[The video opens on the Montréal Capital City logo, with the Pointe-à-Callière museum logo at the bottom of the screen. Wide shot of Joanne Burgess, professor at the Department of History and director of the Laboratoire d’histoire et de patrimoine de Montréal of the Québec University of Montreal (UQAM), and Hendrik Van Gijseghem, archeologist at Pointe-à-Callière, the Montreal Archaeology and History Complex.]   

Joanne Burgess:
The construction of this building was a landmark in Montréal’s history in the first half of the 19^th century. Building the market – the ambition to build it – must be understood int the context of a broader urban project, because its a part of a desire to develop this part of the city, to develop the harbour and the adjacent area.

[A 19^th-century lithograph of the Montreal port appears on screen. The port is bustling with people and activity. Numerous large three-masted boats are anchored in the port.]

Joanne Burgess:
This involved covering the Little River, building the market, modernizing the port, and building the Custom House. All of this development converged, in the early 1830s, when Montréal was eclipsing Quebec City in importance. It was the confirmation of Montréal as the most important city in Quebec and in British North America. 

[A 19^th-century black and white photograph appears on screen. It shows the place Jacques-Cartier, where an exterior market is being held. The market is full of people and stalls and horse-drawn carriages.]

Joanne Burgess:
By then, Montréal had more economic clout that Quebec, and its political power also began to grow. 

[Two sepia photos appear side by side on screen. Both show the same picture of the street behind the Bonsecours market. A horse drawing a cart passes by.]

Joanne Burgess:
When the Parliament moved into the market building, it really proved that Montréal was the capital of Canada.   

[A virtual rendering of the Parliament appears on screen. The left wing of the building occupies the right-hand side of the picture. The Grey Nuns’ hospital is in the back.]

Joanne Burgess:
It was an important time in Montréal’s history. The parliament is one element in a group of places related to the city’s function as a capital. 

[A photograph showing an aerial view of the parliament’s archeological site appears on screen. It is followed by a photograph of 5 archeologists working in the ground, amongst the unearthed foundations of the building.]

Joanne Burgess:
What we found during the archeological digs, tells us about the building’s function as a parliament.  

[A video sequence shows an archeologist scraping the ground of the archeological site with a trowel. It is followed by a video sequence following the length of the site from above.]

Joanne Burgess:
The place was important in the history of parliamentarianism, our political institutions and Canadian and Quebec democracy because the Montréal Parliament was the site of changes that enhanced the practice of democracy in this country. 

Hendrik Van Gijseghem:
I would add that today, we take the method of social organization called the “nation-sate” for granted. Back then colonial regimes were still the norm, and we were still experimenting and trying to learn how to organize ourselves as post-colonial entities, and the nation-state grew out of that process. When Montréal was the capital, it was the epicentre of all of that. And on a global scale, from an archaeological standpoint, we don’t really know what a British parliament from the Victorian period looks like. We have one in Montréal, which makes the site truly unique.    

[Closing shot of the Montréal Capital City logo, with the Pointe-à-Callière museum logo at the bottom of the screen.]