Growing calls for Quebec to start reconstruction of Maisonneuve-Rosemont Hospital sooner than 2026

Elevators that aren’t working, a squirrel in the hospital, bricks falling: these are some of the reported complaints of the state of the Maisonneuve-Rosemont Hospital in Montreal’s East End.

Many, including users, advocates, unions and Quebec opposition parties called on the Legault government Thursday to get the reconstruction project moving, after Health Minister Christian Dubé admitted last week that work was postponed and may not happen until 2026.

“It’s more than a scandal, it’s horrendous that, in 2025, we should be at the peak of good health-care, and we’re just barely holding on here in this hospital,” said Sonia Bureau, a physiotherapist at the hospital and the VP for hospital employees represented by the Canadian Union of Public Employees (CUPE).

“I’ve seen rats, I’ve seen snow, I’ve seen bugs everywhere,” she added.

“I can’t believe we had that going on in our hospitals,” said Rosemary Anzini, a user exiting the hospital on Thursday. “They just wait until it lingers and it just goes into shambles after and that’s not the way it’s supposed to be, with our tax-paying money.”

Preparatory work for the project — which is set to modernize the hospital and almost double its capacity — has been pushed back several times.

“We need our first shovel in the ground this year,” said Mélissa Bellemare dit Loof, a coordinator of the patients’ committee of Maisonneuve-Rosemont Hospital (CUHMR).

“We were there at the announcement in 2018. It’s been enough. We’ve waited it enough. This is six to seven years this promise had been done. The budget had been put aside at that point. Why isn’t it being done?”

Leader of the Parti Québécois Paul St-Pierre Plamondon held a press conference outside the hospital Thursday morning.

“It’s not too late to do the right thing, but it’s too late to have no impact on the services and on the workplace,” he said. “It already has an impact that is abnormal. The more we wait, the more it’s abnormal, but the more the cost of repairing things that don’t work anymore.”

At the National Assembly in Quebec City, the Quebec Liberal Party also critiqued the CAQ government’s lack of movement on the project.

“This is a total failure,” said Marc Tanguay, the interim leader of the Quebec Liberal Party. “[Legault] he had promised this in 2021, in 2023. Today, saying that we no longer have any public funds to do it, he’s incapable.”

At a press conference in Montreal Thursday relating to U.S. tariffs, Legault described the state of the hospital as “terrible.”

“We all agree, [Dubé] and myself included, that we need to invest at Maisonneuve-Rosemont,” he said. “We have to do that correctly — so we invest money. Of course, there are different steps to go from planning to realization. But we want to do that correctly as fast as possible.”

In a statement to CityNews, Health Minister Christian Dubé’s office says that the project is continuing — that it’s a “must” for their government, adding that they are investing $40 million to implement the project.

“We are moving every step forward to accelerate the project’s deployment, and we will announce the dates for the next milestones as soon as they are official,” the statement reads.

Dubé’s office says it remains their priority “to deliver this major project and begin preparatory work as quickly as possible.”

The statement also adds that the arrival of Santé Québec “provides an overview and better project management across Quebec.”

For some users, the project’s postponement is a disappointment.

“It’s taking a very long time, but we don’t have a choice with all the cuts the government is making right now,” said user Denise Guilbauld.

“It’s like everything: keep care of it, it’ll stay. You let it go, well, you’re going to have more work down the line,” said Montrealer Francesco Pisegna.

“I’m sorry to see over time that situations like this haven’t been resolved, it’s a shame. But I think that it will surely happen,” said Louise Tremblay.

For Bureau, there is no better time to start than now.

“You promised you’re supposed to be the people who are taking care of us, that’s what you said, during the pandemic, well now, it’s time,” she said.

Once the construction starts, it could take at least 12-15 years before the project is completed.

“If they don’t resolve an issue, it’s just going to get worse,” said Anzini. “So they should get their butts [moving] and do something about it.”