The venerable Imperial Cinema, on life support for six years, may well give up the ghost without an urgent and… permanent transfusion.
• Also read: The Imperial Cinema could close its doors at the end of January
On August 23, 2017, Pierre Karl Péladeau came at the last minute to the bedside of this theater that was celebrating its 104th anniversary. Its main mortgagee, to whom the NPO (non-profit organization) founded by Serge Losique owed almost five million dollars, was preparing to capture the super palace. Even if the Imperial were already part of Quebec's cultural heritage, God knows what would have happened if the real estate developers who held the mortgage had seized the building.
Since Quebecor took over the mortgage, the company has paid out another approximately 8.5 million to carry out the repairs at the Imperial, which could not wait, to pay the current expenses, to pay the salaries of the employees and, above all, to carry out a complete inventory of the premises to carry out. For this reason, we have to renew the parquet floor, rebuild the hall, which can accommodate up to 1000 spectators instead of the current 872, restore the facade, build toilets, replace the roof, insulate the entrance hall, build fire walls, install sprinkler systems, etc. A deal worth $12-13 million as long as we don't delay for years.
- Listen to the interview with Guy Fournier and Pierre Huet above QUB radio :
VERY CHEAP FUNDS
If my information is correct, Quebec has already paid two subsidies, one for $1.6 million and one for $4 million. The federal government promised a grant of one million over two years on the condition that the city of Montreal does the same. Will you be surprised to learn that Ms. Plante hasn't loosened her purse strings yet and we're still waiting for federal money?
These are grants from Ottawa and Montreal that seem very paltry to me. Last summer, when my wife Maryse was unfamiliar with Saint John, New Brunswick, I took advantage of our annual pilgrimage to the Magdalene Islands to spend a few hours there. Unfortunately I wanted to show him the harbor! turned upside down by gigantic works and, above all, the identical twin of our Imperial Theater, which is also called Imperial, but without an accent!
ARCHIVE PHOTO, QMI AGENCY
THE MOST BEAUTIFUL ROOM
The one without an accent is similar to ours in every way. But it is a gem that we value with all the respect due to a 110-year-old building. It was first a theater where the famous actress Ethel Barrymore, the famous composer John Philip Sousa and the unforgettable illusionist Houdini burned the boards, before being converted into a cinema and then into a place of Pentecostal worship. After a complete restoration costing 11.3 million, the Imperial has been the most beautiful event hall in the Maritimes since 1994.
The federal government, the government of New Brunswick, the city of Saint-Jean and its citizens all participated in the renovation. Last February, the federal government paid $2,153,548 and Saint-Jean paid $538,387 to repair the Imperial's heating, ventilation and air conditioning system. These are subsidies that should shame Quebec Liberal MPs and even more so Montreal City Council, since Saint-Jean's population is 30 times smaller than Montreal's.
Due to lack of sufficient subsidies, Ex-Centris, the broadcast center generously created by the late Daniel Langlois, had to die. For the same reasons, will we let one of Quebec's rare, century-old performance halls die that hasn't already fallen victim to demolition workers?