Dave ‘Pik’ Turmel, presumed leader of the Blood Family Mafia, and labelled “Canada’s Most Wanted”, was arrested in Italy on Thursday morning. He’s wanted in Quebec City on charges of drug trafficking, conspiracy and armed assault.
Meantime, a Mexican national wanted at home on a murder charge, but who’s been living a quiet life in Montreal, was arrested Monday in Pierrefonds by Canadian border services.
Since the resolution two weeks ago to cease tolerance of loitering in the metro, loitering is down but arrests are up. Details are given here about the operational changes that have brought this about.
Denied the metro, some homeless folks are hanging out at the airport, TVA reports from a confirmation by Aéroports de Montréal.
After the end of the school year, Justin Trudeau plans to move to Montreal, but this fluff piece doesn’t specify a neighbourhood.
There’s still the family mansion on Pine Avenue…
I spoke to someone a few years ago who applied for a job as an archivist at the old Trudeau home. Apparently Pierre’s papers are stored there and they’re still going through all of them.
Justin used to live in this handsome house in Outremont while he was just an MP. I’m not sure if the family sold it or if it was being rented out while he was PM. Interestingly, the house is blurred on Streetview which is somewhat recent.
Either way it’s pretty safe to say he won’t be moving to his old riding, lol.
It just makes me more curious about it when a house is blurred on Google Maps
The property rolls say that house has been owned by the French state since 1998. Because of that it’s exempt from taxes, valued at 4.25 million.
I thought it was a diplomatic property …
Two police stations on the eastern side of downtown are merging, supposedly to make people feel safer.
We’re being warned of snow and a possible ice storm over the weekend.
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The Quebec government has confirmed that the $270 million that it invested in Northvolt is lost.
$500 million in cost overruns on SAAQclic, $270 million on this, heavens only knows how much extra to “favoriser et de protéger la langue française”… quelle gang des connards.
No wonder the CAQ is trying to figure out how to shave health and education to the bone.
Gotta love it when businessmen apply their elite skills to government.
I’ve been a manager and director in non-profit organizations my entire career. I currently oversee around 4M in funding for programming across the country. Every dollar is accounted for. Any project that is going over is flagged early, and we make adjustments.
I can understand why a construction project can go over if there are unexpected conditions…ex: explosives in the Mount-Royal tunnel for the REM. But how can the SAAQ clic go over by 50%? Don’t 5000M projects have at least 2-3 people who’s job is solely to monitor costs?
Is it all due to the lowest bidder law, or is it because important projects are hard to estimate, or is it blatant corruption, or is lack of accountability or repercussions?
That may have been a rhetorical question and I’m sure the answer is all of the above, but I would love to hear from anyone who might have worked on projects of this magnitude to provide some insights.
The Catholic archdiocese has launched a not‑for‑profit real estate arm to “maximize social impact” by working with the city or other not‑for‑profit groups to convert properties it owns for residential use. (Those two links are English and French versions of the same CP story.)
A new census of the homeless will be done on April 15 and Quebec is bracing itself for a rise from the 10,000 counted in October 2022.
The CAQ government appears to think that by saying it wants to reduce the numbers, it will magically happen. No additional funds were directed to housing in this week’s Quebec budget, and we have a social services minister, Lionel Carmant, who has said that some people choose homelessness as a lifestyle.
More and more Montrealers are getting around on bicycles, but the gain is at the expense of public transit, not driving.
Makes sense really, becasue most people would be replacing a nearby commute or short trip. IN that regard as long as the weather is nice, bicycles are often more convenient. When I worked near my home I could easily bike to work in half the time the bus took, mostly becasue I wasn’t swasting time standing around waitign for it to arrive. I still hop on my bike to go to the nearby grocery stores – it’s easier than worrying about parking and just as fast with traffic.
When I’m driving 35 minutes to the west island at 6 am along the 40, bicycling instead never crosses my mind, lol.
That’s not quite the full picture, because at least in central Montreal (basically the pre-merger city plus Westmount, Outremont and Verdun), the share of people driving has decreased.
In 2013, the commuting picture looked like this: 7% cycling, 11% walking, 29% driving, 46% transit.
In 2023, it looked like this: 14% cycling, 13% walking, 24% driving, 42% transit.
That’s a 7% increase in cycling, a 2% increase in walking, a 5% decline in driving and a 4% decline in transit.
The full breakdown between different parts of Montreal is here:
https://forum.agoramtl.com/t/reseau-cyclable-montrealais-discussion-generale/342/2690?u=kilgoretrout
Incidentally, the problem with most mobility studies is they focus on commutes rather than on all travel, which means they miss out on exactly the kind of modal complexity that is common in places like central Montreal. The “transport cocktail” that Ian describes is pretty common, but in a study he would be considered a car commuter just because that’s how he gets to work.
