Updates from August, 2019 Toggle Comment Threads | Keyboard Shortcuts

  • Kate 12:13 on 2019-08-25 Permalink | Reply  

    The Centre d’histoire piece this weekend looks at an attempted escape by a suspect from an arrest in 1961. The building in Old Montreal hasn’t changed a bit in the before-and-after shots.

    This week, Radio-Canada looked back 20 years to the closure of Eaton’s, once a Canadian commercial empire.

    The Gazette’s history feature looks at a well-known photo of Jean Drapeau with Lucien Saulnier and Cardinal Léger in the cab of one of the first metro cars, on show in 1965. There’s also a piece on a strike that closed the metro in 1974.

    I don’t remember any mention of this incident: a small cruise ship tipped over in the Old Port and stayed there for five years till it was righted and towed away for scrap in 1982.

     
    • Kate 10:42 on 2019-08-25 Permalink | Reply  

      Two policemen coming off shift were attacked by a group of people at station 21 near Émilie‑Gamelin on Friday night. They were beaten up but not seriously injured; whatever it was sparked the incident is not clear.

       
      • Kate 10:38 on 2019-08-25 Permalink | Reply  

        A man was shot early Sunday in Petite-Patrie but that’s all she wrote.

         
        • Kate 10:15 on 2019-08-25 Permalink | Reply  

          Six trucks were a total loss after arson overnight in Anjou.

           
          • Kate 09:51 on 2019-08-25 Permalink | Reply  

            The Jean-Talon market plot thickens, with four longtime sellers turning to the courts with claims that management has been trying to evict them. The issue seems to be at least partly that market management doesn’t want sellers offering anything that isn’t locally grown. Also, the old-time guys feel they have an acquired right to be there, even to being able to sell the right to their spot when they move on.

             
            • Kate 20:18 on 2019-08-24 Permalink | Reply  

              I’m puzzled why, two days after a Radio-Canada report on changes and improvements made in the plans for the Royalmount project – hailed on this blog by indefatigable cheerleader Faiz Imam – CTV reports on a citizen initiative to push for more green space, affordable housing and more public transit. Are the Carbonleo promises not enough, or is there fear that they’re just smoke and mirrors?

               
              • ant6n 22:13 on 2019-08-24 Permalink

                The Website by Carbonleo about this project starts with a giant aerial photo of the 15-40 interchange with the project area marked next to it, and follows with this text, which makes me feel like, just by reading it, that I’m joining whatever cult Faiz is part of:

                “””Royalmount was born of a desire to create a unifying, eco-friendly and innovative living environment that reflects the best of Montreal.

                Located in Town of Mount Royal (TMR) at the intersection of highways 15 and 40, this carbon-neutral neighbourhood will be a source of revitalization for one of Montreal’s largest heat islands. The mission of Royalmount village is to repair the crumbling infrastructure that has for decades geographically divided the cities and neighbourhoods on the western part of the island from the rest of the city. Rooted in today’s realities while answering the needs of tomorrow, Royalmount will have their residents’ well-being at the heart of its mission.

                Challenging convention, it will be an inspiring urban cultural hub designed on a human scale. Royalmount will offer the quintessential Montreal experience: a dynamic, diverse culture with restaurants, boutiques, green spaces, hotels, lounge areas and offices, while at the same time embracing the best technological practices for the environment, sustainable development, and green mobility.”””

                I don’t believe in private entities designing supposedly utopic mini-villages next to highways. At what point did we privatize urban development, and deeply steep it in shallow PR? (I guess some time before we privatized transit planning..)

                These villages are basically arcologies, and in some sense descendants of developments like the brutalist Bonaventure building – a sort of mini-city within the city, that is unconcerned with whatever is surrounding it, because it’s basically a fortress (The Bonaventure is a literal one built with walls, the highway-interchange villages are less obvious ones, but must still protect their interior greenwashing spaces from the adjacent highways).

                But to be fair, there’s a metro station a couple hundred meters away, so they do have that covered…

              • Douglas 06:45 on 2019-08-25 Permalink

                Carbonleo’s new proposal looks fine. They are just trying to please more people.

                Once it is built, all the arguments against it will look hyperbolic. Like the end of the world is happening on decarie and 40.

                A huge development project for Montreal which will bring in even more tax revenues to the city.
                Pay for a lot of construction salaries which is good for montreal and quebec economy.

                Everyone benefits to be honest.

