{"id":900,"date":"2008-05-12T19:00:55","date_gmt":"2008-05-13T00:00:55","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/spacingmontreal.ca\/2008\/05\/12\/mouvement-boulevard-lucien-rivard\/"},"modified":"2013-01-21T11:31:01","modified_gmt":"2013-01-21T16:31:01","slug":"mouvement-boulevard-lucien-rivard","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/spacing.ca\/montreal\/2008\/05\/12\/mouvement-boulevard-lucien-rivard\/","title":{"rendered":"Mouvement boulevard Lucien-Rivard"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Walking around this weekend I noticed a procession of odd posters around the Main: “Qu\u00e9b\u00e9cois et Qu\u00e9b\u00e9coises ! Montr\u00e9alais-Montr\u00e9alaises ! Prenez part \u00e0 un mouvement HISTORIQUE<\/i> !” they declared rather excitedly. “Le mouvement boulevard Lucien-Rivard propose de r\u00e9baptiser le boulevard Saint-Laurent \u00e0 Montr\u00e9al : boulevard Lucien-Rivard.” Above was what appeared to be a mugshot, a streetsign reading “boulevard Lucien-Rivard,” a photo of Schwartz’s and a boulevard Saint-Laurent street sign that had been angrily crossed out.<\/p>\n

“This has got to be a joke,” I thought to myself. The mere fact that the name “Mouvement boulevard Lucien-Rivard” rhymes seems to suggest that this is a jibe at the whole Park Avenue affair and the city’s eagerness to rename its streets. I made a mental note to check out mblr.org<\/a>, the website advertised on the posters.<\/p>\n

Thing is, after looking at the website, I’m not entirely sure it’s a prank after all. It actually seems pretty earnest. Here, in the same excitable prose as on the posters, is an outline of the MBLR’s motivation:<\/p>\n

On parle beaucoup de Lucien Rivard ces temps-ci et c\u2019est comme si tout le monde l\u2019avait oubli\u00e9!! Lucien Rivard fait partie de ces personnages historique qui d\u00e9rangent on dirait… <\/p>\n

Trop de rues dans notre belle province portent les noms de saints inconnus ou de politiciens corrompus, ou encore des symboles serviles du syst\u00e8me. Mais qu\u2019en est-il des Qu\u00e9b\u00e9cois plus marginaux ?? Des personnalit\u00e9 hors-normes comme les Monica Proietti, le Grand Antonio, Denis Vanier ou Lucien Rivard ?<\/i><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

As for why the Main ought to be renamed, there’s an answer for that too: “La \u00abMain\u00bb de Montr\u00e9al est un boulevard au caract\u00e8re symbolique pour tous les canadiens-fran\u00e7ais. \u00c0 l\u2019Ouest les anglais et les riches, \u00e0 l\u2019Est les pauvres canadiens fran\u00e7ais opprim\u00e9 et manipul\u00e9 par les institutions et les politiciens \u00e0 la solde du pouvoir. Qui peut dire qui \u00e9tait Saint-Laurent ou ce qu\u2019il a accompli ? Pensons-y… Quel rapport entre un homme d\u2019\u00e9glise espagnol mort sur le gril en l\u2019an 258 \u00e0 Rome et la \u00abMain\u00bb (\u00e0 part les hot-dogs toast\u00e9s?)???”<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Lucien Rivard was born sometime around 1915. He grew up to be a petty crook and small-time drug dealer in the 1940s, but in the early 1950s, he moved to Cuba — then a hugely corrupt free-for-all ruled by Fulgencio Batista — where he opened a casino and got involved in the heroin trade. While there, he became friends with a number of organized crime figures, including Jack Ruby, the nightclub owner who later assasinated JFK’s assasin, Lee Harvey Oswald. After returning to Montreal in 1958, Rivard exploited his Cuba connections to move into the gangster big leagues, and he began an elaborate drug-and-weapons smuggling operation. <\/p>\n

That eventually led to his arrest and emprisonment in Bordeaux jail in the early 1960s. In 1965, Rivard escaped, and he managed to elude police for four months before being caught. The American government demanded his extradition to the United States, where prosecutors were eager to try him on major drug smuggling charges (he was also suspected by some of having something to do with JFK’s assassination) but Canada, already smiting over the face it had lost by Rivard’s escape, resisted. Several officials in Lester B. Pearson’s government even attempted to bribe the prosector hired by the US government to extradite Rivard, and when this was revealed, federal Attorney General Guy Favreau was forced to resign, setting the stage for Pierre Trudeau’s political debut.<\/p>\n

Not many people can claim to have played such a big part in the drama of Cuban, American and Canadian history. Like Monica Proietti — aka Machine Gun Molly — Rivard’s antics earned him the status of working-class folk hero at a time when Quebec nationalism, much of it tinged by the class politics of the era, was on the rise. (Like Proietti, Rivard is about to become the subject of a crime drama, Le pi\u00e8ge am\u00e9ricain<\/i>, which will be released this summer.) More than that, though, Rivard was one of the many salty characters that have given Montreal’s history so much flavour.<\/p>\n

Of course, does that really mean that a street should be named after him? Mobsters, eccentrics and oddballs have always played a big role in Montreal’s culture, but what is the most appropriate way to recognize their role in history? I’m still not sure what to make of the Mouvement boulevard Lucien-Rivard. If it’s for real, I wouldn’t be entirely surprised: there’s something about strange, quixotic quests such as these that seem to be just as much a part of Montreal’s character as underworld heroes like Lucien Rivard.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Walking around this weekend I noticed a procession of odd posters around the Main: “Qu\u00e9b\u00e9cois et Qu\u00e9b\u00e9coises ! Montr\u00e9alais-Montr\u00e9alaises ! Prenez part \u00e0 un mouvement HISTORIQUE !” they declared rather excitedly. “Le mouvement boulevard Lucien-Rivard propose de r\u00e9baptiser le boulevard Saint-Laurent \u00e0 Montr\u00e9al : boulevard Lucien-Rivard.” Above was what appeared to be a mugshot, aContinue reading “Mouvement boulevard Lucien-Rivard”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5008,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_ef_editorial_meta_paragraph_assignment":"","_ef_editorial_meta_date_first-draft-date":"","_ef_editorial_meta_checkbox_needs-photo":"","_ef_editorial_meta_number_word-count":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[7831,7839],"tags":[2382,2386,283,2381,1286,2375,2380,2376,2372,2379,2374,2383,2373,2377,2385,1478,125,21,2378,292,274,74,307,2384],"class_list":["post-900","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-community","category-neighbourhoods","tag-american-government","tag-bordeaux-jail","tag-canada","tag-crook-and-small-time-drug-dealer","tag-cuba","tag-denis-vanier","tag-federal-attorney-general","tag-fulgencio-batista","tag-guy-favreau","tag-jack-ruby","tag-lee-harvey-oswald","tag-lester-b-pearsons-government","tag-lucien-rivard","tag-mais-quen","tag-mblr-org","tag-monica-proietti","tag-montreal","tag-people","tag-pierre-trudeau","tag-quebec","tag-rome","tag-the-main","tag-united-states","tag-us-government"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nMouvement boulevard Lucien-Rivard - Spacing Montreal<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/spacing.ca\/montreal\/2008\/05\/12\/mouvement-boulevard-lucien-rivard\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Mouvement boulevard Lucien-Rivard - Spacing Montreal\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Walking around this weekend I noticed a procession of odd posters around the Main: “Qu\u00e9b\u00e9cois et Qu\u00e9b\u00e9coises ! 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