There are various plans to put up residential towers over metro stations – both ones under construction and ones that have long been part of the urban landscape.
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Kate
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Kate
It was all so easy when Ensemble was sniping from the sidelines; now SMF wants a year to repair the potholes.
steph
Does she know that in a year it’ll be a whole new pothole season right?
Ian
If they’re actually repaired correctly it might work, but I’m not holding my breath.
I forget, are we in agreement that repairing potholes in insurmountable so nobody should be held accountable, or is it that potholes should be rapidly and correctly repaired so SMF is inheriting the legacy of ongoing bad roadwork over many mayoral dynasties?
CE
I think both are true.
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Kate
A popular café on Wellington in Verdun is closing after a 60% rent increase, reviving calls for commercial rent controls. The Gazette piece includes a coda in which the café’s landlord denies asking for a 60% hike.
Jim
Sad to see them go. However, the update matters. If the landlord disputes the 60% figure, we should be careful treating one side of lease negotiations as the full story. It is still a shame, but commercial leases are business, and sometimes both sides walk away unhappy.
I understand the call for commercial rent controls, but I’m not convinced regulation is the easy fix. We see already how well-intended rules can create paperwork and compliance costs that bigger companies absorb more easily than small independents. More bureaucracy may hurt the very cafés and shops it tries to protect.
Better lease support, better advice for small tenants, and ways to help local business owners stay rooted would make more sense to me.
MarcG
The irony is that the café was part of the first wave of gentrification on Wellington and now they’re not bougie enough. Curious to see what type of business has the cash to pay the hiked rent – I’m thinking big chain coffee/resto.
Joey
Here’s hoping the reporter, Jesse Feith, gets to the bottom of this. The tenant says they were presented with a 60% increase. The landlord says “We never demanded a 60 per cent rent increase… Various market scenarios were discussed in the normal course of commercial negotiations, but a 60 per cent increase was never requested.” Someone is lying, and the truth-teller should be able to document it…
DavidH
Some commercial leases in retail include a % of sales. So it’s quite possible that what the building owner asks for does amounts to a 60% increase in the cafe owner’s mind but that they don’t know it. If the current lease doesn’t include a % for exemple and they now want to implement it, they can only guess what the % they are asking for amounts to in dollars.
When I was in CEGEP a million years ago one thing that was hammered in all the entrepreneurial classes is that you should always sign long-term leases for commercial space. People starting out don’t want to commit long term. They don’t know what will happen so they think that they want flexibility. Sort-term leases are usually much cheaper too. It feels like the better choice.
However, if you sign a short term lease, your only option is failure. If you succeed, either the owner grabs your margin by raising the rent or he can grab your business and the achalandage you built for him when you refuse and vacate the space. You build an original pizza place through sweat and tears and then it’s the landlord’s nephew running a pizza chain concession at the same address once you leave. It happened all over Promenade Masson in the 90s. Same thing happened more recently with Sabor Latino in Petite Patrie. They built a grocery and cantina business on Bélanger. Once things got good, the landlord wanted an insane rent increase otherwise they would grab the store. Sabor Latino moved to the Plaza rather then renew. The landlord now operates the exact same business Sabor Latino built and grew at the original location but under the name Andes grocery.
When you sign a long-term lease, if your venture succeeds, you win. You might have troubles at renewal but, in theory, you brand is established by then so moving is not necessarily a death sentence. If it fails, you don’t actually need to worry about the lease. It is cynical but, you or the corporation you created will most likely go bankrupt anyways. The lease will be dealt with by the bankruptcy like all the other financial obligations. It’s scary and unnatural but long-term is usually the better option.
Ian
That said, there is the flip side.
For example, Comptoir 21 was a very successful Fich & Chips pesto on Saint Viateur. It was doing great. A good combination of Local employees and local residents, good food at a decent price, license but kid-friendly, and a very decently balanced menu in terms of overhead and variety.
One day, at the height of Saint Viateur’s gentrification, the landlords decided to kick them out because they felt that they could get an even better, more expensive restaurant in that clearly successful spot at an even higher rent.
That location has stood empty ever since, because who TF wants to rent from a greedy landlord that might kick them out on a whim?
Ian
OK I meant Fish & Chips resto but “Fich & Chips pesto” might just be the concept restaurant we have all been waiting for. (damn you autocorrect)
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Kate
Quebec is putting millions into what CTV calls health care prevention. Some would say that Quebec governments have been busily preventing health care for a long time.
Uatu
you know what would be great? Having a family dr. Just saying.
