Having a two solitudes moment Tuesday as all the francophone media bust out in celebration and adulation of Janette Bertrand reaching 100, while in the anglo media, not a peep.
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Kate
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Kate
Mark Carney made a notable mistake on Tuesday in Nova Scotia, confusing two Montreal tragedies – the Polytechnique massacre (1989) and the Concordia shootings (1992).
He later apologized.
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Kate
Finance minister Eric Girard has presented Quebec’s budget, bringing further cuts to health and education, but help for industry and businesses particularly affected by the Trump tariffs.
I haven’t seen any analysis of the budget’s implications for Montreal yet, but will look out for it.
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Kate
A building façade at Université de Montréal was vandalized with red paint early Tuesday, and a woman was arrested. The act is being described as a pro‑Palestinian gesture although this is only a statement from police. Quipsters on reddit surmised she might have mistaken it for a Tesla dealership.
Ephraim
Yeah, not a good look. And thankfully it wasn’t red hands. I am tired of people thinking that their right to free speech means they have a right to vandalize private or public property and that the rest of the world has to bear the costs of it. I hope, at a minimum, she is presented with a bill for cleaning it off.
Ian
Interesting that the TVA site now blocks you if you have an ad blocker but still autoplays their videos. Insult to injury.
@Ephraim yeah red paint sure is a terrible injjustice compared to crimes against humanity. Good call.Chris
The Université de Montréal has committed crimes against humanity?! That’s news to me. If she vandalized the Israeli embassy I might agree with Ian, but I agree with Ephraim.
Ian
Oh right, I forgot the consensus was that this woman was protesting wrong. Silly me.
Chris
So Ian, if I think you behave incorrectly, or hold an incorrect opinion, am I allowed to paint your house red?
Ephraim
@Ian – Not a single thing that we do here in Montreal will have an effect on any of this. But moreso, costing UdeM money (or frankly anyone who is not directly related) to clean up, is not going to change anything at all. If anything, I sympathize more with UdeM. And the total waste of paint, money and worker’s wages on removing this. It was just a waste of time, money and even effort.
So, if someone smeared magenta paint on a McDonald’s, would it make me more or less sympathetic with the Houthis? Nope. Orange paint on the Museum of Civilization? Vanta Black on a Kia Nero EV? Fuzzy Wuzzy Brown on a vacuum cleaner?
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Kate
A pasta restaurant in the Palais des Congrès has started offering a monthly subscription: all the pasta you can eat for $200 a month.
Blork
That’s La Popessa, which used to have an outlet at the NE corner of St-Denis and Roy. I think I went there once or twice in the late 90s. Interesting formula in that everything is made to order right in front of you and is pretty reasonably priced. Not a place for fancy dining, but good for folks on a budget or who want a quick pasta fix.
OTOH there’s a cringe factor in that you choose your pasta, then choose your sauce and then your “additions,” so it runs 180 degrees counter to Italian tradition and you can end up with some weird combos. But that’s 100% on the customer, since it’s the customer who decides.
Blork
I wonder how many takers they get for that $200 offer? If you eat there five days a week it works out to $10 a plate. But pasta five days a week? Especially in an all-you-can-eat format, so that would be a gut-busting main meal five days a week? Yikes.
MarcG
Eating a big pile of white flour pasta with a salty sauce and salty meat on a regular basis isn’t good fer yer body, just saying.
Kate
No, but if you’re young and active and happen to be working in the area, it might be an attractive deal.
CE
A lot of people eat much less healthy meals than some cheap pasta. I can imagine someone with a very physical but lower-paying job in the area being into some cheap carbs to keep them going while at work (especially someone for whom it would be difficult to take food to their workplace).
MarcG
I hope you’re right and it doesn’t end up being a bunch of seniors with diabetes on a budget.
MarcG
Nutritionists suggest a plate be 1/2 veg, 1/4 carb, and 1/4 protein – this is like 2/3 carb, 1/6 veg, 1/6 protein. I guess the only thing making it better than fast food places is the presence of any vegetables at all and not as much fat.
CE
I highly doubt many people are getting “1/2 veg, 1/4 carb, and 1/4 protein” in their meals on a regular basis. I consider myself to be a fairly healthy eater and I definitely don’t get this ratio in most of my meals.
MarcG
It’s a difficult ideal for sure. I’m just pointing out that this meal is almost opposite to it and the program is designed to encourage people to eat it very often.