              • Uatu 08:51 on 2019-08-25 Permalink

                The more community input the better since they’re going to be living with the development daily and putting up with the mundane headaches that pr gloss over like garbage collection, delivery traffic, parking, road maintenance, groundskeeping,/snow removal etc. Also better to have carbon Leo plan the space better because DIX30’s layout is a haphazardly strewn out shitshow of buildings and roads that no one knows how to navigate. Parts of the DIX30 are dead and are going through reconstruction which means detours and traffic in an already confined space. Will Royal Mount be the same? Does it have the space to remake structures and layout without causing even more traffic to the area? Nobody thinks about these things because they’re too distracted by PR drawings and tax$$$. Just like people only later wonder why elevators are just now being installed in the metro….

              • Kevin 09:04 on 2019-08-25 Permalink

                Douglas
                Just to point out the obvious: This development is not in Montreal and will provide no tax revenue to the city.

              • Uatu 09:08 on 2019-08-25 Permalink

                That pr text also reads like someone fed “Royalmount is….” into that AI in the previous post

              • EmilyG 14:58 on 2019-08-25 Permalink

                “Royalmount is a Montreal city and a condos. It will be built in 1999 in Eastern Mount Royal. Mount Royal is a mountain with a population of 3 million tourists every summer between January and March.”

                (Me having a crack at writing in the style of an AI.”

              • Phil M 15:36 on 2019-08-25 Permalink

                Has anyone actually proposed anything better, that developers are willing to build? It seems the alternative is to let the area continue to deteriorate. And since it has been pointed out that the land is in TMR, and not Montreal, it begs the question what kind of urban planning resources TMR has at its disposal. From their point of view, it’s a win win win. If the Plateau gets to block cars from passing through it, it seems only fair that TMR fgets to redevelop a dying area.

              • Kate 22:37 on 2019-08-25 Permalink

                Phil M, what exactly does “deteriorate” mean here?

                I don’t think there have been counterproposals. But since Montreal has no say in what TMR does with this land, TMR can choose whatever developer they like. It’s not as if Montreal has a great recent track record to show off in creating new neighbourhoods: the public meetings held over Griffintown were a joke, and the redevelopment of the Children’s Hospital block showed us how developers get what they want. The city’s had no clout in insisting on the inclusion of social housing, let alone space for schools, libraries or other public facilities.

                I can only hope Plante & Co. can keep more of an eye on what happens around the Molson brewery site when it comes to redevelopment.

              • ant6n 00:18 on 2019-08-26 Permalink

                Well, if the city sells the whole Molson site as as whole to some billion dollar developer, we’ll get another mega-development (right next to the Radio Canada mega development). I don’t get why they can’t come up with a basic urban plan, subdivide the large site, maybe be imposing a human-scale street-grid, adding basic services, and then sell off the lots for each building individually, rezoned, including developer rights. It could create a somewhat more organic city (if that’s at all possible if so much is built at once), while optimizing for public rather than private concerns.

              • Kate 13:04 on 2019-08-26 Permalink

                ant6n, you raise a good point: why the need to give a site to a single developer? We’d get more variety if it wasn’t being done this way.

              • Ephraim 13:10 on 2019-08-26 Permalink

                Kevin, just to correct you, Mont-Royal pays 51.8 per cent of their tax into the agglomeration. So actually, Montreal gets the lion’s share of city taxes in TMR.

              • ant6n 22:47 on 2019-08-26 Permalink

                Well the agglo isn’t just Montreal, and TMR must be getting something from that agglo pool as well, so TMR likely still gets the lion’s share. Id say it’s a pretty good deal for them having this development in what is essentially an exclave, most of the impact (and prob plenty of he cost) will be on Montreal

              • Faiz Imam 20:57 on 2019-08-28 Permalink

                Looking back at my comment from the other post, I stand by most of what I said, though I do think I was a bit too joyous about it.

                This new plans is better, but instead of an absolute catastrophe for the city its now in the “decent but flawed” realm along with any number of other projects around the city.

                Is that worth celebrating? I think so, but I’m still in support of anyone who wants to keep pushing it to be even better, like any negotiation, any offer is less than they are ultimately willing to accept.

            • Kate 13:10 on 2019-08-24 Permalink | Reply  

              Montreal is one of Canada’s most diverse cities with over 25 different minority groups. The City is also known for its multicultural and multicultural architecture with over 200 architectural types represented.

              For the past decade, the St-Jacques Farmers Market has become a mainstay in the city’s food scene and it even has its own restaurant (called “La Mardaise” in French!). The market is located in the French Quarter of the heart of Montreal.