There are a lot of car commuters in central Montreal but I imagine very few of them rely entirely on their car for all their activities.
That’s a really good point DeWolf, thanks!
In the LaPresse chart it shows an increase in automobile use in Longueuil and the Couronne Sud, but the numbers in their reports show decreases – am I misunderstanding something or did they make mistakes?
Just to clarify, while most studies just show work trips (like census data does), this one does all trips. I was mailed a letter to take part in this cycle, and it had a link to a website where I had to list every single trip every single member of the household took the day prior, and which mode(s). So I went to the park, and then to get an ice cream, and so on. I read in another La Presse piece that this cycle better captured active transportation trips.
Some buildings on Decarie south of Queen Mary are being demolished so the STM can build an underground facility. The promise of an eventual park is a mixed blessing, given that the space is directly on the Decarie service road.
Since the STM expropriated the buildings and they have fallen into ruin, the STM now has no choice to demolish them.
The park is only supposed to be temporary until they start building there – maybe in 2028.
https://www.stm.info/en/about/major_projects/major-metro-projects/northwest-attachment-centre
PTI : https://www.stm.info/sites/default/files/pdf/fr/pi_25-34.pdf (Nouveau centre d’attachement – secteur nord-ouest)
Thanks for the info, James.
Maxime Bergeron goes to a business meeting addressed by Christine Fréchette, who’s minister of the economy, innovation and energy, minister responsible for regional economic development and minister responsible for Montreal and its region. After presenting some grim numbers about the state of the city’s economy, Bergeron asks whether the city should have a
full time minister looking after its needs.
The province of Quebec has a population of just over 8 million., Greater Montreal is 4.37 million. The provincial government may not like us, but the numbers are right there for everyone to see.
Yet we don’t have the votes to keep ourselves a priority.
Well that’s the Canadian voting system writ large; the point of ridings is so that even the least populous areas of the country have a say in what goes on. Of course Justin Trudeau went back on his promise of electoral refrom so whatever. Carney or PP sure as heck won’t do it, and it’s in the CAQ’s best interests to keep things just as they are on a provincial level too.
@Ian interesting you bring up Trudeau’s broken promise, which presumably would not have applied to Quebec elections, when you could have brought up Legault’s broken promise to hold a referendum on a mixed-member proportional system.
I wonder if things would be different if Montreal voted as a bloc, instead of splitting its seats mostly among the LPQ and QS.
TBH I wasn’t aware that Legault made that promise … though I am not surprised he broke it. Anyway it doesn’t matter if we vote PLC becasue they take the Montreal vote fro granted and spend their energies trying to woo ethnonationalists.
Ian, he certainly flirted with the idea, as described here and here. Later, Legault handwaved the whole thing, saying Quebecers were not interested. But the unkept promise doesn’t hang over him as it did over Justin Trudeau.
To be fair it was a main plank of Trudeau’s election platform, so it’s fair that it hangs over him.
That it doesn’t hang over Legault might simply be becasue he is so easily reviled for so many far more egregious things such as running any openly ethnonationalist government rife with blatant corruption and systemic racism.
Christian Dubé says he spoke too soon about rebuilding Maisonneuve‑Rosemont hospital, so it’s being delayed until at least 2026 i.e. see what happens after the next election.
A recent event celebrated the old Lux on St‑Laurent, which opened in 1984 and closed about ten years later. We discussed it here in 2020.
At least I was wrong about the gentrification of the neighbourhood continuing apace. Shiller Lavy is selling off their properties now, even if it’s too late for dear old SWW bookstore.
Not only are Shiller Lavy selling their Mile End properties, nobody is buying them. They’ve been on the market for more than two years now.
I’ve noticed that. Considering the “cool” bubble has burst it is probably difficult to get the prices SL wants for their places.
Le Devoir is doing a series on dangers to pedestrians. Wednesday it’s the difficulties faced in the more traffic‑dominated neighbourhoods on the periphery of the island.
For me the biggest takeaway from that article is the guy who switched from a black coat to a pale grey coat in order to be less invisible as a pedestrian. Uh…
I know, Blork! I was expecting the camera to pan back to him wearing a high-viz orange or neon green affair.
Daytime in winter, light grey is LESS visible than black! At night it’s just neutral (and therefore mostly invisible.)
A lot of seemingly all-black or all-grey winter wear has just enough touches of reflective material so that you can often get a good sense of the broad outlines of a person who is otherwise invisible. Worst offenders – racing cyclists who don’t have lights (or even reflectors)…
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