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
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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
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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.
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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 Stree […] 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…
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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.
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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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Kate
Police brotherhood president Yves Francœur claims that any racist acts by his members are isolated incidents, while community groups call for a public inquiry and not by police investigating police.
Ian
A police culture in which the only reason people got called out for racism was for cops collecting literal body trophies specifically from black people like a bunch of fucking serial killers could not possibly be a sign than endemic, perhaps even systemic racism is at play. It would be absurd, and maybe even racist against Quebecers to say so.
/sjeather
Ian, it was less than 20 people. Sure, other police officers are racist, but they are racist in DIFFERENT ways. Systemic racism obviously means every single person acts racist in the exact same way.
dwgs
jeather, did you forget a /s ?
dwgs
Ah, having read your other comments I get it now.
jeather
Sorry I sort of object to using the /s and plus I’ve been posting as a fairly standard leftie anglo here for a while so I assume most regular commenters have a general gist of my views.
Anyways TIL that the BEI (full of white ex-cops) does not publish the final reports according to the CBC so in a year we’ll find nothing out anyhow.
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Kate
Quebec is promising its municipalities more cash for water infrastructure although some of the money seems to be funneled from the feds. So long as this means our water mains don’t explode, it’s all good.
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Kate
The PLQ is to unveil their plan to protect French, while the government pledges millions to teach out‑of‑province students French at McGill, Concordia and Bishop’s.
Taylor C. Noakes
Does this mean all those int’l students are allowed back?
Kate
I don’t think so. But the ones allowed in may not get their degrees till they can pass a French test, even if it’s immaterial to their major, and even if they don’t have plans to remain in Quebec.
Taylor C. Noakes
The important thing here is that we’ve kneecapped major institutions and blocked foreigners from learning here. That will buy us good will and foreign investment.
Tim S.
I think the government’s motives are wrong, but I refuse to say that it’s a bad idea for university students to learn a second (additional) language. If these universities are smart, they’ll turn this into a competitive advantage.
bob
If there were a competitive advantage to learning a second language students would already be doing it – and they are, and that language is English.
Kate
Tim S., maybe, but French is not necessarily going to be the best second language for every specialty.
I could even make a case that it’s far too Eurocentric to make students who mostly speak English learn a second European language. Or, going by number of world speakers, Mandarin, Spanish, Russian, Arabic, Japanese or one of the half dozen major languages of India would outdo French.
Tim S.
But teaching French is the specialty we can offer. Why not do what we’re good at?
Besides, the number of Francophone teams at the World Cup suggests that it’s still a language with an international reach.
CE
It’s not that unusual for universities that offer courses in English to require that their students learn the language where they’re studying. And why shouldn’t they? If the students are going to be living where they’re studying, they’re going to need to learn the local language to be able to function.
I looked into doing a masters in Reykjavík. One of the requirements to get the degree (offered entirely in English) was that I gain a certain proficiency in Icelandic. Probably not the most useful language to learn but it would have been helpful while I lived there (and probably would have made it more likely that I might stay).
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Kate
Ian Lafrenière says he’ll name an independent observer for the inquiry into racism in the SPVM although there’s still no public inquiry planned; Yves Boisvert’s column makes the case for such an inquiry; Christine Fréchette continues the CAQ policy of refusing to acknowledge systemic racism in Quebec.
Lots of commentary on the SPVM racism issue: Fabrice Vil on Fady Dagher’s coup – “Fady Dagher, s’est dit « très surpris ». « Je ne croyais pas que c’était possible, en 2026 », a-t-il affirmé en point de presse vendredi soir. De mon côté, j’étais surpris… qu’il soit surpris.” – Chloé in Le Devoir – Taylor C. Noakes in CultMTL.
jeather
IMO any police officer in any department is not independent; nor are prosecutors who work with police officers and require their help. (This also includes the BEI, full of [white] ex-cops.) So it won’t be even close to independent.
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Kate
The contract to rebuild the big pool at the Claude‑Robillard Centre has been looked at sideways by the city inspector general, who thinks that the engineering firm they hired was too favourable to a specific subcontractor.
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Kate
A demonstration has been held at SPVM station 39 in Montreal North; reports are low‑key.
jeather
Good to know that, according to our new premier, it’s not systemic racism because it wasn’t enough people doing this one exact thing.
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