Auditorium and Politics

Politics are boring? Not for the Verdun Auditorium! Seeing men all dressed up in a suit and tie and women in a suit and high heels contrasted with the sweaty athletes and long-haired rock musicians that it was accustomed to!

Its great hosting capacity made it an ideal place for launching campaigns or holding other political events. One of the largest political rallies that the Auditorium witnesseed during its existence was the Québec Liberal Party leadership convention, in the spring of 2013.

The Auditorium gets ready for the Québec Liberal Party’s leadership race

Welcoming several thousand party members required a lot of preparation. The arena was cleaned from top to bottom, as all the major media were on hand and film this political convention. The presence of Jean Charest, former Premier of Québec, brought its share of difficulties from a security standpoint. The attempted assassination, a few months earlier, during the speech of newly elected Québec Premier Pauline Marois, was still fresh in the memories of the various police forces. The Auditorium was on guard!

The Québec Liberal Party seemed to love the Auditorium, as the party members come back here often. The arena was often requested for the presentation of political candidates of the Verdun riding. What better way to present a candidate than at a top venue in the Verdun community? The Auditorium was ideal for fulfilling this role.

Presentation of Liberal candidate Isabelle Melançon at the Verdun Auditorium

At times, it was a stop among others on politicians’ itinerary, and not only those of the Québec Liberal Party. In 2014, the Auditorium welcomed Pauline Marois, the Leader of the Parti Québécois and Premier of Québec, who had come to promote her team during the election campaign. That is when the Auditorium saw something for the first time: members of the Front d’action populaire en réaménagement urbain (FRAPRU), a militant group asserting the right to housing, were expelled from its facilities by the security guards. There’s no messing around when politicians come to visit!

Politics may be a less festive area of activity than could be sports or music; however, never would the Auditorium have suspected how much politics would leave a lasting mark its own history forever…