TVA has lurid details about the murder on Monday and its effect on the neighbourhood.
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Kate
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Kate
The STM plans to mark the 60th anniversary of the metro around mid‑October with live music and other festivities. I’m devastated that there’s no mention of clowns.
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Kate
CityNews has a brief piece on the ongoing restoration of Notre‑Dame – ours, that is.
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Kate
While Quebec, Newfoundland and Labrador and Mark Carney exult in the pact to develop Churchill Falls to generate more megawatts, CBC reminds us here that the land belongs to the Innu and they were not consulted.
Nicholas
I’m certainly not an expert on the Innu nation by any stretch, but the project is located in Labrador and the Innu of Labrador signed an agreement with Hydro Québec last summer after extensive negotiations, which commentators prior to the agreement very easily might not lead to a deal, as the Innu had significant leverage given how courts have been requiring these agreements lately. The agreement was to be presented to the local communities in Labrador and then put to a ratification vote; I cannot find if that happened. The project has also changed in the last year, so maybe the deal with the Innu will change, and the Innu elected a new grand chief last week, so maybe she will have a different opinion, but she is described as “Ashini says she is willing to work with the province and federal government and Quebec to ensure the deal is prosperous for Innu Nation members and future generations,” and quoted as saying, “I am really looking forward to being a part of the process … and after we bring it to the Innu we will be able to discuss more with the province.” Sounds fairly positive.
The linked article says two Innu communities in Quebec say they were not consulted. Do they feel they also should have a say over a project in another province, because their traditional lands don’t follow the provincial borders? Do the Innu of Labrador agree with the Quebec Innu territorial claims, and will they be happy to share the reconciliation payments? I don’t know the answer to these questions, and I doubt anyone here does.
But while some Innu Day they were not consulted, it’s not accurate to say the Innu as a whole were not consulted.
Kate
Thank you for the clarification.
H. John
And I thought Harper’s decision to refer to the Quebecois nation was an artful play on words; it pales in comparison to two Labrador Innu communities choice to rename their group as “The Innu Nation”.
In 1976, two Labrador Innu communities (Sheshatshiu and Natuashish), in order to protect their interests and rights organized themselves under the Naskapi Montagnais Innu Association (NMIA).
In 1990, the NMIA changed its name to The Innu Nation. Their website explains “The Innu Nation is the organization that formally represents the Innu of Labrador, approximately 3200 people,…”
Their website also mentions “Some Innu also live elsewhere in Canada.”
I’m guessing they’re referring to the nine Innu communities located in Quebec. As the Quebec government website explains “The Innu nation has nearly 24,498 members, making it the most populous indigenous nation in Quebec.”
As the CBC article Kate posted stated:
“The leaders of the Innu nations Matimekush-Lac John and Uashat mak Mani-utenam, both located in Quebec’s Côte-Nord region, issued a joint statement emphasizing that they had not been consulted.”
These two Quebec communities had already launched a court case concerning their aboriginal and territorial rights for the area concerned in the Quebec Superior Court in 2013.
That led the Newfoundland & Labrador government to argue that the Quebec courts could not hear the case since the land was located in their province.
In 2020, the Supreme Court of Canada finally ruled that it could be heard in the Quebec courts.
They didn’t deal with the issue of ownership or title only with which court could hear it; and the original case is still before the Quebec Superior Court.
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Kate
PSPP has announced that his party won’t hold a third separation referendum while Trump remains US president. This is naive in the extreme, since Trump is an embodiment of the feeling of a large minority, if not a majority, of Americans – that Canada is really theirs. The U.S. is poised to pounce as soon as we’re foolish enough to shatter the confederation, Trump or no Trump.
jeather
It’s just an excuse to not do a referendum where the results are embarrassingly bad for separatists. Which is fine, I don’t want one either, but it also means there will be another excuse next time unless support increases.
Joey
PSSP is awfully confident that Donald Trump won’t be president after January 20, 2029.
Tim S.
It’s useful to remember that, at its core, the Canadian confederation was/is a anti-US defensive alliance connecting provinces that otherwise don’t necessarily have much in common. Quebec benefits from that alliance as much as any other place, perhaps more.
Jim
Thanks Tim, that’s very true. Another thing to remember that this is a pre-election promise, we all know how much value these have. I guess we can expect some more…
Taylor C. Noakes
I don’t think a large minority of Americans think Canada is theirs, and certainly not a majority.
