that I met Marie-Christine P.-M.

She works as mobilization coordinator with volunteers 55 and older at the Centre d’Action Bénévole de Montréal-Nord (CAB-MN). She suggested that I attend the following week’s activities surrounding the 2015 Civic march, whose theme this year was Mobility and safe travel for seniors in Montreal-North.

The following Thursday, although I did not have the opportunity to attend workshops earlier in the afternoon, I caught up with the group gathered in front of the Borough Hall to present its claims. In a cheerful atmosphere, participants were listening to some speeches and singing songs of circumstance directed by three colorful ladies of the group les Mémés déchainées, the local Raging Grannies. You can see some photos of this event by clicking on the link at the end of the article.

Again, I only exchanged a few words with Marie-Christine, who had a very busy schedule at the time. With the Service d’accueil aux nouveaux-arrivants (SANA, a group helping out recent immigrants), she was participating to the preparation of a film-chat activity with a screening of the movie “Felix and Moira” in the presence of its director at the premises of CAB-MN. She was also contributing to the organization of a workshop and electoral debate with local candidates ahead of the federal elections at Habitations Les Boulevards.

It wasn’t until the next week that she could spare me a little time.

Marie-Christine is a native of Saint-Nicolas, now a municipal district of the city of Lévis, across the river from Quebec City. She began her studies at Cégep Lévis-Lauzon in New Media and Fine Arts, but eventually shifted to the humanities. She completed a BA in Cultural Animation and Research at UQAM in Montreal.

It is back in Lévis that she acquired her first professional experience in events as Project Manager for the Corporation de Dévelopment du Vieux-Lévis. As such, she spent a year preparing intergenerational events, including a special day with a soap derby, a skateboard competition, an antique car exhibition and a show with local artists. She was happy to put her creativity to contribution. As the income from this work was modest, she also worked part time at the SAQ (our liquor board). She kept this job for a few years, in addition to working as a waitress in bars and restaurants.

Feeling a need for renewal, she walked the trail to Compostela with her boyfriend of the time along the Camino del Norte, a path north of the usual routes, steeper and less crowded. She told me that walking was not exhausting in itself, but the lack of sleep due to the snoring of other walkers in the dorms could eat away one’s energy.

As she loves to travel, she also did an internship in Vancouver and worked there a while to perfect her English.

Later, it’s a job as communication agent at Développement économique LaSalle that brought her back to Montreal, where she contributed to the organization of the Québec Entrepreneurship Contest at the local level. A significant increase in the number of participants that year gave her a good challenge.

Marie-Christine then undertook a Specialized Graduate Program in Management at HEC, Montreal. She says she likes group dynamics and psychology, project management, as well as the creative synergies that allow carrying out shared ideas. She believes that there are no limits to what we can accomplish together.

Afterwards, she joined the Centre d’Action Bénévole de Montréal-Nord as mobilization agent for the 55+ age group. The CAB-MN has been active in Montreal North for 30 years. It creates bridges between people who wish to contribute to the improvement of their living environment through volunteering and organizations that require their services. It also aims to promote social inclusion and integration of newcomers, to support citizen engagement and to provide services to the population through the action and commitment of its volunteers.

Her first task was to form a nucleus of senior volunteers. Together with these trailblazers she was then able to consolidate and expand the group. This now allows Marie-Christine to act as mobilization coordinator.

Despite her young age, she feels good in the company of seniors and wishes to continue to work with them. She spoke fondly about a one-hundred-year-old and alert lady she had recently met, but also about the death of a member of the first nucleus which was a sad event for the group. Sharing and support activities were organized to help them go through their mourning.

This event prompted a reflection on death for that young woman in whom I sensed a deep spiritual activity. Confirming my feeling, she then mentioned that she practices meditation on her own.

On a recent trip, she visited Scotland where again she walked a lot and saw beautiful scenery. She dreams that, one day, she will be able to make a long trip around the world.

Marie-Christine at La Place de l'engagement

Michael B.

On a rainy October Friday, I went back to Blume, a flower shop on the Promenade Fleury, hoping that the florist would agree to resume the conversation we had started the day before when I bought flowers for my wife on the day of our anniversary.

At the door, I came across a small note "back in five minutes." So I strolled around.

It was the day after the opening of the hockey season. It was raining. Curiously, in the autumnal gloom, the flag of the Montreal’s Canadien hockey club at the storefront of Le Tablier Rouge was standing out more strongly than on sunny days. In good weather, it looks a bit lost in the shadow inside of the porch. So I pulled out my camera to take a picture of circumstance.