Meezly
I thought this might be a sign of a recession but it does seem that Popessa wants to attract a more regular clientele.
jeather
Pretty good price for students, too.
Nicholas
Blork, the article says they have 72 signups, but that includes seniors, students, etc.
Kate
Post links about civic corruption, organized crime, street violence… crickets.
But post about noodles…
Ian
Man, a lot of foodcops here. Downtown workers might not feel like mall food ok?
@Blork Gut-busting, well, don’t eat so much of it lol. You can bust your guts on bread if you eat the whole loaf.
@MarcG so take a smaller portion and eat a side salad, yeesh.
When I worked in that area I usually went to Chinatown where you actually can get a better meal than in the business district… but most downtown core folks just eat whatever, you can do a LOT worse than pasta several times a week.CE
I know what it’s like to eat the same cheap meal over and over. When I was a student, every weekday I generally had a bagel for breakfast, People’s Potato for lunch, Al-Taib for dinner (although on one day of the week, the Concordia multi-faith chaplaincy would make a very good meal for a couple bucks). If Al-Taib had had a subscription model, I definitely would have taken them up on it!
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Kate
Most media are reporting a slowdown at the airport, being blamed on computer problems.
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Kate
Michel Lalonde, who was a go-between between the city and engineering firms during the Tremblay years, testified Monday at the corruption trial of Frank Zampino. Lalonde described the mechanism via which engineering firms were permitted to bid, after handing off their 3% to Bernard Trépanier. Trépanier died in 2018. Lalonde’s testimony continues Tuesday.
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Kate
We’ve seen stories about fake taxis at the airport – now there are fake taxis cruising streets with bars at closing time, picking up people who’ve had a few and will pay well to be taken home.
Kevin
Who will be the first politician to promise to recreate the Taxi bureau?
Ian
My campaign promise:
Only medallions will save the children
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Kate
Two workers in a Videotron store on Ste‑Catherine were tied up and the store robbed, just before closing on Monday evening.
Ephraim
All it takes is a timed SAFE for the phones.The companies won’t do it until it costs them money. So, time to put their cost of worker’s compensation up to match the impact of these robberies on the worker’s comp for them being out after the robbery.
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Kate
CBC has a piece on some hidden gems of public artwork.
The most reliable listing for public art is probably this site.
DavidH
That part about the Duren piece is very strange. It’s odd that it was included at all. It completely eludes the fact that it was a conceptual piece made for a specific site in Quebec city, not Montreal. The artist opposed the purchase from Quebec city by the city of Montreal because all the significance of the piece relied on the geography (it’s meant as a type of semaphore between ports in Europe and the port of Quebec). Once displaced, it means nothing. Which is typical of Duren’s work. He makes small interventions in situ, usually with his signature lines motif, to change the tone very locally. It’s all about the site and the modification of the site.
The article goes: “It’s really an important part of the Montreal identity,” Vernet says.”…. and shows nothing to back that up. Everyone in the art world shook their head when it was acquired. No one else knows what to make of it… but it’s part of our identity? How? It’s a piece about the open sea. Montreal doesn’t have that. it shouldn’t even be here. It’s the only Duren we have but it’s also the reason we will never have a proper one.
It was literally thought as a case study in one of my muséologie classes as what not to do and how incompetent public powers can be when they don’t understand an art piece. The type of conceptual art Duren does is often misunderstood but this was taken to an absurd level because the city went ahead even after the piece was publicly explained by experts and the artist. It’s a rare instance where the art world was asking public powers NOT to spend money on public art.
As a side note, Quebec city planned to removed the piece whether the sale to Montreal went ahead or not. To them, it was meant as a temporary installation, a fate most Duren interventions face everywhere.
CE
@DavidH, that’s an interesting story, I didn’t know about its saga. It’s always been one of my favourite pieces of public art in the city, its backstory adds some complexity to it. Quebec City seems to have a thing with treating sculptures by French artists poorly (see Dialogue avec l’histoire). Do you know where it was originally located in Quebec?
DavidH
@CE, it was in the port facing towards Europe, that’s all I know. When it moved, that specific part of the port was to be rebuilt and Quebec city did not intend to put the art piece back after the renos. I don’t know Quebec city enough to say what part of the port that would be now.
Kate
I’m lost. I don’t see any reference to Duren in either piece I linked above.
MarcG
Intrigued, I just searched through both of Kate’s links for the word “Duren” and came up empty… did something change?
Andrew
Daniel Buren is the artist in question, I believe.
