A new dépanneur has opened in the Milton-Park area, but police want to block its alcohol permit because of the homeless who hang around around the intersection.
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Kate
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Kate
The mayor and the new premier seem to be getting along so far.
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Kate
The CAQ objected to a redrawn riding map, under which Montreal island loses a provincial riding in the east end, but the Supreme Court has ruled that the map will stay in force and be in effect during the upcoming Quebec election.
H. John
“and be in effect during the upcoming Quebec election” would not be my guess.
The government still has other options, as the Superior Court pointed out in its original decision. We should see new legislation introduced by the CAQ government this week to protect the two ridings in the Gaspé.
Kate
How deeply implanted are the rules about riding size, H. John?
bob
All the rules around electoral district boundaries are suggestions. We don’t have southern US level gerrymandering, but we do have subtle shifts in boundaries after the same purpose. The rule of one person one vote does not apply in Quebec, nor in Canada.
H. John
@Kate asked “How deeply implanted are the rules about riding size”?
It’s a very general rule which Elections Quebec tries to apply.
But this case is not about Elections Quebec or an Elections Commission doing their assigned job. This case is about the LVI (Loi visant l’interruption du processus de délimitation des circonscriptions électorales (« LVI »)) passed by the National Assembly to override the proposed new map from Elections Quebec.
The Superior Court wrote in its decision in this case:
50. … La représentation effective implique que d’autres facteurs que l’équivalence mathématique soient pris en considération lors de la délimitation des circonscriptions électorales. En particulier, la représentation effective exige la prise en compte des communautés naturelles et des facteurs qui influencent la capacité d’un élu à remplir ses rôles de législateur, de médiateur et d’agent de développement. Cela tient compte d’un certain nombre de facteurs, comme la taille de la circonscription. Les circonscriptions qui s’étendent sur de vastes territoires limitent la capacité des électeurs à accéder à leur député.
52 À cet égard, dans le Renvoi de la Saskatchewan, la juge McLachlin, s’exprime pour la majorité de cinq juges comme suit :
[L]a représentation effective et la bonne administration dans ce pays obligent ceux qui sont chargés de fixer les limites des circonscriptions électorales à tenir parfois compte d’autres facteurs que la parité du nombre des électeurs, tels les conditions géographiques et les intérêts de la collectivité.
We already have a riding that’s completely outside the norm:
145. Notamment, bien que l’option de simplement protéger les circonscriptions de la Gaspésie de la même manière que la Loi électorale protège les Îles-de-la-Madeleine et de laisser la Commission rééquilibrer le reste des circonscriptions semble possible, rien ne démontre que cette approche aurait reçu l’appui unanime de l’Assemblée nationale.
I keep mentioning CAQ is only concerned about protecting the riding in the Gaspé and even the Court of Appeal was clear on that:
63. Même si le texte de la LVI ainsi que les notes explicatives sont muets à ce sujet, la preuve administrée permet de comprendre que le premier objectif poursuivi par la LVI vise à éviter la suppression d’une circonscription en Gaspésie[85]. En effet, il est évident que ce n’est pas à cause de la perte d’une circonscription à Montréal, laquelle n’est mentionnée qu’au passage, que le législateur choisit d’intervenir. D’ailleurs, c’est la réalité de la Gaspésie ainsi qu’en général celle des circonscriptions en région qui est ciblée dans le mémoire et la plaidoirie de l’intimé.
We’ll have a better idea of “How deeply implanted are the rules about riding size” once the Supreme Court releases its written reasons. The decision, in favour of the applicants, was read from the bench with reasons to follow
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Kate
An El Niño system developing in the Pacific may bring what CTV calls dramatic weather to southern Quebec by June.
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Kate
A woman in her seventies was killed by a street sweeper in Boucherville on Tuesday morning.
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Kate
CBC’s Benjamin Shingler shows us a selection of Gabor Szilasi photos.
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Kate
A man is walking the perimeter of the island of Montreal to pick up trash from the riverside.
su
I would be happier if Cascades, the sponsor of this fellow cleaned up their tons of toxic effluents in Quebec waterways.
Kate
Also, although cleaning up the riverside, or any other trash cleanup is a decent initiative in a sense, it’s still moving trash from one place to another. The trash has to land somewhere. You’re doing it for human aesthetics, not “for the planet”.
MarcG
I agree with Kate’s cynical point, but taken to an extreme, if we dumped all of our trash in the river instead of a hole in Terrebonne, wouldn’t that have a more harmful impact on wildlife?
Kate
I agree my point was cynical, but sooner or later somebody is going to have to deal with the trash in the Terrebonne hole, no?
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Kate
Christine Fréchette has named her cabinet; both Montreal CAQ MNAs have jobs, Karine Boivin Roy (Anjou–Louis‑Riel), as housing minister, and Chantal Rouleau (Pointe‑aux‑Trembles) doing Social Solidarity and Community Action, responsible for the Metropolis and the Montreal region.
Some thoughts about our new environment minister.
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Kate
Le Devoir explores Radio-Canada’s extensive art collection, although without enough images. Interestingly, half its pieces are still in the old Maison Radio‑Canada because, for various reasons, they can’t be moved.
DeWolf
I’m not sure if half the pieces are still in the old building:
« Il y a pratiquement autant d’œuvres ici que dans l’ancienne tour »
To me, that implies that nearly all the artworks were moved, except for the four pieces that couldn’t be moved, and the tapestries donated to the Musée des métiers d’arts.
