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Notes from afar - Montreal rules educational "tourism"

"Learning is life." - Socrates Wow. Already September. Nights are cooling down. Thoughts wander to long descents in clouds of white. To wearing parkas and snow boots and gloves and... But wait a minute. There are still a few of days of summer left.
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"Learning is life."

- Socrates

 

Wow. Already September. Nights are cooling down. Thoughts wander to long descents in clouds of white. To wearing parkas and snow boots and gloves and...

But wait a minute. There are still a few of days of summer left. Right? I mean, it's been barely a few weeks since the snow melted from the alpine. Whistler's July deluge is still firmly entrenched in our memory banks. Heck, the sun is just becoming a friend again around here. We can't be talking about winter yet.

So we won't. Instead, I'll fill you in on a recent late-summer ritual in which I participated. It's called Moving Your Freshman Daughter/Son Into University . And it's a fascinating trip.

A little background: some 40 years ago, I took the then-unheard of step of crossing the entire country to attend college in British Columbia. A student/athlete in Quebec City, I was mesmerized by the mystique of West Coast life. Of course, my parents didn't accompany me on the 5,000-kilometre journey to Vancouver. They couldn't afford the trip. Besides, they had three other boys at home to manage.

So I went alone. And I never looked back. Sure, I returned home from time-to-time to see my family. To boast to my friends of my new life on the Wet Coast. To get a little buzz of French and Euro culture. But live full-time in Quebec again? Out of the question. Forget long underwear and slush and unending winters and small hills. I wanted ocean and mountains and exotic arbutus trees hanging over precipitous cliffs. Though my roots were as " vielles souches" as you can get, I was now a Franco-Columbian. And I lived my life accordingly.

Image my surprise, then, when my youngest announced this spring that she was headed to Montreal for university. Say what? Heck, there's this big empty house in Vancouver, UBC is a hop and a skip away and I'm not sure I can afford the out-of-province student fees in Quebec.

But she didn't listen. Her mind was set. Despite my entreaties, despite my clumsy bribes, she was already convinced that Montreal - Concordia University to be more precise - was the only place for her. And the irony in all this is that she used my arguments to bolster her position. "It's an educational experience on all sorts of fronts," she said. "Think of everything I'll learn there; how my French will improve." And then she smiled slyly. "Besides, you always said Montreal was the only real city in Canada. And you know how much I want to experience that for myself..."

I don't often win arguments with my daughters. This time was no different. And that's how I found myself strapped in to my Westjet seat flying east last week en famille .

At this juncture in this story, I suppose it would make sense to admit that I was a wee bit excited myself about returning to Montreal. While it was once a frequent stopover point for me, life changes in recent years had dramatically cut down my eastern visits. So returning to the city of my birth - if only for a few days and not on my own agenda - was still something of an adventure.

I bet you're already wondering how I'm going to leash this shaggy-dog story and make it relevant to Whistler's current issues. Easy. For what I discovered during my short stay in Montreal last week could completely transform our little ailing town.

More background:

Did you know that Montreal is one of the biggest - and most successful -university towns on the continent? While there's so much more to Quebec's premier city than the promotion of its post-secondary education opportunities, the 400-year old burg has quietly established itself over the years as an urban centre with a distinct educational flavour. And that flavour means there are - literally - hundreds of thousands of students in the downtown core!

Think about it. Montreal boasts four city universities - Concordia and McGill for the anglos; Université de Montreal and Université du Quebec à Montreal for the francos - and countless post-secondary colleges tucked in around them. And we're not talking pushed to the outskirts of the city like Vancouver's UBC and SFU. No - for students in Montreal, it's all about being in the heart of the action.

My daughter's residence, for example - a stately 19 th century cut-brick former convent - is within walking distance of every downtown museum, gallery, theatre and/or bar she might ever want to visit. And given that 18-year-olds (i.e. university freshmen) can drink in Quebec, I'm sure the latter will be explored fully.

But I digress. The point I'm trying to make is that the post-secondary education business in Montreal is not only good for the city's bottom-line, it's electric for the ambiance. I mean, bring together thousands of happy students from all over the world (and no, I'm not exaggerating - Quebec even has a fee-reciprocity deal with students from France and North Africa) into your downtown core and what do you get? An instant party!

And no time is that more evident than in the first week in September. No matter where you go, no matter what you're doing, it feels at this time of the year like Montreal's downtown has been invaded by kids, er, young adults. And their parents of course.

It's like a big festival. Everybody's happy (well, maybe not some of the more budget-conscious mums and dads). Everybody's keen. And everybody wants to meet everyone else. It's about as open and easy-going an atmosphere as you'll ever find in a Canadian city.

As a single dad, I even got to experience the madness that is Montreal's downtown Zellers during student-entry week. Can you imagine trying to negotiate the aisles of a cut-rate merchandise store crowded with frantic mothers (from Atlanta to Beijing) all trying to get the best deals on pillows, sheets, towels, duvet covers, brooms, toilet cleanser and whatever else their precious student-to-be needs for their new dorm/apartment/home? It's hell on wheels. But I'm sure the Zellers managers love it. I mean, how could you not? They know exactly when these people will shop and what they'll be purchasing. It's like shooting consumers in a barrel.

But we got great deals. Heck, everything was two-for-one. I wonder what Jenna will do with two brooms....

Seriously, though. Are you beginning to get where I'm going? After all, I've been there before.

Here's my billion-dollar question: when will Whistler council get its collective head out of its derrière and realize just how important launching a post-secondary education program here could be to our economy and spirit? And it's not going to happen overnight. If we're even a bit serious about attracting the world's learners to our valley, we have to get the groundwork done now.

Yadda, yadda, yadda. This is Whistler, you counter. We're not Montreal. We'll never attract hundreds of thousands of students. You're smoking the wacky stuff again, Beaudry. You're right. Of course we'll never attract those kinds of numbers to our little town. But just think. What could a few thousand happy, young international scholars do to our downtown core?

Let's face it. The destination market that made pie-in-the-sky dreamers of Whistler's decision makers in the early 1990s has dried up. We're back to being the mighty regional behemoth that was first envisioned for us in the early 1960s. And that certainly means changing the way we do business.

Let's take an obvious example. We now have far more hotel rooms than overnight customers. You can argue the numbers all you want, but it's pretty obvious that some outfits are going to have to close their doors sooner than later. What would happen, say, if some of those empty hotel rooms were transformed into student dorms and their "banquet/reception" facilities turned into classrooms?

Wow. What a change. Youthful, fun, outgoing - Whistler is a happening place, 12 months a year! Weather-proof and inflation-proof! New students, new profs, visiting lecturers, parents: a whole new market to exploit. I know. I know. Change is so complicated. So scary. But not really. After all, we've been bucking the odds here since Whistler Mountain was built nearly a half-century ago. We showed the world in 2010 that we could host an international sports festival and do it well. Why not launch a university in 2015? Think about that as you ponder the upcoming civic elections...