              On a rainy March morning, the market is packed with shoppers, families in tow and a whole crowd of enthusiastic music fans listening to musicians such as Béla Fleck, Dave Matthews Band, and Justin Bieber.

               

              Montreal is a French Canadian city located in the northwest part of Quebec with a population of just under 5 million. The city, which was founded less than 100 years ago, has a population of approximately 6 million people and is located on the Pacific coast of Quebec.

               

              Montreal is a wonderful city. A true cosmopolitan, a melting pot of a place. You see it all the time, if you are willing to go out for it. It’s like, you go across the street, one of your friends is there, you’re like, ‘what the hell is that and why the fuck do people do that?’ I’m not saying it’s the worst thing it ever was, but I can definitely say it’s a place that’s got a lot of different people, all doing very different things.”

              “I think that’s a lot of it. But also, we were all really tired of playing for big clubs, and so we went into this really quiet, quiet place just on a whim. And we thought, ‘hey, that would be an interesting place for us to work if we had our own stage.'”

              Riot grills: The next step for the Montreal trio is releasing their debut album, and how they’ll do so.

              Listen to the interview with the trio below.

               

              Montreal is in possession of the 3 points with nine games remaining. The top Eastern Conference team should have an edge. However, if the Leafs win the Cup, no team can stand in the way of them winning the whole thing. After all, if they take over the Maple Leafs with a win, they could clinch the Eastern Conference and the top seed in the East.

              The Canadiens have the best two goalies in the world in Carey Price and Max Pacioretty so it is safe to say they will be able to get through this game without much trouble. Furthermore, the Canadiens can play their second line, a very good mix of offensive talent, that includes PK Subban and…

               

              Montreal is on the other hand is on our short list. But we won’t be taking it on.

              A lot of what the AI has to say about Montreal is gibberish about the Canadiens (much of it confused and out of date), and occasionally about the Impact. It never mentions the Alouettes. It sometimes talks about music and is prone to issuing rather dull lists of statistics.

              Now time for a late lunch at La Mardaise!

               
              • Alex L 13:44 on 2019-08-24 Permalink

                Haha, wow. Founded less than 100 years ago, home to 6 million people, and on the Pacific coast of Québec. I can’t wait to watch Justin Bieber sing at the St Jacques market.

              • EmilyG 15:11 on 2019-08-24 Permalink

                Well, it seems that usually when I’m on Twitter, the name of at least one local hockey player is trending.

              • EmilyG 15:13 on 2019-08-24 Permalink

                I think my favourite (and most nonsensical) thing is:
                “The city, which was founded less than 100 years ago, has a population of approximately 6 million people and is located on the Pacific coast of Quebec.”

              • Uatu 18:56 on 2019-08-24 Permalink

                These sound like an oral presentation on Montreal from an eighth grader who had a week to prepare, but just wrote it up 5min before class

              • ant6n 16:56 on 2019-08-25 Permalink

                The comments on Montreal City Weblog are not the only evidence for this. For example, during the same visit, the Quebecer published two comments from members of “The Coalition of Canadian Liberal Party of Canada” about the state of the party. They, like the Montrealers, stated that the Liberals were a laughing stock in the country, which he attributed to the media. He also stated that the leadership race would be short, as the election would be held at a later date (and, in the latter case, in February), and pointed out the party leader’s absence (or not showing up) in Quebec City that week:

                Finally, when the Quebecer published his profile of the new Trudeau, he posted a photo of Trudeau in a shirt (a green shirt) with a message reading: “Not my son but it’s a nice shirt.” The Quebecer would note that this shirt has actually circulated at Liberal gatherings. So is it also a shirt that the party does not wear?”

            • Kate 11:58 on 2019-08-24 Permalink | Reply  

              One of the CAQ’s election promises was to reduce the number of councillors in Montreal. Now François Legault says they won’t be doing that after all.

               
              • Kate 11:06 on 2019-08-24 Permalink | Reply  

                The Journal has the cricket field story but couldn’t they have found a less grim picture of Sue Montgomery?

                 
                • Kate 11:05 on 2019-08-24 Permalink | Reply  

                  The botanical garden has installed an example of a filtering marsh in which natural plants are used to clean reject water from the gardens themselves. Seems the process is already in use at Jean‑Doré beach and the Biosphere. (Obviously this process has been at work for untold millions of years in nature, but it takes human beings to understand and re-create the thing to become news.)

                   
                  • Kate 10:41 on 2019-08-24 Permalink | Reply  

                    A bar in Hochelaga has seen its licence suspended for 40 days over many unruly incidents including fights, drug dealing, shots fired and alcohol served past closing time. The owner, Tong Li, is cited as saying she’ll stay open unless the police come and close her down. The Journal is at pains to note that Li spoke in “un anglais approximatif.”

