Cultural heritage
The diversity of cultural heritage
Protecting Québec's cultural heritage has been at the heart of the actions taken by the Ministère de la Culture, des Communications et de la Condition féminine since it was founded in 1961 under the name Ministère des Affaires Culturelles. The Québec government has implemented a large number of diverse initiatives, which have involved everything from restoring built religious heritage and intangible heritage like popular traditions to discovering archaeological sites.
The Ministère is currently in the process of adopting a new law on cultural heritage, which is intended to bring Québec’s legal framework up to speed with international trends in the field. This law will:
- replace the concept of cultural property with the broader concept of cultural heritage;
- add concepts such as intangible cultural heritage and cultural heritage landscape, while continuing to focus on movable and immovable assets, documentary heritage and archaeology;
- designate historical events, figures and sites.
Documentary heritage
The Bibliothèques et Archives nationales du Québec has a special mission, which is to gather, preserve and distribute :
- Québec's published documentary heritage and all other related documents of cultural interest;
- all documents about Québec, including those published outside Québec.
The organization is also responsible for managing the Grande bibliothèque du Québec as part of its monumental mission of disseminating both Québec's heritage and world cultures. As for the Société des musées québécois, it has developed advanced expertise in documenting, computerizing and digitizing museum and heritage collections through its Réseau Info-Muse.
