AIC's 44th Annual Meeting

The Centre de conservation du Québec (CCQ) is a leader in the field of art conservation in Canada. It has long been involved in emergency response procedures meant to be applied throughout the province of Quebec. Over the years, it has developed materials specific to disaster prevention and, most importantly, it has elaborated an intervention plan. The CCQ has formed an emergency response committee consisting of several conservators from different fields of expertise in the interest of providing the best possible assessment of the problems at hand. The committee members are also part of an quick response team which can be deployed at anytime to disaster sites anywhere in the province. The team has organized a quick- response tool kit for its purposes. The materials, which are solely destined for use by the emergency team, are kept in well-marked boxes in a specific location, always ready for use. The specific materials will be discussed in greater detail during the presentation. Significantly, several major institutions in the province of Quebec possess emergency plans and have entered into specific agreements with the CCQ for the latter to act in the event of an emergency situation. Moreover, all the conservators employed by the CCQ must be ready to be deployed if needed, and may be contacted through the use of an emergency telephone pyramid. Several disasters have occured over the years in Quebec province. The CCQ has been involved in some of these, including, most recently, a fire that took place in 2014 at the Musée de la Civilisation de Québec. Prior to that, there was a huge fire in 2008 at the Voltigeurs de Québec Armoury. The ice storm of 1998 had a major impact, affecting, in particular, the Lachine Museum in Montreal. Each of these cases will be presented in greater detail. Every one of these events was instrumental in helping the CCQ to improve its emergency response procedures ; following each emergency, post-mortem meetings were carried out to fully assess the exercise : what went right and what could use improvement.