                    Sounds like a fun place for a beer.

                     
                    • Dhomas 11:07 on 2019-08-24 Permalink

                      To be fair, this is not exclusive to traditionally poorer areas like HoMa. A few years ago, I was at a trendy bar in Old Montreal after a company Christmas party. Lots of people with seemingly lots of money. I went into the bathroom and saw a guy selling another guy some coke. As I exited, I saw the bouncer walking towards the bathroom. I was sure he was going to throw those guys out, but I didn’t give it much more thought. A little later, I went back to the bathroom only to see the same bouncer this time participating in the drug deal. Same place also allowed us to stay past closing time and continued serving alcohol. Looks like Chez Francoise’s worst crime was not paying off the right people.

                    • Dominic 15:27 on 2019-08-24 Permalink

                      @Dhomas Oh no, I hope you were wearing your best pearls to clutch and almost faint!

                    • MarcG 15:38 on 2019-08-24 Permalink

                      That doesn’t seem to have been his point at all – I guess we hear what we want to.

                    • Dhomas 16:10 on 2019-08-24 Permalink

                      Seems like MarcG got my point. Dominic, not so much.
                      You don’t hear much reporting on these “higher class” spots, though they’re just as “guilty” of these “transgressions” as those in HoMa. And… I’ve used up my allocation of quotation marks for today.

                  • Kate 10:05 on 2019-08-24 Permalink | Reply  

                    Air quality in the east end remains a problem, with residents saying not enough is being done to monitor pollutants and police the industries at that end of the island.

                    In another story, east-end residents are angry about the Sanimax plant, which renders dead animals and smells like it does.

                    I’m afraid the moral of the story is don’t live in the industrial parts of the east end.

                     
                    • Kate 12:16 on 2019-08-23 Permalink | Reply  

                      Despite the negative reports on Berger Blanc a few years ago, municipalities are still doing business with them. Case in point, a woman whose cat went missing found out it was euthanized after a mere three days, even though she had sent them a description and was waiting for it to turn up. Although impending obligatory chipping of pets is mentioned in the final paragraph, it’s not clear whether the cat in the story was chipped or whether that was a factor. At last report, Berger Blanc didn’t even have a chip reader, although that may have changed in the meantime.

                       
                      • Tee Owe 12:24 on 2019-08-24 Permalink

                        Cats and chip readers – so much I could rant about but it’s there in Kate’s post – almost nobody has a chip reader, so what’s the point in getting them chipped – ? Where I live cats get ear tattoos with a number that you can look up on a website, so when you find a cat (alive or dead) you can identify it and its owners can know where it is. No reader needed.

                    • Kate 12:11 on 2019-08-23 Permalink | Reply  

                      Cycle police have new technology enabling them to measure the space left to cyclists by motorists and, in case it’s too much of a squeeze, to issue tickets.

                       
                      • Bill Binns 18:11 on 2019-08-23 Permalink

                        Once again the invisible hand of Velo Quebec effortlessly manipulates the rules of the road.

                      • Dhomas 18:25 on 2019-08-23 Permalink

                        The law already exists. This is just a means to enforce it. Doesn’t make sense to have a law on the books if it’s unenforceable.

                      • Ephraim 18:51 on 2019-08-23 Permalink

                        Dhomas, if they required to remove all the unenforceable laws on the books, we’d have a pamphlet instead.

                      • Dhomas 19:16 on 2019-08-23 Permalink

                        I’m saying unenforceable as opposed to “not enforced”. For example, I see people speeding on my street every day and the law is not enforced. But, radar guns exist so it is enforceable.

                      • CE 20:22 on 2019-08-23 Permalink

                        As a cyclist, I really wish Vélo Québec was as powerful and influential as Bill Binns seems to think they are!

                      • Ephraim 21:04 on 2019-08-23 Permalink

                        Dhomas, I don’t think it’s enforceable in the long run… we will see if this equipment holds up, but the questions of measurements, how it’s measured, did they know where it was measuring from, etc. Are going to end up with a LOT of time wasted. But then the question of if the policeman saw them approach the bicycle or the cyclist drove up beside the car… it’s going to be a boondoggle in the courts. The officers are going to have to appear in court for these tickets.

                      • Chris 21:09 on 2019-08-23 Permalink

                        CE: exactly!

