The Saga Of Building Montreal's Super Hospitals

The Site For McGill's Super Hospital

'They're Two Independent Processes' -- The Montreal Gazette

No delaying the McGill project if CHUM falls behind, he says.

For years, political considerations required that construction of a new "English" teaching hospital in Montreal had to wait for the construction of a "French" one at the same time.

But those days are over, if Quebec's new health minister has his way.

Yves Bolduc told me yesterday that any further delays in the Université de Montréal's CHUM project will not stop work from proceeding on the new McGill hospital. In other words, there might be a new, $1-billion "English" teaching hospital in Montreal, built with $800 million from the Quebec government, before there's a "French" one.

And that's the very situation Quebec politicians have spent the past 17 years trying to avoid, ever since McGill decided it wanted a new teaching hospital.

In fact, the CHUM really was not even the U de M's idea, which may be why it has had so much trouble deciding what and where the project should be. It was really Lucien Bouchard's, because the ex-Parti Québécois premier figured he couldn't give the "English" a new hospital unless the "French" got one at least as nice.

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My Comment: I have been following this issue for the past 15 years .... it has everything to do with language politics in this province. It is just that after so many years .... the whole issue of English and French hospital is starting to look foolish and dangerous.