Some Black officers of the SPVM have written a letter saying they fear reprisals if they are blamed for blowing the whistle on racist and hateful actions by some of their white colleagues, causing a team at Station 39 to be disbanded, and bringing about criticism and possibly an inquiry into institutional racism in the force.
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Kate
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Kate
Ismaël Koné, Quebec’s biggest star on the Canada soccer team, has suffered a broken leg after a tackle by Qatar’s Assim Madibo. Canada got its first World Cup win ever, but at the expense of losing one of its top players.
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Kate
A worker was impaled by a steel rod at a Kirkland construction site on Thursday morning. TVA has photos of the man being lifted from the depths of the site on a stretcher with the help of rescue workers from the fire department.
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Kate
The city is investing in a project of 350 housing units in the Îlot Angus, currently projected to be “affordable” at $1100 to $1400 per month, but by the time the project is completed, probably more.
Chris
Are those sneering quotes? 🙂 How low would it have to be to not add quotes? What would a reasonable/fair “affordable” rent be in this city? Would it have to be “affordable” to an unemployed person? Minimum wage earner?
Kate
I am not sneering, I’m just according the word a certain distance, because it’s always reported as if it has a clear well-defined meaning, but it’s always going to be relative and subject to change.
Ian
@Chris the rule of thumb for a reasonable rent is 25% of the household take-home income, so 1100/m for a 1 bedroom apartment would “reasonably” require a 75k salary (about 53k net). The average salary in Montreal was $50,120 in 2025… I doubt it’s gone up 24k in 2 years. I think we can “reasonably” say that a rent that requires a person to earn 150% of the average is not “reasonable”.
I know you weren’t being serious but for comparison, a full-time minimum wage earner makes about 31k per year.
Chris
I was being serious in that I was curious where Kate’s lines were.
It’s an interesting thought exercise I think.
Your 50k and 75k numbers are individual, not household, right?
Is it “reasonable” that maybe people that need subsidized housing maybe need a roommate too? Two 31k salaries per year is 62k per year. 1.1k a month is 13.2k a year. 13.2k / 62k is 21% of household income. But yeah you’d have to split a bedroom. All very back of envelope, but it’s not horribly far from “affordable” perhaps.
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Kate
The OQLF has received a record number of complaints over the last year. Are some of you blokes still dreaming in English?
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Kate
There’s little local news Thursday morning except for the rain and thunderstorm watch.
Ian
Hey now weather can be a big news. Why, that brief thunderstorm we had yesterday knocked out the REM for four hours.
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Kate
The Resilience Centre has moved down Atwater into 780, a newly renovated building which will offer space and services to the homeless.
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Kate
The Quebec Liberals will be running Antoine Dionne Charest in Verdun this fall – the son of Jean Charest.
Hamza
This election is going to suck so bad
Kate
We really seem to have run out of people with true leadership quality.
MarcG
The Parti communiste du Québec candidate seems pretty dope “Avocat engagé, Manuel Johnson consacre sa pratique juridique à la défense des travailleuses et travailleurs, des locataires et des prestataires de régimes publics d’indemnisation, notamment à la SAAQ, à l’IVAC et à la CNESST.”
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Kate
Many residents of the agglomeration are still failing to sort their household trash to keep recyclable and compostable material out of landfill.
Taylor C. Noakes
This merits inspectors and severe fines. There’s no excuse for this in 2026.
Ian
This city can’t even figure out how to fine openly illegal AirBnBs, and all our funding for extra inspectors of anything is probably sunk into our grossly inflated cop budget anyhow.
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Kate
The South Shore has been a dangerous place this week. A man was killed by a security guard who suspected him of shoplifting in an IGA store in Longueuil; a man on a mobility scooter was killed by a bus in Greenfield Park on Tuesday; a teenage cyclist was hit and killed by a truck in St‑Hyacinthe.
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Kate
Montrealers tip better than any city in Canada, according to point‑of‑sale folks Lightspeed.
DeWolf
Maybe it’s because the default tip suggestion at most places here is still 15%? When I’m in Toronto and Vancouver, most places have 18% as their minimum suggested option and many places start at 20%. I think that pisses a lot of people off.
DeWolf
Also, this is amusing:
“Overall, the survey finds that Canada ranks #1 globally when it comes to “doing nothing when service is poor.”
Of course. We’re the most passive aggressive nation on earth.
Taylor C. Noakes
I wonder if it’s a consequence of knowing so many people working in the hospitality sector?
Meezly
I’m noticing more and more 18% as the default, or listed as the first tip option (with 15% being last). Perhaps it may also be due to the fact that Montreal is relatively affordable compared to Toronto and Vancouver.
PatrickC
There’s also the question of whether to tip on the pre-tax or post-tax amount (the article doesn’t distinguish between them). Some people I know are sensitive on this point, especially in Quebec, with its tax-on-the-tax policy (which may be a reason for suggesting “only” 15%, which of course is of the total charge.
thomas
Restaurant prices in Montreal are 10% to 15% lower than in Toronto and Vancouver, so the actual tip amounts are roughly comparable.
