Laval (help:IPA læˈvæl (help·info)) is a city and a region in southwestern Quebec, Canada in the Greater Montreal Area. It is located on Île Jésus, across the Rivière des Prairies from Montreal. It also includes the Îles Laval in the Rivière des Prairies. In 2006, the city had a population of 368,709 ^[1], which makes it the third largest city in Quebec. Laval constitutes one of the 17 administrative regions of Quebec, whose number is 13, as well as a territory equivalent to a regional county municipality (TE) and census division (CD) with geographical code 65.

[edit] History

Laval was originally inhabited by Mohawks before the French arrived. The first European Settlers were Jesuits in 1636 when they were granted a seigneury there. Agriculture first appeared in Laval in 1670. In 1675, François de Montmorency-Laval gained control of the seigneury. In 1702 a parish was founded, and dedicated to Saint-François de Sales. The first municipalities on the island were created in 1845, after nearly 200 years of a rural nature. The only built-up area on the island, Sainte-Rose, was incorporated as a village in 1850, and remained as the main community for the remainder of the century. With the dawn of the 20th century came urbanization. Laval-des-Rapides became Laval's first city in 1912, followed by L'Abord-à-Plouffe being granted village status three years later. Laval-sur-le-Lac was founded in the same year on its tourist-based economy from Montrealers. Laval began to grow throughout the following years, due to its proximity to Montreal that made it an ideal suburb.

To deal with problems caused by urbanization, amalgamations occurred; L'Abord-à-Plouffe amalgamated with Renaud and Saint-Martin creating the city of Chomedey in 1961. The amalgamation turned out to be so successful for the municipalities involved that the Quebec government decided to amalgamate the whole island into a single city of Laval in 1965. Laval was named after the first owner of Île Jésus, François de Montmorency-Laval, the first Roman Catholic Bishop of Quebec. At the time, Laval had a population of 170,000. Laval became a Regional County Municipality in 1980. Prior to that, it was the County of Laval.^[2]

The 14 municipalities, which existed prior to the incorporation of the amalgamated City of Laval on August 6, 1965, were:

[edit] Geography

The island is still rural in nature, with most of the urban area in the central region and along the south and west river banks.

Laval is bounded on the south by Montreal across the Rivière des Prairies, on the north by MRC des Moulins and by MRC de Thérèse-de-Blainville and on the west by MRC de Deux-Montagnes across the Rivière des Mille Îles.

[edit] Demographics

Laval Population by year
1971 - 228,010 1976 - 246,240 1981 - 268,335 1986 - 290,791 1991 - 321,937 1996 - 334,882 2001 - 349,896 2006 - 376,845

^{[citation needed]}

Laval is the fifth largest suburb in North America after Town of Hempstead, New York; Mississauga, Ontario; Mesa, Arizona and Surrey, British Columbia.

Ethnic Origin	Population	Percent
Canadian	168,090	46.1%
French	88,210	24.2%
Italian	34,500	9.5%
Greek	18,760	5.1%
Irish	15,555	4.3%
Haitian	12,250	3.4%
Lebanese	10,725	2.9%
Québécois	8,055	2.2%
English	7,655	2.1%
Armenian	7,640	2.1%
Portuguese	7,370	2%
Scottish	6,535	1.8%
First Nations	6,415	1.8%
German	6,090	1.7%
Spanish	5,070	1.4%
Romanian	3,885	1.1%
Moroccan	3,645	1%

In 2001, the population of Laval was an estimated 343,005, a 3.8 percent increase from the earlier census in 1996. Women constitute 51.44% of the total population. Children under 14 years of age total 18.6%, while those of retirement age (65 years of age and older) number 13.2% resulting in a median age of 38.7 years.^[3]

In Laval, 15.48% of the population was born outside of Canada, substantially lower than the national average, many immigrants hailing from the French Caribbean, the Middle East, North Africa, and Europe. Those of indigenous origin constitute 0.22%, while those who are visible minorities (non-white/European) number 8.68%, and are chiefly Black Canadian, Arab, and Hispanic. As with many parts of Quebec, the city is highly Christian (90.71%), particularly Roman Catholic (81.09%), while Protestant and Orthodox groups constitute the remainder of the population. Religions such as Islam, Judaism, Buddhism, and others number less than 5% combined.

