Candiac, Quebec

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Candiac is a town in the Canadian province of Quebec; it is located on the south shore of the Saint Lawrence River opposite Montreal near La Prairie. Population: 14339 (2005).

According to Statscan, in the 2001 Community Profile, 1 565 of the then 12 675 inhabitants were native English-speakers, 830 people spoke a language other than French or English, while 175 were bilingual. Like elsewhere in the province, Francophones represented about 80 % of the total population.

In 2001, the active population (% of the population ages 15)accounted for 77.7 % of the total population. The median age was 36.2.

1 History
2 Coat of Arms
3 Media
4 Municipal Buildings
5 External links

[edit] History

Candiac was created January 31st 1957 when the government of Quebec accepted the request of a Canadian-European investors group, the Candiac Development Corporation. The investors had collected over $ 4,5 million dollars and bought 2 500 acres of land from farmers and the neibourghing towns.

In its early days, Candiac was home to 320 people who mostly lived near the St-Lawrence River. Most of the inhabitants were either farmers or Montrealers who owned a second residence in Candiac.

Candiac was named after Louis-Joseph de Montcalm, who was born in 1712 at Château de Candiac, near Nîmes, in France. Montcalm died at the Battle of the Plains of Abraham at Quebec City in 1759 while defending la Nouvelle-France from the English.

[edit] Coat of Arms

Montcalm's heritage and the first mayor, Jean Leman, family's coat of arms were the inspiration for Candiac's Coat of Arms.The colour red symbolises charity and justice, two very important values. It is also present in the Leman's coat of arms and is said to honour Montcalm's legacy, although I doubt he would be pleased since red is the colour of the English military. Blue, the French military's colour, would have been more appropriate for this context. The silver cross is a typical french-canadian symbol that reminds citizens of their French heritage.The stars were taken from the Leman's coat of arms and the towers from Montcalm's. The crown symbolises the Château de Candiac and the maple leafs symbolise Canada.

The emblem flower of Candiac is the Campanula carpatica, better known as White Clips.

[edit] Media

Special effects studio Wonderworks is building the world's largest special Fx studio in the new part of Candiac across Quebec Autoroute 30, along with additional expansion projects. Unfortunetly, a few months after its announcement, the project was put on hold and soon after cancelled.

[edit] Municipal Buildings

The City of Candiac has four (4) main municipal buildings: The "Hotel de Ville" (city hall), Centre Romoe-V.-Patenaude (renovated in 2005), Centre Frank-Voccino (the old library, now the Ideal Club meeting area) and Centre Claude-Hébert (the new retored library)