France-Elaine Duranceau, real estate agent and Quebec housing minister, knew perfectly well that a 5.9% rental increase would hit the most vulnerable tenants hardest, but she didn’t give a shit, cranking out some PR about how collecting higher rents would encourage landlords to make more repairs.
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Kate
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Kate
Canadian Tire has acquired the rights to the Hudson’s Bay Company logo and its emblematic stripes for $30 million.
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Kate
October 2021, a young woman named Romane Bonnier was stabbed to death in the McGill Ghetto in broad daylight. A man she shared an apartment with, and may briefly have had a liaison with, is currently on trial for her murder.
I can’t make out from the story whether she was still sharing a place with him at the time, because it’s hard to entirely block a person you’re going to run into in the kitchen.
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Kate
Nine restaurants in Quebec have received Michelin stars, with three in Montreal: Europea, Mastard and Sabayon. There are more lists and nods at the Michelin page and on a page from CultMTL.
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Kate
The family of Ariel Kouakou unveiled a small billboard Thursday. It’s more than seven years since the ten‑year‑old went missing on a short daytime walk in Ahuntsic. The billboard shows an impression of how he might look now at age 15.
The family continues to hope that Ariel was abducted and is still alive; police have always thought he took a detour through a riverside park and fell into the Back River, but say they’re still checking out possible leads.
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Kate
UNESCO has recognized the Notman studio archives as part of the Memory of the World International Register.
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Kate
A man who didn’t have a permit to drive a truck, and had relevant mental and physical problems keeping him from that kind of work, piled the truck he was driving directly into a traffic jam on the 440 in August 2019. Four people died and more were injured. Jagmeet Grewal was sentenced to ten years Thursday.
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Kate
The coroner’s report is in on the death of Innu man Raphaël André in a portable toilet on a frigid day in January 2021.
André’s severe alcohol intoxication dovetailed with the Covid closure of the nearest shelter, meaning that he had nowhere to go. The coroner, Stéphanie Gamache, called the conditions of André’s death inhumane.
Gamache provided a list of recommendations to help the homeless in general, and avoid such deaths in future. Of course, whether any of them is followed will depend on politics.
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Kate
Some Hochelaga-Maisonneuve residents are blaming biweekly garbage collection for the growing numbers of rats in their borough.
Nicholas
I’m going to blame people putting food/organic material, which you are not legally allowed to put in your garbage, into their garbage, collected biweekly in bags, rather than their compost, which is collected weekly in locking bins.
Also the pest control specialist blames restaurants, which do not get biweekly garbage pickup but pay for commercial pickup, so are unaffected by any changes in residential pickup.
DeWolf
I have neighbours who absolutely refuse to compost and who pile all their food waste into big black bags that invariably get ripped open by rodents. Then they have the gall to blame the resulting mess on the compost bins.
Joey
I suspect you are both right about what’s happening in Hochelaga – plus the fact that garbage put out whenever by people who ignore the garbage pickup windows (who, presumably, are more likely to be tossing organic material given their general disregard for the rules) winds up sitting on the sidewalk a lot longer. That being said, it’s really, really unfair to the rule-abiding citizens of MHM to have to put up with a rat infestation that they are in no way responsible for. It seems pretty evident that this problem only arose after the change in garbage pickup schedule, even if lots of people weren’t disposing of their waste properly beforehand. Isn’t it wrong to allow this kind of vermin infestation to affect everyone in a neighbourhood because some people don’t know follow the rules? Presumably at some point public health officials will force the borough to change back…
(Note also that for most of the borough the new schedule was only implemented last November – things are not looking promising now that it’s hot out.)
(@DeWolf, it would be a shame if their garbage was returned to them, wouldn’t it?)
MarcG
When I see poorly done ‘garbaging’ I chalk it up to mental illness. I don’t think punishment/reward is going to be very effective here (if it ever is), and education seems an unlikely cure as well.
jeather
I don’t know what restaurants are supposed to do, but lots of cheap ones have piles of trash outside for more than enough time to get rats. Overflowing, opened dumpsters, or just piles in an alleyway.
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Kate
Nathalie Collard talks to Mayor Plante about Montreal as a feminist city as she prepares to inaugurate Place des Montréalaises this Friday. (The city page says Saturday although Collard’s text says Friday.)
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Kate
Marie-Andrée Mauger, the mayor of Verdun, has announced she won’t be running again this November. That’s three women mayors that won’t be back.
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Kate
Quebec has posted 44 roadwork sites around Montreal this summer, including 19 that are new. Driving this summer will not be like a car commercial, the city warns.
CBC has a brief video focusing on the three main areas where they foresee trouble. Unfortunately, one is simply “downtown.”
Ian
On the radio this morning the guy from the city said 1000 worksites total. That includes minor sites too, of course.
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Kate
The union that represents the STM’s administrative, technical and professional workers has adopted a strike mandate because negotiations over a new contract have taken more than a year and are not yet resolved. This union has not held or threatened a strike for more than 40 years.
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Kate
A committee was created in 2023 to hustle along plans to build housing on the old Blue Bonnets land. Now the city has created a second committee to encourage the first. Nice aerial photo shows the extent of the old racecourse.
jeather
Committees all the way down.
Ephraim
This is exactly why things never get done. The city already knows the size of the land in square metres. We also know that for a neighbourhood served by a metro, the typical density is about 100 dwellings per hectare, or 5,000 to 10,000 dwellings per square kilometre. In Paris, for example, the density is at least 20,000 people per square kilometre, with the optimal range being 20,000 to 30,000 people per square kilometre. So, we know the minimum required per hectare. Assuming an average of two people per dwelling, the city should be able to determine what percentage of housing needs to be affordable. By looking at surrounding neighbourhoods, it should also be able to estimate how many two-bedroom, three-bedroom, and four-bedroom units are needed, as well as what proportion of the area should be allocated to retail versus residential use.
The city could even design this part of the city with zero street parking. All parking could be assigned to residences, because if any street parking is left available, it will just become free parking for people using the metro. All parking should be paid spots, and the city can likely calculate the required parking density as well. Small areas—one or two spaces per hectare—could be set aside for visitors, deliveries, and similar needs. They also need to plan for mail delivery.
If I can figure out most of this without a committee, why is it so difficult for the city to do the same?
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Kate
A man who stabbed an acquaintance to death with a barbecue fork at a drug‑fuelled social gathering in 2022 was sentenced to five and a half years last week. The victim had poured hot sauce on the other man’s genitals and, in revenge, got stabbed to death. Only on the South Shore.
azrhey
Hey come on! That totally could have been Laval too! 🙂
Bert
Nah, we are civilized…. We use tongs.
Kate
Bert, I’ve been laughing (evilly) every time I reread that.
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