That would mean that the average American is spending any amount of time thinking about Canada, and that’s not been my experience (outside of some border states where int’l trade is vitally important, or where there’s crossborder industry, or in the few US cities where there’s either a substantial expat community or regular tourism).
I don’t think the average American spends much time thinking about the world beyond their borders. The average American’s quality of life has been falling for some time, they have growing bread and butter concerns, needs not being met, and a media ecosystem largely designed to insulate them from thinking too much about the outside world. The outside world is scary, quarrelsome, and occasionally a threat, but the threat always speaks a different language and looks different from the average American.
That being said, I don’t think any American, if they do think about Canada, thinks of it as a threat, or as a place that belongs to them. It’s just another one of those weird “other” countries that, for some strange reason, isn’t part of the United States, is possibly better than Mexico, and is a little too much like the UK or France, but not so much that this would be a problem.
In other words, I think if Trump seriously proposed invading Canada, the average American would go “huh? what for?”, not “hell yes!”
That said, I still think we should adopt a Swiss/Swedish model for self-defence. The country with 1 million reservists trained to fire a rifle doesn’t get invaded, doesn’t have its sovereignty blithely discussed as somehow flexible by foreign leaders. We wouldn’t even need NATO if we adopted that kind of posture.
Tim S.
Agreed with most of that Taylor, except I think “why not” is as likely a reaction as “what for?.”
We’ve been here before: in the 1860s and 70s, last time we were seriously worried about invasion, the figures for militia enrolment were huge. Our capital is in Ottawa because it’s on a river network that can’t be easily cut off from the south, and we have huge citadels in Kingston, Quebec City and Halifax because of our southern neighbours. People assume Canada isn’t a very military country, but the bones of this country are built around defence against threats from the south.
Joey
Well, the Americans may not have the attention span to invade under Trump, but it does feel like the best case scenario for humanity will involve massive northern migration from the southern half of North America within the next few decades. How quickly most humans realize we are not rival citizens of different countries but rather climate refugees (all of us) will likely determine whether our species survives.
Kevin Butler
Inveterate middle-American lurker here, an ordinary person of ordinary sensibilities, which means time and again I prove to myself I’m thinking like the masses here in flyover country.
Americans’ first reaction to a serious proposal for betraying Canada would not be “huh?” It would be shame and anger at the utter senselessness of the idea — an end-of-first-term, 25th-Amendment-style revolt.
My guess is most of us have countdown clocks running in our heads. Mercy for you, mercy for us.
CE
Almost every day my work brings me into extended contact with Americans. They’re tourists and this is Montreal so the demographics definitely skew more liberal but I get a good cross section geographically. The majority of people I speak to who bring it up are pretty much disgusted/horrified by the current administration. I get very, very few MAGA types but there is a sizeable number of people who just have no idea whatsoever that there is any kind of conflict between the two countries. I remember one time a tourist mentioned the animosity Canadians must have towards the US and another person, another American, asked why Canadians would be upset with the US. She got a good lesson about what her country had been up to over the previous year and a half (she had no idea about the 51st state taunts for example).
My girlfriend was on a business trip to Houston when Trump first started talking about annexing Canada and put up with a few taunts. She had to just grin and bare because they were clients and needed to stay on their good side.
R T
I grew up in the US, most of my work is still there, almost half my friends are there, and about half my family is.
The number of people I’ve met who would be on board with the 51st state stuff is zero. I visit extremely conservative rural communities with my work. If Canada wanted to be part of the US, their reaction would be “yeah, sure, whatever”, but none of these people have any grievance with Canada, and none of them would be on board with coercing Canada to join the US, especially through force. (These are, after all, the communities where kids enlist.)
I sometimes encounter ignorance of the role Canada and other allies play in the defence of the US; this especially grates me, as I had family injured in Afghanistan while fighting alongside—but not in—the US military. But even this is never expressed as hostility or grievance, just as doubt about whether Canada would be there for them if the US were attacked (which of course it already was).
The 51st state is the idiosyncratic obsession of one extremely unwell man—and one who is also very unpopular.