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Kate
Le Devoir marks the 20th anniversary of the Grande Bibliothèque with a dossier of items. In particular, they look at how a social worker at the library manages the presence of homeless people who need a peaceful place to hang out.
David S
FYI « intervenant psychosocial » does not necessarily mean « social worker », a reserved professional title. It is a general term, similar to « therapist » or « life coach » etc.
A social worker can call themselves an intervenant psychosocial, but an IP can’t call themselves a SW unless they are members of the Ordre (OTSTCFQ)
And in this case, the person is not a social worker, I checked.
MarcG
It’s only therapy if it comes from the Ordre, otherwise it’s just sparkling chit-chat.
Kate
Info and insight from David S, and a good laugh from MarcG!
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Kate
Fans of the Canadiens are ramping up the festivities. The Bell Centre has added a third big screen so more fans can watch the away matches there.
La Presse talked to men at the Old Brewery Mission. One says that the playoffs remind him he’s still alive. It’s all very Victor Hugo-Charles Dickens, this piece. Sometimes the news reminds me we’re slipping back through the Robber Barons era into the depths of the Victorian age.
Ian
Free viewings t the Rialto for those willing to travel to Mile End.
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Kate
Every so often this theme crops up: last year, a man was killed in a parking lot when a driver hit the wrong pedal and knocked him down. His friend, a 98‑year‑old woman, “wants answers” – but what does that even mean? The driver was 80 and the victim was 89. The woman is described as wanting accountability.
Is it lawyers or journalists who urge people to say these things? An older driver made a fatal error and a man died. The article talks about families wanting to sue, but money is not going to bring the man back, and how would taking money from the 80‑year‑old fix anything now?
Nicholas
Did the driver lose their licence? That’s a question I think we’d all want the answer to.
Kate
I looked up this incident on last year’s map but none of the reports from the time mention the driver losing their licence, although now that you mention it, Nicholas, that’s a question the journalist should have asked.
su
The story says the vehicle was a jeep, but the photo appears to show a Toyota sedan with rather huge impact damage. For that kind of damage to occur, the car must have been backing up at very high speed!
H. John
@Kate Do any of the reports from last year that you looked at mention the age of the driver?
The reason I ask is that this report says the driver was 80, and yet the report that it links to about the original accident quotes the police saying the driver was 60. The Suburban says 80.
Either way what exactly makes this newsworthy?
It was an accident, there were no charges, and we’ve had no fault insurance in Quebec since 1978.
If the driver was 80:
Starting at 80, and every two years after that, drivers have to undergo medical and vision assessments.
When there are concerns, the SAAQ can require a road test, impose conditions on the licence, or even suspend or revoke it.
The legal standard is fitness to drive. The SAAQ itself says that “very few” seniors lose their licence after the assessments.
R T
“Her son James Torosis, who is a physician in California, says that at her age, it’s a miracle she is alive.”
I’m glad they added that. Without it, as a lay person, I would have had no way of knowing that a 98 year old woman surviving a car crash despite multiple broken bones, multiple surgeries and multiple months of bedrest was remarkable.
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Kate
Restaurants without TVs don’t get much business during a Canadiens playoff run.
CE
I was a cook in a restaurant years ago. During a playoffs run, the dishwasher came in for his shift and asked what happened to the TV in the kitchen. The head cook had put it away because he said nobody was doing anything while the game was on, so we were going to listen to it on the radio. The dishwasher walked out of the kitchen and we never saw him again.
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Kate
Habs garb is good for various kinds of laugh as the playoff series continues.Godin crosses threads, the Olympic anniversary and the resumption of National Assembly sessions, a sports fan eagerly awaiting the launch of the Quebec digital health platform. The platform was also deftly spoofed by Côté while Chapleau mocks Ontario’s attempt to scare the defense project off Quebec.
Nobody managed to get any comic leverage on the naming of Louise Arbour as Governor General: Ygreck tried and Chapleau tried but neither scored a point.
Notably this week, Chloe did a lengthier piece about the repurposing of churches in Quebec.
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Kate
Dragon Flowers has left Bernard Street and moved around onto St‑Laurent.
Ian
Right at the corner of Bernard, next to the gas station. Tammy hasn’t gone far.
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Kate
In 2015, P.K. Subban promised $10 million to the Children’s Hospital. He has now delivered on the promise.
DeWolf
TIL The Gazette finally has a website that is actually readable!
Kate
Depending where you click you can sometimes find yourself looking at a full-page condo promotion. But it’s better than before.
Ian
It’s not paywalled anymore, for one.
