Bylaw change mulled to allow unlicensed Indigenous tour guides
Indigenous historians and elders may eventually be able to give Indigenous tours of Montreal without becoming licensed tour guides.
Montreal is considering amending Bylaw G-2 — which states that only guides who have studied at the Institut de tourisme et d’hôtellerie du Québec (ITHQ) may obtain a permit to give tours — in order to allow unlicensed Indigenous guides or elders more freedom to tell their own history, as part of the city’s process of reconciliation with Indigenous peoples.
What form such an amendment may take is not yet clear. Possibilities include allowing Indigenous elders to accompany licensed guides, or allowing an exception for tours related to Indigenous history.
Marie-ève Bordeleau, Montreal’s commissioner of Indigenous relations, laid out the above scenarios this week in a written reply to Montreal history teacher and tour guide Donovan King, who had emailed her on Sept. 30.
In his email, King stated that he wanted to hire Indigenous guides to offer a “post-colonial tour” as part of his Hidden Histories of Montreal series. He argued the G-2 bylaw is prohibitive, since he could find no Indigenous people who were licensed as tour guides with the ITHQ.
King is an Irish Montrealer who offers a variety of events through his company Griffin Tours, including an Irish History tour and a Haunted Montreal tour. He would also like to hire currently or formerly homeless people to conduct tours of homeless Montreal, akin to Dublin’s Secret Street tours, but that too would contravene the bylaw, he points out.
“My goal is to totally scrap Bylaw G-2,” King said Wednesday.
After being accosted by a licensed tour guide at Notre-dame Basilica for bringing a group of his adult-ed students through without a licence in 2017, King enrolled in the ITHQ’S 240-hour course and became a licensed guide.
Last year, King hired human rights lawyer Julius Grey to provide a legal analysis of Bylaw G-2.
“The conclusion one can come to is that the bylaw is contestable on (grounds of ) both the freedom of expression, and to a lesser degree the absence of power,” Grey wrote in his nine-page evaluation of the regulation.
“I think the bylaw may well be invalid, in all or in part, on a couple of questions,” Grey told the Montreal Gazette on Thursday. “The first is, can the city create a professional corporation (of tour guides)? The second is that this is a highly irregular use of its powers; it means that you can’t (give tours) even on a volunteer basis, a teacher can’t take class trips around Montreal to illustrate history, and you can’t do it in private with friends.”
Grey noted that by only authorizing guides who have taken the ITHQ course, the city is imposing a world view that negates marginalized communities.
“This type of imposition of content, of a particular truth, is in fact an imposition of some sort of political correctness by the city. It’s a soft totalitarianism, which in the end eliminates all freedom.”
A spokesperson for an independent Montreal cultural institution that offers a variety of walking tours noted that the bylaw puts them in a grey zone.
“We’re in a ‘don’t ask, don’t tell’ situation,” they said. “I guess it’s a question of where the line is. Should every museum only be in a white cube? Recognized institutions and certain marginalized communities should have the opportunity to tell their stories on the street.”