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Kate
Another woman has been stabbed to death, Monday afternoon, in a location TVA calls St‑Michel but which my map suggests is just inside St‑Léonard. Either way, the situation is unsettlingly like Saturday’s: a woman killed, a man found nearby with serious injuries. Item says the relationship between the two in Monday’s incident has not been made clear.
dhomas
About the location, the homes in Saint-Leonard would be on rue Paul-Corbeil directly. If they are on 39e rue, they are considered Saint-Michel. The article mentions the apartment being on 39e and the photo confirms it, when comparing to Google Maps.
Wherever it happened, it’s a very sad story.Kate
Thank you, dhomas. And yes, it’s sad as hell.
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Kate
Pornhub is to pay $120 million to people in two U.S. states who sued it because videos of them when they were minors were uploaded to Pornhub without their consent.
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Kate
Mayor Martinez Ferrada is reviving the idea of a REM de l’Est.
Will this be Montreal’s answer to Quebec City’s Troisième Lien?
dhomas
The East end desperately needs better transit.
My daughter is 12 and goes to school in RDP. She is starting high school this year and will be taking the metro daily. She is used to the metro since we often take it with her to go pretty much everywhere (except elementary school). Her friends from school have literally never taken the metro. Going to the mall (usually, Galeries d’Anjou, because that is something else lacking in the east), driven by the parents. Going to La Ronde, car. Going downtown, bitch about the parking and traffic, but still take their car. It’s ridiculous, but I understand that they don’t have much choice.
And they have even less choice now than they did about 6 years ago. The Mascouche train line used to go straight downtown with a few stops in eastern Montreal. My brother-in-law bought a house in proximity of the RDP train station in 2013 with the promise of the train built into the price. When the train line opened in late 2014, he got to enjoy it until 2020, when the REM took over the Mount-Royal tunnel. The date they announced the closure? May 2020, right as the pandemic lockdowns were in full force and everyone was working from home. Very few people taking the train at the time to complain.
What bothered me most about the initial proposals for the REM de l’Est was that it was all surface trains through existing neighbourhoods. The REM going west goes along the highway and doesn’t really affect existing residential areas. The REM going north stays underground through most of TMR then goes overground where there were already train tracks going through a few short blocks before reaching St-Laurent. The rest of the tracé goes through non-residential areas.
But for the REM de l’Est, they took no such considerations. The poors should feel lucky they’re getting anything at all, instead of complaining that a train is passing at eye level every 3 to 15 minutes.
There are other tracés they could come up with, I’m sure.
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Kate
The city isn’t favourable to constructing a new grade school in Park Extension, even though the CSSDM sees a need. The city claims it doesn’t have similar numbers but I suspect the reason may be that the borough mayor and Park Ex councillor are both Projet.
Nicholas
It’s a shame the journalist didn’t mention where the other six schools the city did agree to are to be. I know Griffintown has been asking for one for a decade, and the CSSDM has been delaying that with various excuses. Also a Projet area for a while.
Also funny hearing about all these new schools needed when the Quebec statistics agency says the island will lose 10% of its population in the next decade or so. Given the construction, I’ve doubted these projections, and this adds further doubt in my mind.
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Kate
The Parti Québécois is blithely promising to create a $95 all‑Quebec transit pass, but it would leave transit authorities with a minimum $77‑million gap in funding.
Daisy
Finally a PQ idea I can get on board with. I have loved using the Deutschland-Ticket to travel throughout Germany the last two summers. Cheaper and much logistically simpler than having to figure out tickets for a multitude of different transit systems. Of course Quebec does not have the regional train system that Germany does…
Kate
And they got rid of a lot of the regional bus routes toward the end of the 1990s as well.
Blork
It sounds like a good idea, and maybe it is, but I’d be worried that the funding gap would end up leading to funding cuts and trimming of lesser-used bus lines. Because that’s how that stuff usually plays out.
Tim
This seems like a giveaway to folks off island. So instead of paying for an AB or ABC fare, which takes into consideration the additional resources/time required for their journeys, they pay the same A fare as somebody on island? Terrible idea.
Nicholas
As well, even if the funding is covered by the province, there have already been severe cuts to transit service. What if instead we take that same funding and add it to transit agency budgets while also keeping fares as is, so instead of maintaining it at the already reduced level we boost it up a bit to help increase service?
Tim is also getting at the point: this has the biggest benefit for people off-island. Anyone want to guess where most of the swing ridings are that the PQ is aiming for?