[edit] Languages

Laval is not quite as linguistically diverse as neighbouring Montreal. The 2006 census found that, counting both single and multiple responses, French was spoken as a mother tongue by 68.4% of the population, and was spoken most often at home by 73.8% of Laval residents.^[4] Counting single responses only, the next most common mother tongues were English (6.9%), Italian (4.4%), Greek and Arabic (3.9% each), Spanish (2.2%) and Armenian (1.8%).^[5]

Mother tongue	Population	Percentage
French	242,155	66.41%
English	25,270	6.93%
English and French	2,375	0.65%
French and a non-official language	4,025	1.10%
English and a non-official language	1,695	0.46%
English, French and a non-official language	685	0.19%
Italian	16,025	4.39%
Arabic	14,330	3.93%
Greek	14,070	3.86%
Spanish	8,065	2.21%
Armenian	6,420	1.76%
Creole	5,120	1.40%
Portuguese	4,670	1.28%
Romanian	2,970	0.81%
Vietnamese	1,900	0.52%
Khmer (Cambodian)	1,415	0.39%
Chinese languages	1,365	0.37%

Mother tongue	Population	Percentage
Farsi (Persian)	1,260	0.35%
Lao	1,035	0.28%
German	955	0.26%
Russian	935	0.26%
Polish	875	0.24%
Hungarian	785	0.22%
Panjabi (Punjabi)	775	0.21%
Tamil	545	0.15%
Urdu	485	0.13%
Croatian	430	0.12%
Turkish	305	0.08%
Tagalog	190	0.05%
Yiddish	175	0.05%
Hebrew	150	0.04%
Dutch	140	0.04%
Serbian	140	0.04%
Bengali	125	0.03%

[edit] Administration

Currently the city is divided in six sectors (secteurs in French) which only approximately cover the territories of the former municipalities. They are:

Sector 1
- Duvernay
- Saint-François
- Saint-Vincent-de-Paul
Sector 2
- Laval-des-Rapides
- Pont-Viau
- Renaud

Sector 3
- Chomedey
Sector 4
- Fabreville Ouest
- Îles Laval
- Laval-Ouest
- Laval-sur-le-Lac
- Sainte-Dorothée

Sector 5
- Fabreville Est
- Sainte-Rose
Sector 6
- Vimont
- Auteuil

The former city of Fabreville was divided among two sectors.

[edit] Flag, seal and motto

On a white-yellow background, the emblem of Laval illustrates the modernism of a city in full expansion. The sign of the city symbolizes the "L" of Laval.

The colours also have a significant meaning :

Dark red represents usually the affluence and represents here the great economic potential of Laval.
Blue symbolizes the quality of life and the installation of a human city.

The "L" of Laval is made of cubes that represent the development of Laval.

The letters of the Laval signature are related one to the other to point out the merger of the 14 municipalities of Jesus island in 1965.

The logo (that is on the flag) has existed since the 1980s and the flag since the 1990s.^[6]

[edit] Politics

[edit] Municipal elections and mayors

As of 2008, Gilles Vaillancourt is the mayor of the city of Laval. He has been in office since 1989^[7]. Vaillancourt's party, the Parti PRO des Lavallois, was born in 1980. Vaillancourt took over as head of the party just before the 1989 municipal elections^[8].

Past mayors have been :

Jean-Noël Lavoie (founding mayor), 1965
Jacques Tétreault, 1965-1973
Dr. Lucien Paiement, 1973-1981
Claude Lefebvre, 1981-1989

[edit] Federal and provincial

Politically, Laval is a battleground area between the Quebec nationalist parties (the Bloc Québécois federally and the Parti Québécois provincially) and the federalist parties (the Liberal Party of Canada and the Parti libéral du Québec). The only exception is Chomedey in the south, which voted overwhelmingly to not separate in the 1995 Quebec referendum. The other parts of Laval were narrowly split.

[edit] Economy

Laval's diverse economy is centered around the technology, pharmaceutical, industrial and retail sectors. It has many pharmaceutical laboratories but also stone quarries and a persistent agricultural sector. Long seen as a bedroom community, Laval has diversified its economy, especially in the retail sector, developing numerous shopping malls, warehouses and various retail stores.

The following is a list of the industrial parks in Laval. ^[9]

[edit] Industrial Park Centre

One of the largest municipal industrial parks in Quebec, the Industrial Park Centre is located in the heart of Laval (corner of St. Martin West and Blvd. Industriel) and boasts the highest concentration of manufacturing companies in Laval; 1,024 at last count, and 22,378 employees. The park still has 1,300,643 m² of space available.

[edit] Highway 25 Industrial Park

Inaugurated in 2001, this new industrial municipal space has been a tremendous success, boasting an 80% occupancy rate. Easy to access, the Autoroute 25 Industrial Park is at the crossroads of the metropolitan road network. Laval is studying the possibility of expanding this park in the next few years.