Joey
@Patrick I thought the new QC law as tips had to be on the pre-tax amount, which is why the amount you see on the tip screen + the tip is lower than the amount you see on the next/final screen in many cases
jeather
I’ve done a number of back of the envelope checks and by now most places have correctly fixed their terminals to be on pre tax. I thought they had to start at no higher than 15% but they don’t, however they aren’t allowed to have other words suggesting one is preferred.
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Kate
Thousands of people have been issued fines for insulting police in other Quebec municipalities – Quebec City in particular. The SPVM brotherhood is pressing for a similar law here, and SMF is in favour.
Note the wording: “insulting an officer or other municipal employee.”
This is ridiculous and will waste time in court as people argue over what is, and what is not, an insult.
Taylor C. Noakes
How would this even withstand the inevitable constitutional challenge?
That said, I’m *super* suspicious of the timing of that FPPM survey from three days before the stn 39 revelations came out. No wonder Yves Francoeur and SMF don’t want people insulting the police.
Ephraim
Yeah, that’s a violation of freedom of speech. It is, in no way, protected speech. If they don’t want to insult them, don’t do anything that would make us want to insult them.
Kate
That may be so, but there are such laws elsewhere in Quebec, as the article says, which have apparently not been challenged or thrown out on constitutional grounds.
jeather
Apparently giving cops the middle finger is protected as free expression, so just do that if this comes into force while we wait for it to be fought in the courts.
MarcG
Make sure your schedule is clear in case they decide to ruin your day.
H. John
Such bylaws are not new. For years, the City of Quebec has had the provision (article 9 of By-law R.V.Q. 1091) making it an offence to insult or injure a peace officer or municipal employee in the performance of their duties. Thousands of tickets have been issued under it.
A Quebec court has already addressed the Charter issue.
In Ville de Québec c. Roy (2024), a municipal court expressly held that the bylaw does infringe freedom of expression, but found the infringement justified under section 1 of the Charter.
This was only a municipal court decision so future appeals of new cases are always possible but a decision could go either way:
Arguments that the bylaw is constitutional:
police officers and municipal employees must be able to perform public duties without being subjected to abusive conduct;
the objective of maintaining public order and protecting public servants is important;
the penalty is a fine, not imprisonment; and,
the bylaw is directed at direct abuse of officials performing their duties, not general political criticism.Arguments that the bylaw is unconstitutional:
criticism, ridicule, and even insults directed at government officials are at the heart of democratic expression;
police officers exercise state power and therefore should generally tolerate a higher level of verbal criticism than ordinary citizens;
terms such as “offensive,” “grossier” (vulgar), or “blessant” (hurtful) are broad and subjective;
such bylaws risk arbitrary or selective enforcement; and,
existing criminal laws already deal with genuine threats, intimidation, harassment, obstruction, and hate speech, making a separate “insult” offence unnecessary.As to giving police the middle finger, courts have generally treated that gesture as protected expression unless accompanied by threats, obstruction, or some other unlawful conduct. Yet Quebec municipal courts have upheld tickets under the Quebec City bylaw even for a middle-finger gesture directed at officers.
Kate
Thank you, H. John.
It’s interesting to know that the issue is still a matter for debate.
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Kate
A cyclist hit by two vehicles last week on Notre‑Dame East has died.
jeather
Hit by two vehicles? Was he hit by one and pushed into the lane of the second?
Kate
The CBC item says: “he was hit by a first vehicle while crossing Davidson Street […] was hit again by another vehicle headed in the opposite direction.”
It mentions he was on a bike path. I used to ride that path occasionally – it was separated from Notre‑Dame by some trees, and felt quite safe until you had to pass over a cross street, because either you had to go to the corner and cross on a light, or you had to take your chances with the cross traffic. Obviously this man had no luck with it.
MarcG
The photo from the CBC piece, where seemingly the 2nd collision took place, is quite a distance away from the intersection.
MarcG
Looking at the streetview, there’s a desire path that is closer to where that photo is taken, I suspect they used this and got clipped by a car coming from Notre-Dame and pushed in front of another coming the other direction.
Kate
That actually is the path, MarcG. It goes on for blocks and blocks.
MarcG
The official paved path leads you to the intersection
Kevin
There is the paved path, then there is a short section of dirt which is what witnesses said the cyclist was on moments before he was hit.
Which is just bad design. If you want people to take the paved path, you’ve got to build it in such a way that it makes the paved path the only option, like the berms they have at Notre Dame and Frontenac.
Kate
True. It’s been awhile since I biked along there.