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Kate
The woman murdered in St-Michel on the weekend has been identified and her husband, who apparently failed to take his own life as well, will be charged when he has recovered sufficiently. Item includes a list of feminicides in Quebec so far this year.
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Kate
The city’s blue collar workers are without a contract since the end of 2024, and a strike is now threatened that could disrupt the big bike race next month.
The workers are not only after a raise, but to pressure the city to stop handing paving contracts to private businesses at three or four times the cost of doing them in‑house. Given the city’s history, this tendency to hand over big money to contractors is a little concerning. Cui bono?
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Kate
La Presse has a two-parter Monday on the dangers of deteriorating buildings, to people and to adjoining structures.
The city has the right to expropriate such buildings, but would then have to spend money to demolish or repair them – and sometimes the expropriation order is challenged in court, a process that can take years.
As a sidebar, visits to three buildings in terrible condition, two of which are still inhabited.
Blork
What about this old relic on St-Laurent just above St-Viateur. It was empty and abandoned when I lived on that block almost 35 years ago and it’s never been fixed up nor torn down. https://maps.app.goo.gl/FGUX6JoURoQZfFnS8
Kate
Can’t help wondering whether the owner of the adjoining building, in Blork’s example, has any concerns about the damage they would face if that building went up in flames or collapsed. If I were that owner I’d be complaining to the city weekly about allowing that situation to continue.
Nicholas
The court costs and risks are one thing, but the demolition is baked into the market price: if an empty lot of a given size in that location costs $1 million but the cost to remediate a purely negative situation (derelict building that cannot be saved, environmental remediation, etc) is $200,000, then the market price of the property is $800,000. And after they take it they can upzone it and sell it for a higher price to a developer to build more units than they replaced, either doing the remediation first or making the developer do it (sale price obviously lower if they add that cost to the developer, but it comes out the same either way).
RE
I’ve also noticed this building on Robert-Bourassa…anyone know what’s the deal with this one?
https://maps.app.goo.gl/8ETSKtjqyXJi2tFu5RE
Following my previous post, this is what I’ve found:
https://www.lapresse.ca/actualites/montreal/201402/12/01-4738041-la-liste-noire-du-patrimoine-a-montreal.phpI’ts called Forge Cadieux
“Fondée en 1870, la forge Cadieux est laissée vacante depuis 1980, ne servant que pour d’occasionnels tournages ou événements. Le réaménagement du secteur Bonaventure pourrait toutefois accélérer la disparition de ce précieux témoin des métiers d’antan, resté pratiquement intact.”Major Annoyance
^ The Repertoire du patrimoine has a detailed entry for that one:
https://www.patrimoine-culturel.gouv.qc.ca/detail.do?methode=consulter&id=190931&type=bien
The owner has kept it in good repair over the years but last time I was in the neighbourhood I noticed some broken windows. I hope this isn’t the beginning of the end for this puppy. A friend of mine tells me it’s a veritable museum inside, chock full of metalworking tools and equipment dating back to its closure in 1982.
Blork
Thanks for the info RE and Major Annoyance. I’ve had my eye on that one for years (photographed it rather formally in 2013: https://blork.org/pix/Forge-Cadieux-st-paul-and-rb.jpg) and I’ve been wondering what the story behind it is. It’s a bit of a miracle that it’s still standing.
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Kate
CTV visits labs and researchers preparing responses for future pandemics. It’s not spelled out, but it’s clear that Canada needs to be able to act on its own when we face a new health crisis.
Ephraim
Bit of a wait time, but if you are looking for a read on the subject… https://banq.overdrive.com/media/12518600
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Kate
It was a mixed bag of themes this week as we hover between summer and school, the tendentious trade negotiations with the fractious dictator to the south and the impending Quebec election. Côté didn’t get much of a holiday with everything going on.Our cartoonists tend to enjoy seeing Carney crushed by Trump although I don’t know why. It’s a recurring theme.
Chapleau smuggled Trump out of a plane in a poutine cart; poutine also appeared in a Côté drawing this week.
Gas prices were noted from a couple of angles this week, and the environment got a look in with the latest vintage from BC.
Chloe had the only statement about Jarry Park but Chapleau won the week with his commentary on Éric Duhaime’s new slogan.
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