McGill TribuneAt last week’s senate meeting, the university announced plans to team up with the École de Technologie Supérieure (ÉTS), the Federal government, and the City of Montreal, with the aim of creating the Quartier de l’innovation (QI), a proposed entrepreneurial hub designed to “optimise university-industry synergies.”
The project has several positive aspects. It will provide a platform for McGill’s research to be applied in the business world, with links being made with companies like Bombardier, Pfizer, and IBM for investments into research and development. It has the potential to give McGill’s aspiring entrepreneurs the opportunity to gain access to advice, investment, and collaboration. Opportunities also abound for entrepreneurs in the Montreal area to start up their companies or at least share their ideas and innovations. The Tribune is also excited by the project’s stated intent to generate internship placements for McGill students at many of the companies hoping to set up shop at the QI.
However, the Tribune has concerns with the some of the more widespread effects of the QI. Firstly, the neighbourhoods of Griffintown and Faubourg des Récollets, the proposed location of the QI, is a prime area of affordable housing for low income families. The flow of businesses to the QI will inevitably lead to rises in property prices and rental costs. The result could be a higher cost of living for those less able to pay for it. Though property owners and landlords will almost certainly benefit, the result could be the loss of a rare pocket of affordable housing in the downtown area.
Secondly, at a time when the university’s resources are already stretched, the Tribune questions whether it’s prudent to be investing in such a large scale expansion. One of the administration’s defences in the face of the MUNACA strike was to point to their lack of finances. The expansion into Griffintown means that either the administration feels entirely assured that the move is guaranteed to reap dividends, or they were simply being liberal with the truth about the state of their balance books. The expansion is a gamble. University finances will take another turn for the worse if the Quartier de L’Innovation fails to ignite as much as is envisioned. There is no guarantee that businesses will flock to the QI by default—there are already similar institutions in cities like Toronto, Vancouver, and Oxford with more competitive tax rates, equally comprehensive research departments, and less strict language laws.
The university should also be cautious about flirting too much with private businesses. Jumping into bed with corporations could lead to private interests exerting undue leverage upon public research, potentially leading the university away from its educational mission and more towards one of private enterprise and economic gain.
If these considerations are taken into account with a degree of prudence, the university’s expansion will hopefully help to solve its funding issues, regenerate parts of Montreal’s downtown, encourage entrepreneurs, boost the Quebec economy, and stimulate innovation. But that is an if, and not necessarily a when. There is a long way to go before Griffintown can genuinely be called a “live-work urban hub with international reach.”
