Why Montreal’s most iconic landmark will fade from the city skyline for 1 year

Montreal’s landmark cross will have its lights turned off Tuesday.

The well-known steel structure — which weighs 26 metric tons and sits at the top of Mount Royal — is easily visible against the night sky thanks to its 240 lightbulbs.   

The cross is about as tall as a 10-storey building, says Jean Carrier, director of the City of Montreal’s road infrastructure department, "so it's a huge infrastructure we can see from everywhere in Montreal."

It will be unplugged to allow for repairs, expected to cost the City of Montreal $3.7 million, according to Carrier.

The updates, which are expected to take a year, will address non-urgent corrosion to the cross’s central portion, ensure it meets current building standards and reinforce it against harsh weather conditions.

In total, about one quarter of the landmark’s 1,800 steel parts will be replaced. Its outdated lighting system will also be swapped out.

The work will be done in phases with breaks, to avoid disturbing the nesting periods of birds and other wildlife in the area. 

The project is expected to conclude by next fall, at which time the cross will once again be set aglow. 

Even though the cross is a religious symbol, it gets a pass under Quebec’s secularism laws, according to Pearl Eliadis, a human rights lawyer and law professor at McGill University. 

"The characterization of the cross is that it is essentially a cultural relic, if you will, or a historical element," said Eliadis. "I think people do see a degree of hypocrisy in that."

The current one was erected in 1924, but a cross has stood in the spot ever since 1642, the year Montreal was founded.

"The cross is part of our heritage," said Alan DeSousa, a member of the City of Montreal's executive committee, which is responsible for the maintenance of infrastructure. 

The cross on Montreal's Mount Royal 'goes deep into our psyche and is part of our identity, it is a unifying force,' says Alan DeSousa. (Natalia Weichsel/Radio-Canada)"It goes deep into our psyche and is part of our identity, it is a unifying force," he said.

DeSousa says the city has not just a legal, but also moral responsibility to protect monuments that speak to Montreal’s identity. 

"People are very sensitive to the preservation of this park and the cross, because it's part of who they are," said DeSousa. "They want to maintain their traditions."

Eliadis notes that the cross's presence on the mountain likely isn’t a priority for minority religious groups affected by Law 9's increased focus on promoting secularism, which included restrictions such as the prohibition of public prayer and an extension of the ban on religious symbols to daycare staff.

"I think most people can live with the cross on the mountain," she said. "Very few people I know have gone to the battlefield on this."

However, she says, it is important to remember that Law 9 has attempted to remove religion from public spaces in Quebec.

“If you are going to have secularism as your most important social value … then as I say, there does seem to be a degree of lack of coherence," she said.

Hayley Carolan is a journalist based in Montreal.