[edit] Industrial Park East

This park has reached full maturity with a 100% occupancy rate. Located in Saint-Vincent-de-Paul, the Industrial Park East is currently part of a municipal program to revitalize municipal services and public utilities. Laval is working with a private developer on an expansion project for the park that should be announced in the near future.

[edit] Laval Science and High Technology Park

Laval Science and High Technology Park; an internationally renowned science campus that houses the Biotech City and the Information Technology Development Center (ITDC), the Laval Science and High Technology Park is a beacon of the metropolitan economy, located in an environment befitting the best technopolises in the world. Nearly 500,000 square meters (5,380,000 sq ft) of space are available for development. Located along Rivière des Prairies and Autoroute 15, the Biotech City spans the entire territory of the Laval Science and High Technology Park and is a unique concept in Canada in that its residents comprise both universities and companies.

[edit] Sports

[edit] Sports teams

Club	Sport	League	Stadium/Arena
Regents	Ice Hockey	Midget AAA	Colisée de Laval
Les Comètes	Women’s soccer	W-League	Complexe sportif Claude-Robillard
Les Associés	Baseball	Ligue de Baseball Élite du Québec	Montmorency Park
Vikings de Laval Nord	Football	Midget AAA	Parc Roi du Nord
Les Bulldogs de Laval	Football	Midget AAA	Parc Cartier
Les Loups de CAL	Football	Juvenile AAA	Parc Roi du Nord
Les Devils de Laval	Junior Football AAA	Quebec Junior Football League	Parc Cartier

See also: Le réseau des sports for detailed coverage.

Laval was also host-city of the "Jeux du Québec" held in summer 1991.

[edit] Transportation

[edit] Roads

[edit] Highways

The Metropolitan Community of Montreal

A-25 - Boucherville to Saint-Esprit via Montreal and the A-440 (Laval)
A-19 (Papineau Highway) - Montreal to Boulevard Dagenais, continues as Route 335 to Bois-des-Filion and beyond
A-13 (Chomedey Highway) - Montreal to Boisbriand
A-15 (Laurentian Highway) - New York state to Sainte-Agathe-des-Monts
A-440 (Laval Freeway) - Laval

[edit] Provincial routes

Route 125 - Montreal to Saint-Donat
Route 148 - Laval to Pembroke, Ontario
Route 335 - Montreal to the Lanaudière region past Saint-Calixte
Route 117 - Montreal to Ontario Highway 66 past Rouyn-Noranda

[edit] Incidents

On June 18, 2000, during renovations to the Souvenir Boulevard overpass over Highway 15, the southern section collapsed onto the highway, causing the death of one person.^[10]^[11].
On September 30, 2006, the De la Concorde overpass over Autoroute 19 suddenly collapsed killing five people.^[12] See also: De la Concorde Overpass collapse

[edit] Public transit

[edit] Metro

In April 2007, the Montreal Metro was extended to Laval with three stations. The long-awaited stations were begun in 2003 and completed in April 2007, two months ahead of the revised schedule, at a cost of $803 million, funded entirely by the Quebec government. The stations are Cartier, De La Concorde, and Montmorency. The arrival of the subway in Laval was long awaited as it was first promised in the 1960s.

Public transit users must purchase the $105 TRAM card to access the metro from Laval's three new stations or pay $2.75 per trip towards Montreal since regular Montreal tickets and the CAM pass are not valid at the three new stations.

On July 22, 2007, the mayor of Laval, Gilles Vaillancourt, announced his wish to loop the Orange line from Montmorency to Cote-Vertu stations with the addition of six new stations (three in Laval and another three in Montreal). He proposes that Transports Quebec, the provincial transport department, set aside $100M annually to fund the project, which is expected to cost upwards of $1.5 billion [1].

[edit] Commuter railway

The Agence métropolitaine de transport (AMT) operates two commuter train lines on the island. The Deux-Montagnes and Blainville-Saint-Jerome lines connect Laval to downtown Montreal in as little as 30 minutes. Including De la Concorde, there are currently five train stations.

[edit] Buses

See the Société de transport de Laval page for the public transit system. The STL's network consists of 35 regular lines, two rush hour lines, two trainbus lines, three express lines, one community circuit and several taxi lines.

There are reserved lanes for buses and taxis on Chomedey Blvd between Le Carrefour Blvd and the Des Prairies River (Lachapelle Bridge) and beyond as well as along boulevard des Laurentides between rue Proulx and boulevard Cartier (the reserved lane, in this case for buses only, continues onto the Pont Viau bridge into Montreal until the Terminus Laval at the Henri-Bourassa metro station). Most buses that use the reserved lane end their journey at the Cartier metro station.
The AMT and the City of Laval have developed a reserved bus and taxi lane on Notre-Dame Boulevard between Vincent Massey Street and Place Alton-Goldbloom and another on De la Concorde Blvd between De l'Avenir and Laval Blvds, as well as between Ampere Ave and Roanne St. These reserved lanes (Notre-Dame and De la Concorde are the same boulevard but change name where they meet under Autoroute 15) opened shortly after October 31, 2007.

