RGDST: Matthieu Caron (Athabasca University) - Policing the Night: Vice, Power, and the Making of Modern Montreal
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Policing the Night: Vice, Power, and the Making of Modern Montreal. 鈥� Book talk by Matthieu Caron
Tuesday 17 March 2026, 12:30-2pm
Arts Building, Room 160. 853 Sherbrooke St W, Montreal
Accessibility statement: Room 160 is accessible from Dawson Hall or Leacock building. Enter via the Dawson Hall entrance and turn left. Or, enter via the Leacock first floor entrance, turn right and proceed through the ramp connected to the first floor of the Arts Building.听
Sponsor:听Nighttime Design for/with Marginalized Communities, RGDST / Lin Centre, Moving Image Research Lab, Peter Fu School of Architecture
Capacity: Free and open to public. Space limited to 35 attendees. (No registration necessary).
Contact:听nighttime-design.architecture [at] mcgill.ca
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Description:听
This听presentation听offers a glimpse into Montreal After Dark, a study of how struggles over nightlife reshaped Montreal in the second half of the twentieth century. Moving from the city鈥檚 mid-century reputation for cabarets and open vice to the reform campaigns that followed, the talk traces how darkness became a political problem鈥攁nd a political opportunity.听
Focusing in particular on the ambitions of Mayor Jean Drapeau, it explores how efforts to regulate sex, alcohol, and public space expanded municipal authority and recast Montreal鈥檚 image in the lead-up to global moments such as Expo 67 and the 1976 Summer Olympics.
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Dr. Matthieu Caron (Athabasca University)听听is听a听historian of urban governance whose work examines how cities are made鈥攈ow municipal authorities use law, policing, and regulation to transform political visions into lived urban landscapes. He primarily focuses on the governance of public space, tracing how efforts to order sex, consumption, and the urban environment give material form to specific imaginations of safety, morality, and economic growth.
His first book,听Montreal After Dark: Nighttime Regulation and the Pursuit of a Global City听(2025), analyzes how efforts to position Montreal as an international metropolis reshaped the governance of its streets at night. Drawing on municipal archives, court records, and the press, he shows how debates over nightlife became debates about order, economy, and belonging 鈥� often resulting in expanded regulatory frameworks and increased police funding. By situating nightlife within broader projects of urban branding and economic development, the book demonstrates how aspirations to global-city status transformed Montrealers' relationship to the night.