DavidH
It’s still there when I open it. Look for ‘Neuf couleurs au vent’ as the title of the art piece and the text’s subsection.
Ian
“Installed in 1984, it’s only on display during the warmer months, making it a marker of the city’s iconic summer outdoor culture of apéro on terraces and picnics in parks.” is so hilariously dimishing of the work, haha
Kate
DavidH, that Buren flag piece has been there for awhile, and I recall someone – city official? journalist commentator? I can’t remember which – floating the idea that the multicolour flags marked the entry to the Gay Village because of the suggestion of the rainbow motif. I have no idea whether that was what the city had in mind, but from what you say above, it wasn’t the original intention for the piece.
CE
According to the writeup on the Art Public site, the artist didn’t intend for there to be much symbolism in the piece.
“Buren created a deliberately “impersonal and objective” artwork without extrinsic symbolism or reference: the work refers only to what it is – a series of coloured flags constantly transformed by the strength of the wind.”
In other words, some nice colourful flags.
CE
If you’re interested in Montreal’s public art, definitely seek out these two books:
L’Art public à Montréal by Marie-Claude Lespérance
Montréal et l’art du monument by the City of MontrealI think they’re both out of print but often show up in the Montreal section of used bookstores.
DavidH
@Kate, I wonder if the Village wasn’t further west (near Concordia) when that piece arrived? I don’t know when the current Village got it’s start. Someone needs to write that history if it hasn’t already.
Kate
The city’s public art page says the piece dates back to 1984. (Surely the flags must have been refreshed a few times since then?) The development of the Village is roughly summarized on Wikipedia as happening around that time, but it doesn’t sound like it had crystallized in the public mind before the 1990s.
CE
@Kate, from the article:
“He also sees an important conservation issue for those tasked with its upkeep. “It has an impact on how we manage a public-art collection since the flags have to be remade when they wear down and are stored for the winter,” he says. The work challenges the need for public art to be eternal.”
Andrew
Looks like 1984 is the date it was originally created in Quebec City, it was moved to Montreal in 1996. From Buren’s wiki:
Neuf Couleurs au vent, 1984–1996. Travail in situ in “Québec 1534–1984”, Québec, Canada, mai 1984. Installé de manière permanente depuis 1996, place Urbain-Baudreau-Graveline, Montréal, Canada.
Kate
Thank you both for the clarifications.
In case you were wondering, “Urbain Baudreau dit Graveline (1631?-1695) fait partie de la centaine de colons que Chomedey de Maisonneuve recrute en 1653.” (City toponymy site)
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Kate
After a fuss last year, city hall has removed an “inclusive” welcoming sign that included a drawing of a woman wearing hijab because it was deemed offensive.
Previous postings and discussion of the issue here and here.
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Kate
This very short piece says Fady Dagher wants more powers for the police, but the only actual power he mentions is the right to arrest people with covered faces.
The rest is about the difficulty of dealing with the homeless and with controlling drug trafficking, but doesn’t mention powers.
Do drug dealers and homeless people often wear masks?
MarcG
Maryland recently had a mask ban law proposed and you can watch the amazing opposition response from community members here.
roberto
It would be nice if he made a disctinction between niqab/burqa, medical masks and balaclavas. What exactly is he asking for?
MarcG
The type of covering is irrelevant since the purpose is to be able to identify you, either manually or using facial recognition technology, and thereby deter you from participating in civic life.
Ian
What if I wear anti-facial-recognition makeup? Digital camo? CV dazzle patterns?
Dagher is a frickin relic.
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Kate
Governor General Mary Simon dissolved Parliament Sunday afternoon at Mark Carney’s request, starting an election campaign that will culminate on April 28.
Carney plans to run for an Ottawa seat. It will be interesting to see who runs in Papineau to replace Justin Trudeau.
CE
The Liberals are going to run Marjorie Michel in Papineau. https://www.montrealgazette.com/news/canada/canadian-politics/article828485.html
Sorry for the Gazette link but they seem to be the only ones reporting on this.
H. John
Green co-leader, Jonathan Pedneault, will be running in Outremont this time. He ran in Notre-Dame-de-Grâce – Westmount in the 2023 by-election (where he placed 4th).
Once Elections Canada has finished their website maintenance, it’s a good idea to confirm your riding. New riding maps come into effect for this election.
Kate
Thank you, CE. Here’s a link to an archived version of that Gazette piece.
Good advice, H. John.
Ian
H John, are the federal Greens still self-described “fiscal conservatives” or have they truly evolved into a leftist party like some of their provincial offshoots?