As I pointed the lens towards the front window of the business, a gentleman in his white cook outfit was walking in. Seconds after he entered, a young man came out to ask me why I was taking a photo. I started to explain that I did not have any more specific purpose than to capture the light of the moment. But, since we had started a conversation, I asked him if he would be willing to have his picture taken and answer some questions. This is how chance encounters often happen.

This young man, featured in the photo with his red apron (tablier rouge in French), is Michael B. At his side is Renato P., Chef at La Molisana, a restaurant across the street. Michael has practically grown up in this restaurant opened by an uncle over thirty years ago and now headed by his father.

In his youth, he attended Our Lady of Pompei school on St-Michel Boulevard north of Sauvé. He played a lot of soccer in leagues in the north of the city. With a family background like his, it was natural that he studied at the Institut de Tourisme et Hôtellerie du Québec (ITHQ), where he graduated from the Advanced Culinary Arts program. Subsequently, he traveled to Europe. He studied at the Codignat Château in France with a Michelin two-starred chef, and in Puglia, Italy.

Le Tablier Rouge opened in the spring of 2014. There was previously a butcher’s shop at the same address. Today, the shop is still preparing meat. Its sausages are homemade. But as the store operates, it develops its personality quietly. Now, it offers other specialties made on the premises with fresh local ingredients: sauces, pesto, soups, etc.

Michael seems particularly comfortable behind the counter. One imagines him easily as a barkeeper involved in his customer’s conversations. I had entered a little before the noon rush, and had settled at the counter to take a tight espresso. I was quickly joined by other clients and chatted a little with them. As my appetite was whetted by the plate in front of my bar neighbor, I ended up enjoying a De Luxe burger with fries.

TV screens broadcasted the second game of the Blue Jays post-season. We saw the Jays’ players begin the first half inning as if they wished to finish their baseball season as fast as possible! They eventually lost that game, but have since regrouped, and are preparing, as I publish this article, to play the second game of the final series of the American League Baseball. It is the last step before the World Series.

Hockey game nights are popular at Le Tablier Rouge, with microbrewery beers and burgers at special prices. I wish Michael an exciting season hockey from our Canadiens (locally known as the Glorious). They’re off to a great start with five straight wins!

After all that, I didn’t see the florist that day.

Michael in his shop

Daniel L.

It was Mathilde-Hasnae * who introduced me to Daniel during my meeting with her, on a late Monday afternoon at l’Accorderie de Montréal-Nord. While I was talking with Mathilde, Daniel was reading some documents near us at the long table in the room that serves both as a meeting and dining room. As he did not seem completely indifferent to our conversation, he inevitably joined it. So when the time came to take some photos, I suggested that he join us in the collective garden of the Ilôt Pelletier.

One thing leading to another, our conversation continued after the departure of Mathilde and ended at nightfall, at the entrance of a building where he lives in this residential complex developed by the Société d’habitation populaire de l’est de Montréal (SHAPEM). This housing project is located in a Montreal-North sector that has evolved positively in recent years, after having long been disturbed by the presence of criminal gangs.

Daniel grew up in the area. His parents settled around there at a time when there were still fields a few blocks from their home.

He worked 31 years as an operator of digital machines in a metal products factory in the eastern part of the borough. However, he lost his job three years ago, following a severe depression. Given his years of service, he received a modest severance grant. For this reason, when he was admitted as a single tenant, he had to pay the maximum rent for a 1 ½ room apartment. For months, he stayed between its walls, seeing virtually no one but the doctor and the social worker from the CLSC.

It was largely the insistence of this lady that led him to get acquainted to the people from local grassroots organizations, both to break his isolation and for health reasons. Some groups have their offices on the site of his residential complex; others are active in the neighborhood. He first got to meet the members of Paroles d’excluEs, a movement against poverty and social exclusion, and later those of the Centre d’Action Bénévole (CAB).

Today, he is a member of L’Accorderie, a cooperative that facilitates the exchange of services between individuals. He proudly showed me on the wall of the room some photos taken at a large community dinner held recently at the Calixa-Lavallée high-school. He appears in one of them with other participants. The main course for this meal prepared by the members of L’Accorderie was pasta with vegetarian sauce, which suited all diets, including that of people who eat halal.

As he is past his mid-fifties and since his Employment Insurance benefits have dried out without seeing him find employment, he fears not having the confidence or the morale and health needed to be competitive in the labor market. Now dependent on the meager budget granted by social assistance, he follows with interest the efforts of the Comité de suivi en sécurité alimentaire (CSSA) a comity concerned about food security for the poorest.