A Google Map of the subway system, including the three new Laval stations can be viewed at Montreal-Laval Subway Map Mashup.

Blainville-Saint-Jerome Line	Deux-Montagnes Line	Line 2 Orange (Montreal Metro)
Sainte-Rose	Sainte-Dorothée	Montmorency
Vimont	Île-Bigras	De la Concorde
De la Concorde		Cartier

[edit] Education

Laval is home to a variety of vocational/technical centres, colleges and universities, including:

College Montmorency
CDI College
Centre de formation Compétences-2000
Centre de formation en métallurgie de Laval
Chomedey Centre
Centre de formation horticole de Laval
Centre de formation Paul-Émile-Dufresne
Herzing College

École hôtelière de Laval
École polymécanique de Laval
Centre de formation Le Chantier
Institut de protection contre les incendies du Québec
Université de Montréal (Laval campus)
Delta College
Université du Québec à Montréal (Laval campus)

The city has two separate school boards, the Commission scolaire de Laval for French-speaking students and the Sir Wilfrid Laurier School Board for English-speaking students

[edit] Tourism

All or part of this article may be confusing or unclear.
Please help clarify the article. Suggestions may be on the talk page. (September 2007)

Laval's main attractions are:

Centropolis
The Cosmodôme
Mille-Îles River Park
Mondial Choral Loto-Québec
The Carrefour Laval shopping centre
Commercial directory INFO Laval Website
The Recreatheque
Moomba Supper Club
Armand-Frappier museum
Rivière-des-Prairies' hydroelectric plant
Old Sainte-Dorothée
Old Saint-Vincent-de-Paul
Sainte-Rose-de-Lima church
Saint-François-de-Sales church
Laval Restaurants

Laval Symphony Orchestra
Salle André-Mathieu show hall
La Maison des Jardins' show hall
Centre de la Nature
Auteuilloise farm
The Cardinal Golf club
Red Lite Afterhours
Saint-François Golf club
Sainte-Rose Golf club
The Boisé Papineau park
Le Match
Cineplex Entertainment LP' Colossus movie theatre
Centre Laval shopping centre
Sainte-Rose en Blanc

Source: Tourisme Laval ^[13]

[edit] Regional media outlets

[edit] Radio stations

CFAV 1570 AM "Radio Boomer"
CFGL 105.7 FM "Rythme FM"

[edit] Newspapers

Le Courrier Laval - bi-weekly - French
Courrier Laval - weekly - English edition of Le Courrier Laval
The Laval News (formerly called The Chomedey News) - bi-weekly - English

[edit] Television networks

Télévision régionale de Laval

[edit] Famous natives and residents

Maurice Richard, ice hockey player
Josée Chouinard, figure skater
Michael Bossy, ice hockey player
Mario Lemieux, ice hockey player
Alexandre Daigle, ice hockey player
Pascal Dupuis, ice hockey player
Hana Gartner, CBC broadcast journalist and host
Yves P. Pelletier, actor, director, writer, comedian
Lucien Rivard, criminal
Martin St. Louis, ice hockey player
Jose Theodore, ice hockey player
Alexandre Despatie, Olympic diver
Donald Audette, ice hockey player
Annie Bellemare, figure skater
Carrie Lightbound, kayaker
Gédéon Ouimet, politician
Sebastien Lefebvre, guitarist
Joel Yanofsky, writer and columnist
Yannick Lupien, swimmer
Alexandre Dussault. swimmer
Adolfo Bresciano, wrestler
Jocelyn Thibault, ice hockey player
Gregory Charles, singer
Celine Dion, singer
Stéphanie Dubois, tennis player
Frank Marino, guitarist
Jean-Sebastien Giguere, ice hockey player

[edit] Partner cities

Laval is twinned with four cities^[14] :

Nice (France), since 2000
Laval (France), since 1984

Petah Tikva, Israel

Botoşani, Romania

Laval also maintains ten economic and cultural cooperation agreements with Markham, Ontario (Canada), Ribeira Grande (The Azores), Grenoble (France), Mudanjiang (China) and Pedro Aguirre Cerda (Chile).

[edit] Neighbouring municipalities

Bois-des-Filion, Terrebonne

v • d • e

Rosemère, Boisbriand, Saint-Eustache

Montreal

Laval