Taylor C. Noakes
I don’t often argue in favour of segregation, but…
If the city were to build a ‘whole street’ bike network that spanned the city, I think most cyclists would opt for it, and the number of fatalities would drop to zero, not to mentiopn probably encourage more people to use their bikes.
Joey
That would amplify an existing source of disagreement between cyclists and asshole drivers (after all, isn’t really what the majority of all of this is about – dealing with asshole drivers?), many of whom believe that if there’s anything even resembling a bike lane on a street anywhere the vicinity of a cyclist, that cyclist has no right to be riding their bike anywhere else. IOW, if you build a ‘whole street’ bike network, cyclists will be attacked for having the nerve to ride from their departure point to the network…
The long-term vision for every street IMO should include safe passage for pedestrians and cyclists that doesn’t slow down motorists unnecessarily…
Kevin
Joey
That could be solved by the government running an education program and….
yeah, no Quebec government would ever bother doing something that cheap and reasonable with proven results.Joey
I dunno… there’s something about being behind the wheel that can turn an otherwise calm and agreeable person into a rageaholic. No one has ever proven Valerie Plante wrong – there are just too many cars in this city.
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Kate
Close to 25,000 housing units stand vacant in Montreal right now, a number arrived at through Hydro‑Quebec’s records. With an interesting tool for checking how many vacancies are in your postal area.
Adding later: Projet is proposing a tax on vacant buildings.
It goes on puzzling me, as it did when I worked on the 2021 census and found many addresses empty. In a few, I could see that renovations had begun at some time in the past but had been abandoned, in some cases quite a long time ago. But rents are much higher now, and not everyone demands a high level of finish with granite tops and a breakfast bar. A clean unit with functional bathroom and kitchen fittings can get you upwards of $1200 for a small place, and much more for a larger one – why do landlords pass this by?
Paul
Interesting. BC has a vacant property tax, perhaps QC should do the same?
Kate
The city has a vacant property listing but most landlords ignore it, according to a CBC piece from April. Like other rules set by the city – Airbnb listings, for example – the law is toothless with few inspectors and no enforcement.
Ephraim
Well, if it’s not a residence, maybe it shouldn’t get residential rate 😀
Nicholas
Kate, that CBC article says there are 800 vacant buildings (not units), but the way they define it is utilities are all cut. This measure looks at low (but not no) Hydro usage. So the two lists are completely non-overlapping.
Overall, though, it seems this is a better list and also shows that vacancy rates are incredibly low. 2.6% is a very constrained market, you really want double that to see rates coming down. And these include renos, pied à terres, etc. My place unfortunately has gas and so uses only 5x the cutoff amount, so anyone here for just two months could be under the limit, as would places with active full gutting renos, like at least 2 places on my block.
Also the vacancy rate is very low in the central city but also the next ring, with the West Island having bigger vacancies. Ile Bizard is very high, maybe cottages? Landlords are going to keep squeezing us unless we build more in central areas. And not just a few small apartments, like we could use like 50,000 units on island, but housing starts are just half that region wide, barely enough to keep up with natural growth. We’ve got a big hole to dig out of.
azrhey
well… it is good I am not in charge of anything, but I would put a tax on vacant residential units that double every six months unless there is active renovation work being done.
Joey
I saw Projet adopted a resolution to tax vacant dwellings. Surely a good thing, but their inherent sanctimoniousness rings hollow given that they were in power for eight years and spent a good chunk of that time (especially early on) attacking those who advocated for them to do things just like this. I don’t know that Projet could have ever won a third mandate, but the number of Montrealers who voted for Craig Sauve, who had basically the same POV, was not insignificant.
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Kate
The hopping animal variously described as a wallaby or a kangaroo was caught in Boucherville Tuesday evening after five days on the run amid growing concern that it could get itself killed on a highway if it wasn’t captured.
The animal’s been brought to Granby Zoo, and presumably won’t be returned to whoever was illegally harbouring it.
Updating: Granby Zoo says on Facebook that it is a young red kangaroo, not a wallaby. They also say he’s in good health and recovering from the stresses of recent days.
Ian
whomever, surely
But seriosuly, was it not agreed that this is a kangaroo? Is this one of those penguin/ pingouin things?
Andrew
CTV has updated the article from Kate’s earlier post with “*A prior version of this story reported the animal as a ‘kangaroo.’ Animal Rescue later confirmed that it is a wallaby.”
Wallabies are only 3 feet tall, while kangaroos are 6+ so it shouldn’t be hard to tell.Kate
Depends how far away they are!
MarcG
Presumably it depends on their age as well…
Meezly
It was confirmed to be a red kangaroo, from what I could gather. When we visited the Granby Zoo a few years ago, the kangaroos and wallabies were free ranging in their designated area. You could walk right up to them and say hi, it was pretty wild.
Kate
Meezly, I’m happy to know that this rescued animal is likely to be placed with others of its kind. It’s never good when a social animal is kept in solitary confinement (except for reasons of communicable disease, obv).
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