One of the services provided by L’Accorderie is a food buying group. Its member’s resources are pooled to obtain food at cheaper prices. Daniel also participated this summer in the collective garden of the Îlot Pelletier, whose crops are shared equally between the buying group and volunteer gardeners. Early in October, the garden was still productive.

Before we parted, he said he hoped to qualify for a subsidized housing program. This would enable him to move into a 3 ½ apartment. He would then have a balcony large enough to accommodate a bicycle. This will, however, require that a lot of paperwork be filled out before he is accepted.

http://quartiersnord.photos/blogue-fr/2015/10/13/mathilde-hasnae-m

Daniel, after the night has fallen, outside the lobby of the Îlôt Pelletier community housing complex

Mathilde-Hasnae M.

While passing by on Henri-Bourassa going East, I saw, out of the corner of my eye, some open frame structures in Pilon Park. Their roofs were partially covered with what appeared to be recycled steel sheets from old barns. On my way back, I went through the park where I read a poster announcing that "Le Marché du Nord" would be held for three consecutive Saturdays.

The following Saturday, a small market was effectively sheltered by these ephemeral constructions. This year is a first experiment, but it should be repeated in the fall of the years to come.

There were also on the same site a few modest canopies housing a parallel activity. Wondering what it was, I approached two women at the kiosk of L’Accorderie de Montréal-Nord, Mathilde-Hasnae and Isabelle. They explained to me that this was La place de l’engagement (the commitment place), an annual gathering of community organizations that cooperate with each other in Montreal-North. The event was held next to the Marché du Nord this year to avoid a dispersion of potential visitors. As they were on site to reach out to people, I only took the time to take some pictures. We agreed that I would meet Mathilde another day at the offices of L’Accorderie in the Îlot Pelletier community housing project.

So it was by a late Monday afternoon that Mathilde received me. She first took me around the premises of L’Accorderie and its food buying group, as well as around the collective garden of the Îlot Pelletier residential complex.

Mathilde was born of a Moroccan father and a French mother in Libourne in South-West France, near Bordeaux. She first earned a BA in Geography in Bordeaux, which included an internship at Plymouth in Southern England. While following this program, she realized that it was the issues of community development and international cooperation that interested her the most. She then studied in Paris, where she completed a Masters in Local Development. As part of her studies, she did an internship in Morocco with an organization devoted to the promotion of girls’ schooling in their communities.  It did so by finding the resources to contribute to the construction of schools staffed by local teachers.

She landed in Montreal three years ago to join her boyfriend of the time, who was already here to pursue his studies. It was also a bit because she was well aware that her friends and fellow students in France were only finding precarious jobs in her sector. Arriving here with a Working Holiday work permit for one year, she first did a five-month internship at L’Union Française, where she organized cultural activities for newcomers. Subsequently, she found her current position as animator at L’Accorderie, which was more in line with her academic background. Program after program, she was able to continue her immigration process from Montreal.

Although, like all immigrants, she is homesick at times, she believes to be in Quebec for good. She likes the relationships between people here. As she arrived in Montreal in January, the winter does not scare her. It must be said that, for many people, snow is better than the dark and damp greyness of Paris in January. She has also become an adept of cross country skiing and snowshoeing. What she likes the least in Quebec however, is the overly consensual spirit that reigns there, making it difficult to challenge authority. She also finds unacceptable the challenges to be faced here to see a doctor. It would be hard to argue that she is not pointing a major problem.

Musician at heart, she played the saxophone for several years and loves soul music. Today, she enthusiastically participates in a choir in Villeray, "La Clique vocale". This choir recently sang at a dinner-benefit show in Montreal for L’Accorderie Montréal Mercier-Hochelaga Maisonneuve.

At L’Accorderie, she divides her time between Montreal-North and Hochelaga. This organization aims to fight against poverty and social exclusion. It manages a service exchange network among individuals who use time as exchange value. Herself a participant, Mathilde can, for example, do one hour of housework for a lady that will offer one hour of singing lessons in return. The exchanges are not necessarily bilateral. The scoring system in effect allows her to tidy the home of another person, but to use her cumulated hours for the singing lessons.

Among the activities of the L’Accorderie, there are also collective exchanges, such as food buying groups. In Hochelaga, there is also a laptop loan program to fight Internet exclusion.

In closing, here is a message from Mathilde. If you have the opportunity to hear La Clique Vocale, pay attention to one of its members: Liliane Pellerin, a name to watch out for!

Mathilde-Hasnae in the collective garden of the Îlôt Pelletier community housing complex