                      • Blork 21:16 on 2019-08-23 Permalink

                        My understanding is that they only have a few of them and they ONLY measure the distance between the cop on the bike with the device and cars passing that bike. It won’t measure the distance for third-party bikes.

                    • Kate 12:10 on 2019-08-23 Permalink | Reply  

                      QMI is directing another salvo at English in Montreal, with Sophie Durocher’s When Montreal Speak English, the Journal de Québec’s Jonathan Trudeau’s screed against Bonjour, Hi and the inevitable MBC preparing the ground with a big piece on hatred of Quebec, placing himself heroically with René Lévesque, Camille Laurin, Lucien Bouchard and other prominent nationalists, as bearing the hatred of the anglos for his people.

                      As a sort of counterweight, I offer Martin Patriquin on the new Quebec history textbook.

                       
                      • Jack 14:01 on 2019-08-23 Permalink

                        The thing I found fascinating about this whole history textbook kerfuffle is the fact that the English School boards and all of the English educational apparatchiks rolled over for this program. A program that was essentially written by Jacques Beauchemin ( Mathieu Bock Cotes mentor and thesis adviser) a Sociologist from UQAM who was also deputy minister of Culture during Pauline Marois reign. So English speaking kids take a two year course that absolutely alienates them from this place. A course in which essentially they act as a convenient binary for the majority community. My question is why did the people tasked with administering english language education acquiesce. If any one wants to nerd out an expert group of historians trashed the program, its on the EMSB website. https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/montreal/quebec-history-high-school-emsb-1.4926499

                      • Michael Black 14:25 on 2019-08-23 Permalink

                        To be fair, is this new textbook all that bad compared to the past? That’s not an excuse, but my vague memory of high school history from about 45 years ago says things weren’t enlightened back then. Louis Riel I think was presented as some French Canadian hero, and that ignores whatt he was really doing, and the fact that I’ve found three relatives who were part of the Red River provisional government who had native and/or Scottish ancestry.

                        Yes, they need new textbooks, but they did decades ago too.

                        I would think that teaching isn’t just the textbook. Circa 1974 I had teachers who insisted on being “Ms” and I think they made a bigger impression on me than the course they were teaching. There are ways to get around bad textbooks, though I guess if the government insists on teachers being the same, it’s harder for other voices to be heard.

                        Michael

                      • Jack 16:15 on 2019-08-23 Permalink

                        You are perfectly right and contexts do change. The problem with this course are well documented, what makes it doubly tough is you can not not teach it. Their is a province wide exam that is translated from French and its worth 50% of the final grade in Sec.IV. If you dont pass that exam you cant get a High School leaving.

                      • qatzelok 19:09 on 2019-08-23 Permalink

                        Virtually every Quebec-politics opinion piece published in English in the last 40 years has mentionned that “support for independence is dropping.”

                        It must be down to about .001 % by now. Or maybe even in the negatives.

                        Or this is just tribal propaganda.

                      • Uatu 12:40 on 2019-08-24 Permalink

                        Frankly, I barely remember anything I learned in highschool history. I’m guessing most students are the same. So the changes will just be another set of facts to be memorized and then forgotten after the exam.

                        I guess it’s supposed to enforce the narrative of victimhood, but, the world has changed since the 60s and 70s and I’ve met some students from immigrant families that think that this narrative is just a bunch of whining compared to the crap their families have and in some cases, continue to experience. Their perspective kinda makes the effect of the text the opposite of what the government is trying to achieve.

                      • JP 21:46 on 2019-08-24 Permalink

                        The Martin Patriquin article is interesting.

                        I did the history class in the mid 00’s and won the award at our graduation because I scored 100% (mostly rote memorization). One of the things that struck me, even as a 16-year old, was how they completely glossed over and ignored the atrocities that were inflicted upon Indigenous peoples. They made it sound more like there were mutual exchanges of culture and benefits. Yes, I understand there were alliances formed between different Indigenous groups and European groups, but it really ignores the genocides and they barely touched on the residential school systems. I thought those were huge omissions, and I didn’t feel like my teacher filled in the gaps. He just reinforced the same ideas put forth by the curriculum.

                        To be honest, I’m not sure the average person has any understanding of the basic context of the issues concerning Indigenous peoples, and it would be helpful if they did. I’m no expert either, but I’ve encountered people who don’t realize at all that there is a deep history there. I don’t know how/if the current government could/has fit this fairly into this new curriculum; One award and almost 15 years later, my takeaway from it all was just how they made themselves look like the victims when it came to the other Europeans, and how they made themselves look like saviours when it cames to the natives.

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