CE
I’ve wondered the same thing Ian. That was how they sort of differentiated themselves from the NDP and is pretty common for Green parties around the world. It’s really only in the US where the (federal) Greens have a pretty leftist platform.
Chris
The Canadian federal Greens went very left many years ago. Just take a look at: https://www.greenparty.ca/en/our-plan
• tax the ultrarich
• tax big companies
• gender-affirming health care
• laws against hate speech
• Indigenous sovereignty
• large investment in public housing
• etc etcI’d bet real money only May will get elected. At best.
Ian
Good to know – thanks for that, Chris.
Tim S.
Mike Morrice in Kitchener seems like a good guy, it would be nice for him to hold on.
jeather
I decided to do the Vote Compass thing to see how I matched up to NDP/Green and TIL I am in a new riding (in fact the riding office for my riding is no longer in my riding), did we know they redrew them?
Kate
jeather, H. John mentioned that there’s been riding changes, upthread.
Are you thinking of doing election day work this time out? I’ve emailed Elections Canada to apply, but haven’t completely decided yet.
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Kate
A study presented in January claims that pedestrianizing Ste‑Catherine Street would cause traffic congestion in adjoining streets. Interestingly, in this piece, Luc Rabouin is quoted saying the city could have paid better attention to the desires of merchants in the area – an indication that his Projet won’t be Plante’s Projet.
The SPVM is also not keen, TVA also spinning this as the Plante administration keeping this report quiet. Among other things, the cops think Station 20 will be boxed in by the pedestrian sections.
jeather
Ian
Yes, I suppose reading studies about Madrid is more relevant than asking locals that know the neighbourhhod what they think.
/sKate
Ian, don’t be snide. People drive through the city – they don’t stop unless they have a specific destination. Pedestrians amble along, look in store windows, and follow their whims. Drivers can’t have whims, they need to keep moving.
Anyway, if it isn’t pedestrianization, store owners will complain about lack of parking or something else. Journalists make the most of that kind of kvetching to get a story.
Ste-Catherine still has a captive pedestrian audience of students, office workers, tourists, all of whom will enjoy the pedestrianization and not be in a car.
Joey
LOL as if you could increase congestion even more anywhere in this city. I note, in passing, that the early research on New York’s congestion pricing is incredible – by just about every measure, things are considerably better in Manhattan’s congestion zone: traffic has improved, transit ridership is up, there’s less honking, etc. Drivers are, after all, human beings with the capacity to adapt to changing circumstances. We tried car-centric downtown for decades. Nobody liked it. We can try something else.
CE
@Joey, I was just in NYC the other day and now that you mention it, there was considerably less honking than there normally is in Manhattan. Still lots, but less.
jeather
Silly me, clearly Montreal is so unlike every other city that finds limiting cars improves lifestyles that we can only make decisions by asking merchants and cops what they feel will happen.
Ian
I did say /s. Should I have said lol? Maybe included a winky?
Let’s go see what the good folks on the streets of Ulan Bator have to say about it, haha
Much like St Hubert, anyone trying to drive downtown is living in a fool’s paradis. Even just driving there sucks, I don’t know why everyone is so eager to preserve it. We’re never going back to the late 80s cruising up and down St Kitty on a Saturday night. Even then it was more fun to spend Saturday night clubhopping, cars were for hicks.
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Kate
Cabane Panache, the first street festival of the season, photographed by La Presse, is on through Sunday. On the one hand, maple syrup; on the other, country music.
EG
It’s…. interesting… that Bernard Adamus is one of the musicians involved. Maybe since he apologized for the sexual assaults, it’s okay now?
Andrew
St-Henri had one in February, but not nearly as successful based on the crowds I saw.
Nicholas
They described it as country at the top, but when you look at the individual acts, it sounds like calling it the Jazz Fest. Saturday had a lot of country, but I think there are more folk/trad bands there than country. Might depend on how you count bluegrass.
Ian 19:32 on 2025-03-25 Permalink
I saw “Janette sexier than ever” on a tabloid at the grocery store. 2 solitudes indeed.
EmilyG 20:25 on 2025-03-25 Permalink
I think I first became aware of her when the Charter of Values thing was being proposed back in 2014, and she said those things about the rich (Muslim?) McGill students in the apartment pool.
Some context here: https://cultmtl.com/2014/03/quebec-muslim-menace/
Kate 23:48 on 2025-03-25 Permalink
Good link, EmilyG, thanks!