Incidentally, the piece mentions the artworks that are still in the old building are now under the responsibility of the new owner, but doesn’t discuss their fate. The studios have already been demolished and the tower is currently being completely gutted, so it would great to know exactly how the artworks are being preserved.
Kate
Right, I read that to mean “there are about as many pieces here as are in the old building” whereas it probably means “as were in the old building in the past“.
Thank you.
Harvey
As long as are on the topic of Quebecois Art, what’s up with Hydro-Quebec’s collection?
Kate
What do you mean “what’s up”?
CE
I’ve been inside the old building and there are a few very large pieces of art that are built right into the building. It would be impossible to move them. Hopefully they’re saved and incorporated into whatever the building becomes because I remember the art being quite interesting.
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Kate
The big spring cleanup seems to have been an empty promise as many city streets are still festooned with post‑winter trash.
DeWolf
If you have no grand vision as a governing party, and instead your entire campaign was based around the promise of “going back to basics” as Claude Pinard put it, you’d better not screw up the basics.
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Kate
In 2024, a Superior Court judge ruled that the city is liable for racial profiling committed by its cops. The city is appealing the ruling.
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Kate
Paul St-Pierre Plamondon is facing a dilemma: polls show that he can win the October election easily, but only if he gives up the promise of a referendum on the Quebec independence that’s the raison d’être of his party.
MarcG
Surely there’s a German word for this.
Kate
MarcG
Gonna send this video to PSPP
bob
In this the best of all political systems the PQ can maintain a fundamental position rejected by 2/3 of the electorate, have the electoral support of less than 1/3 of the electorate, and still win the election without giving up on its fundamental, unpopular position.
What this should reveal is that voting is no longer so much *for* things, rather than *against* things, like people or parties or positions. If you hate the CAQ, hate the Liberals, and hate QS, you can still vote for someone you hate slightly less, even though they might do something you don’t want, because you can vote against that when it comes.
Recall the Orange Wave, where the masses of Quebec did not in any way become more progressive or more left leaning, but saw fit to punish the parties that they perceived had wronged them with their scandal, ineffectiveness, corruption, etc. It was a kind of win-win, though not thoroughly good – you could bench the people you wanted to punish, but you would not get an actual NDP government doing all kinds of lefty things you don’t agree with – and in any case by that time the NDP had developed its policy of leaving Quebec alone to do its thing, party principles be damned (cf. @MarcG’s video).
So here we’ll have a government made up of people whose party was conceived for one main purpose, but that purpose will be put on a shelf. What is left for the party to do? Wallow in neoliberalism (i.e., theft), and all the usual corruptions. It is reminiscent of the old trope about the communists being the best dressed deputies in the post-war Italian Parliament.
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Kate
The STM bus network will be changing as of May 18 when the Anse à l’Orme REM opens, and not just in the West Island. The list of routes changing is a long one (but the map being used to show certain routes is disorienting, with west at the top).
Joey
That comparison tool is needlessly complicated. Can anyone figure out what the difference in, say, the 51 route is?
MarcG
If you download the “Understanding the redesign -> Summary document” at the bottom of the page it has more details than the individual route documents. For the 51 for example, on page 41, it says “Qu’est-ce qui change? Aucune modification de parcours, Rééquilibrage des fréquences sur la ligne 51 au profit de la ligne courte (51X) entre la gare Montréal-Ouest et la station Snowdon”. Pretty cumbersome.
jeather
Oh they might be upgrading the buses near my work so I can take the metro again.
Joey
Thanks, MarcG. Not sure why they couldn’t represent that visually, but whatever. More to the point, it would go a long way to distinguish between the kinds of changes on that summary table, rather than treat “addition of extra buses for part of the route” with “completely new trajectory”… That 51X is a good idea; Snowdon Metro is a huge bottleneck for that line.
EmilyG
I think the route for each bus is shown as a left-to-right line, which would lead to differing orientations of the map (with different cardinal directions at the top.)
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Kate
A branch of the REV bike path meant to go along Lacordaire has been put on hold. Alan DeSousa’s claim that this branch “goes nowhere” doesn’t fit with the map, where the path was designed to link Montreal North, St‑Léonard and Hochelaga‑Maisonneuve.
DeWolf
It would have been a crucial link in a part of town that is fairly dense but completely deprived of safe cycling infrastructure. It’s not like there is a shortage of space on Lacordaire, which has six lanes of traffic.
Oh well. Maybe in another few years if the anti-bike crowd is voted out of office.
dhomas
So disappointing. There are depressingly few North-South bike links in the eastern part of town. It’s almost impossible to cross the 40. There is a bike path on des Galeries d’Anjou that crosses over the met, but that one leads nowhere. It kinda just ends at St-Zotique, so there’s no route to an East-West path or to downtown. I need to take a lot of unprotected paths to bike to downtown, sharing the road with motor vehicles, until I get to the Notre-Dame path. The Lacordaire REV would have filled this gap quite nicely. 🙁
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Kate
The Word bookstore is holding a fundraiser to restore their very old, singular building on Milton. I have no connection with the store but would not like to see it go away, so I’m passing this on.
bob 22:14 on 2026-04-22 Permalink
Oh what bullshit. There’s a 24 hour dep literally around the corner. Who isn’t getting paid?