Gatineau, Quebec

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Gatineau (2001 census population 226,296) is a city in western Quebec, Canada. It is situated on the northern bank of the Ottawa River, immediately across from Ottawa, Ontario, and is located within Canada's National Capital Region. Ottawa and Gatineau comprise a single Census Metropolitan Area.

History

1975 to 2002

Prior to 2002, there were five cities on the Quebec side of the Ottawa River: Hull, Gatineau, Aylmer, Buckingham, and Masson-Angers. The former City of Gatineau was the largest of these municipalities, both in area and population.

The former City of Gatineau was itself the product of an amalgamation on January 1, 1975, when the municipalities of Gatineau, Pointe-Gatineau, Touraine, Templeton, Templeton-Ouest and Templeton-Est were merged in an effort to improve municipal services and coordinate urban growth. With the 1975 amalgamation, Gatineau became the largest city in the Outaouais. Despite the 1989 separation of the Cantley area from the (now former) City of Gatineau, Gatineau remained the fifth largest municipality in Quebec by population, behind Montreal, Laval, Quebec City and Longueuil.

Amalgamation

In 2002, the Parti Québécois government of Quebec amalgamated a number of municipalities throughout the Province, including the five former cities that constitute the current City of Gatineau (Aylmer, Hull, Gatineau, Buckingham and Masson-Angers). Hull was still considered the primary city within this region, although the former Gatineau had a larger population. Nonetheless, the name Gatineau was chosen for the new amalgamated municipality because it was more representative of the region (given that the federal Gatineau Park, the Gatineau Hills, and the Gatineau River defined the area geographically), and the Parti Québécois government allegedly wanted an appropriately French name. The Gatineau name was adopted for the new city, despite the fact that "Hull-Gatineau" was the most popular choice in opinion polls, and the fact that the Hull name had represented the earliest urban development in the area.

Image:Gatineau pop div.gif Most of the citizens of the new city live in the urban cores of Aylmer, Hull and the former Gatineau. Buckingham and Masson-Angers are more rural communities.

On June 20, 2004, the current Liberal government of Quebec fulfilled a campaign promise by holding a referendum vote, giving the residents of the former cities the choice of separating from Gatineau. In order to separate, the residents of a former city required a double-win: more than 50% of the vote representing at least 35% of the electorate. The majority of the votes cast in Aylmer and Masson-Angers were in favour of separation, but they did not represent at least 35% of the electorate in their respective communities. The majority of voters in Buckingham and Hull, chose to remain part of Gatineau. The participation was very low, and the status quo can be partly attributed to the indifference of the citizens. There was no referendum in the former city of Gatineau.

It was originally reported that the residents of Masson-Angers were able to meet the 50%-35% rule, and that they would be separating from Gatineau. However, a recount caused seventeen votes to be rejected. Because of this, the number of votes cast in favour of separation was fifteen votes short of being at least 35% of the electorate. As a result, the city of Gatineau will remain intact.

Employment

A number of federal and provincial government offices are located in Gatineau, due to its proximity to the national capital, and its status as the main town of the Outaouais region of Quebec.

A policy of the federal government to distribute federal jobs on both sides of the Ottawa River led to the construction of several massive office towers to house federal civil servants in Gatineau; the largest of these are Place du Portage and Place du Centre, occupying part of what had been the downtown core of Hull.

Recreation

Two important tourist attractions located in Gatineau are the Canadian Museum of Civilization and the Casino du Lac Leamy. At the beginning of September, on Labour Day weekend, Gatineau hosts an annual hot air balloon festival which fills the skies with colourful gas-fired passenger balloons.

Image:Filling balloons with hot air.jpg

There are many parks. Some of them are well gardened playgrounds or resting spaces while others, like Lac Beauchamp Park, are relatively wild green areas which often merge with the woods and fields of the surrounding municipalities. Streams of all sizes run through these natural expanses. Most of the city is on level ground but the Northern and Eastern parts lie on the beginnings of the foothills of the massive Canadian Shield, or Laurentian mountains. These are the "Gatineau Hills", and are visible in the background of the companion picture. One of Gatineau's urban parks, Jacques Cartier park is used by the National Capital Commission during the popular festival, Winterlude.

Education

The city contains a campus of the Université du Québec, the Université du Québec en Outaouais (UQO).

It is also the home of two provincial junior colleges (or CEGEPs): the francophone CEGEP de l'Outaouais and the anglophone Heritage College.

Transportation

Gatineau has a municipal airport capable of handling small jets. There are Canada customs facilities for aircraft coming from outside Canada, a car rental counter and a restaurant. Various attempts to provide regularly scheduled flights from Gatineau's airport have not been successful. Most residents of Gatineau use the nearby Ottawa Macdonald-Cartier International Airport, or travel to Montréal-Pierre Elliott Trudeau International Airport.

Ottawa and Gatineau have two distinct bus-based public transit systems, OC Transpo and the Société de transport de l'Outaouais, with different fare structures and connections only in the downtown cores of the two municipalities. Tickets are not interchangeable between the two, and use of passes and transfers from one system to the other can require payment of a surcharge on certain routes (such as express lines).

Many Gatineau highways and major arteries feed directly into the bridges crossing over to Ottawa, but once there the roads land into the dense downtown grid or into residential areas, with no easy connection to the main highway in Ottawa, the East-West 417 or Queensway. This difficulty is further magnified by the lack of a major highway on the Quebec side of the Ottawa River connecting Gatineau to the major city of Montreal, Quebec; most travellers from Gatineau to Montreal first cross over to Ottawa, and use Ontario highways to access Montreal. However, it is expected that Quebec Autoroute 50's gap between Gatineau and Lachute will be completed by 2010, making a new link between Gatineau and the Laurentians popular tourist area, and may serve as part of a Montreal by-pass by the north shore for Outaouais residents.

Key roads

See List of Gatineau roads

Media

Gatineau is the city of license for several television and radio stations, although many more stations licensed to Ottawa are also available in the area. Both cities are generally considered to constitute a single media market, and all of the region's broadcast stations transmit from a site at Camp Fortune just north of Gatineau.

Gatineau is also served primarily by daily newspapers published in Ottawa, including the French Le Droit and the English Ottawa Citizen, although a number of weekly community newspapers are published in Gatineau.

See List of Ottawa media outlets.

Population and demographics

According to the 2001 Statistics Canada Census:

• % Change (1996-2001): 4.2
• Dwellings: 94,124
• Area (sq. km.): 342.31
• Density (persons per sq. km.): 662.3

Racial Groups

• 95.0% White
• 1.2% Arab
• 1.0% Black

Religious Denomination

• 90.0% Roman Catholic
• 4.3% other Christian
• 0.8% Muslim

Language Spoken at Home

• 84% French
• 13% English
• 3% Other

Communities

• Angers
• Aylmer
• Bassin-du-Lièvre
• Beau-Mont Acres
• Buckingham
• Cousineau
• Farmers Rapids
• Gatineau
• Hull
• Ironside
• Jeanne-d'Arc
• Masson-Angers
• Quinnville
• Simmons

See also

• List of communities in Quebec
• Twin cities

External links

• City of Gatineau, Quebec
• Template:Wikitravelpar
• Gatineau Hot Air Balloon Festival Site
• The Casino du Lac Leamy
• Gatineau Park
• Infomation on the Gatineau Airport in the Canadian Owners and Pilots Association Places to Fly directory

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