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Kate
Two women were shot near closing time in a bar on the Main, Saturday morning. Both were brought to hospital and the attack was not fatal. One of the owners of the bar, Club École Privée, says he was shaken up by the incident: his bar was the target of arson attempts late last year.
La Presse says the shooting was a gang conflict but the young women were simply bystanders when shots rang out.
Nicholas
Innocent bystanders getting harmed, and especially killed, is the kind of thing that sets off the public for a crackdown, as it mostly did for the 90s biker wars. It certainly sounds like there has been a rise of events in public the last few years, and if they don’t tamp down this will boil over.
Also they call this place a bar but it looks very much like a club.
Kate
Is there a legal distinction between bar and club? I always took it to be that a club is pretending to be more upmarket, and possibly has a dance floor, whereas any corner dive with a drink licence is a bar, but the licence is the same.
Nicholas
As we learned with Champs, if you’re a bar that has dancing you need a dancing licence from both the city and the RACJ. But I just mean this colloquially as the vibe: a club is a venue that exists to do a certain kind of dancing (e.g. to house music/EDM, not line dancing), and often has a DJ, coat check, bottle service, more expensive prices, a bouncer who doesn’t let people in first come, first served, but checks your clothes and vibe, etc. So yes more up-market, but there are lots of fancy bars without dancing, from some Irish pubs to French places to lounges. And there are bars with dancing that aren’t clubs, especially on the dive-y end (Copacabana on the Main RIP). There are definitely places that straddle the fence, but, to use two more examples from recent Plateau shootings, Fitzroy is a club and Mr. 250 is a bar.
Ian
And then there’s Club Social on Saint V that is more of a café that sells booze.
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Kate
Heliomass has a nice visit to Glen LeMesurier’s sculpture garden on his blog currently, with plenty of photos.
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Kate
The competition to land the
NATOdefence bank is percolating in the media, Quebec’s politicians saying Montreal is the logical choice and accusing Toronto of a fear campaign over a possible independence referendum should the PQ win in October.bob
I was under the impression that it was going to Gatineau, but I can’t remember why.
Darth Canuck
The fear is well-founded. Consequences follow from actions. If separatists do not like this looming outcome, they might want to reconsider their words and deeds.
Tim S.
Unless an independent Quebec stays in NATO, in which case it doesn’t matter.
H. John
The Defence, Security and Resilience Bank is a proposed multilateral defence bank for NATO countries and allied states.
I think the press is lazy and misleading calling it the NATO bank. It’s not formed by NATO. It’s not controlled by NATO. NATO members Germany and the UK have both at various times distanced themselves from it.
Kate
Thank you, H. John.
in which case it doesn’t matter.
I think it would matter, Tim S., because breaking up a country introduces unknown instabilities which are a thing you would not want in the place where you’re putting a big security headquarters.
Tim S.
H. John’s precision aside, I’ll point out that both NATO and the EU have their headquarters in Belgium. I’m not especially up-to-date on Belgian politics, but isn’t Flemish independence also a thing?
Nicholas
Tim, Brussels isn’t part of Flanders, though it is surrounded by it. There were many concerns about putting the UN in NYC, the largest city of a great power: would it block access to certain countries, would it be the site of bombing, etc. These things are like 30+-year commitments, you don’t want instability. It’s probably not a big concern, but it is a concern.
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Kate
Some metro stations win and some lose in the latest data from the STM. It’s not surprising to find that more passengers pass through Édouard‑Montpetit since the REM station opened below, or that De la Savane – typically one of the least travelled stations for years – is busier since the opening of Royalmount with its footbridge over Decarie offering metro access.
Usage of some downtown stations has fallen slightly, this piece suggesting avoidance of the homeless who frequent them.
DeWolf
If we had tap-in and tap-out we’d have even more precise data that shows both origin and destination (something the TTC benefits from in Toronto), which would help with transit planning. Unfortunately, scanning your card twice seems like a step too far for most people here.
Nicholas
DeWolf, lots of countries don’t have that and yet still get pretty good data. Germany mostly has no taps at all, and they do surveys, just like we do. Also in the vast majority of cases people do return trips, so you can mostly fill that data in, and then also augment it with the surveys.
Germans don’t like being tracked, while the Dutch and English have no problem at all. No gates are more efficient, but you need more controllers, and some people really don’t want that. It’s a tradeoff.
Ian 20:46 on 2026-05-11 Permalink
I have a colleague that lives on Rene Levesque and Metcalfe on the 3rd floor of a high-rise. He can hear the Lucien L’Allier metro. I guess it’s like the Blues Brothers line, “you get used to it”.