The east end is leading the housing boom; house prices continue to rise; Hochelaga-Maisonneuve’s first house listed at more than $1M goes on the market.
Updates from January, 2020 Toggle Comment Threads | Keyboard Shortcuts
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Kate
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Kate
Here’s an indication of priorities and how they affect us: the transport ministry removed a stop sign, a crosswalk and blinking red light in Ville St-Pierre to keep motor traffic moving along St‑Jacques during work on the Turcot. That it made an intersection more hazardous for pedestrians was evidently handwaved. Now people in the area want their stop sign back.
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Kate
Antonine Maillet has been made an honorary Montrealer. Maillet was the first non-European winner of the Prix Goncourt, back in 1979, and even has a street named after her in Outremont. She spoke up for the protection of French.
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Kate
CBC has some good journalism here, digging into the past of convicted priest Brian Boucher to show that families were concerned about his behaviour around boys even before he started studying for the priesthood, but their warnings to church authorities were ignored, enabling Boucher to embark on a career that gave him access to and authority over children.
walkerp
How would you even stay with the Catholic church at this point. This dude Harris enjoying his retirement, not saying a word, when his behaviour basically allowed several children to be raped and abused. How can you not at least come out and explain what happened and apologize and beg for forgiveness?
And he is only one link in a chain. The entire archdiocese is rotten to the core, just stalling and prevaricating. Why are they allowed to keep it to an internal investigation? They are basically a criminal gang of organized rapists. Can we not get UPAC on them?
Chris
How would you stay in the Catholic Church? Easy! Same way anyone stays in any religion: cognitive dissonance, ignorance, etc. You expect _facts and logic_ to sway people that are already believing in things without evidence?
How do people stay in Islam when a women only gets half of an inheritance (Quran 4:11) or is worth only half a witness (Quran 2:282)? How do people stay in Judaism when their god says that gays should be put to death? (Leviticus 20:13)
You just do an apologetics gymnastic like:
these are the sins of a few priests, not a repudiation of Church doctrine.
these sins don’t change the truth of Jesus’ message.
things are being investigated & corrected.Get UPAC on them? hahaha. 75% of Quebecers identify as Catholic. We can’t even get Scientology to pay their municipal back-taxes, and everyone thinks they’re a joke. Try going after something 75% of people are a part of (even only if nominally).
Alas, religion still has an untouchable status.
Bill Binns
@Chris – I don’t think it’s as bad as all that. Yes, 75% of Quebecers “identify” as Catholic but what percentage go to church regularly or ever? What percentage give money to the church? That last one is really the only one that matters. Many people who live a 100% secular life are just loathe to check “None” when some survey asks them what their religion is. I did it for years because I had dusty memories of making my first communion in a church that is now condos.
The Catholic Church is in deep shit in Europe and N America. It’s S America and Africa keeping them afloat these days from what I have heard. Empty and crumbling Catholic churches are not just a Montreal phenomenon, I see them everywhere I go.
walkerp
I should have been more specific. I was referring to the family’s mentioned in the article, who clearly saw this dude was grooming kids, saw the church do nothing and yet seemed to keep going. Still yes, cognitive dissonance.
Kate
A long time ago I recall a friend saying she could see joining a church if she had kids, and feeling both a little shocked and a little disappointed. Why join a church and inculcate your kids with its principles if you don’t buy the background story yourself? I suppose it’s to give the kids some sort of premade moral structure, but why not trust oneself to convey humanistic decency to the kids without the conventional guilt and shame that comes with most religion?
Bill Binns, I think the problem with the 75% number is that while the vast majority of those folks don’t donate money nor allow the church to control their lives, there’s still a residual respect/fear/guilt around it. And it’s not just here – there have been stories from the U.S., Ireland, Australia and other places about bishops and archibishops ignoring complaints about pedo priests and thus enabling them to pursue their abuses.
jeather
Chris, that’s not the way laws in Judaism are done. (I don’t know enough about Islam to comment.) You can’t just take a verse from the bible — you need to read the Talmud on it, etc. I know you hate religion and that’s fine, but can you at least hate each religion for the way it actually is, and not the way you imagine it to be?
Jack
“Several West Island families said long before Brian Boucher became a priest, when he was still in his early 20s, they were so alarmed by the man’s troubling interest in young boys that they complained to their parish priest.” I was so alarmed by the deaths of elderly pedestrians I complained to our city councillors.
Chris
Bill, yes, I agree on all that. But I think my point stands that if we can’t even extract back taxes from the widely-ridiculed Scientologists, we won’t have much hope against the (semi-respected) Catholic Church.
Kate, that “where would we get our morals from if not from religion” meme is a common one. The answer of course is that we get our morals from our parents, family, teachers, neighbours, etc. We invent our morals ourselves. Just as we invented our religions.
jeather, ok, I’ll bite, could you point me to where in the Talmud it overrules God’s instructions to Moses in Leviticus? I’m genuinely interested to read it. The Talmud is very large, and often dry, and I confess I have not read it all. But anyway, it was just an example of how people can ignore/dismiss/explain away some bad part of a religion, and yet hold on to it overall. Just like walkerp was pondering in his first comment.
jeather
Chris, if you can’t even check wikipedia, I’m not sure what to tell you.
Chris
jeather, oh I have! For example:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homosexuality_and_Judaism
“According to the Talmud, homosexual acts are forbidden between non-Jews as well, and this is included among the sexual restrictions of the Noachide laws.”
I’d still really like to find discussion on the topic in the Talmud itself, can you help me find it?
Again, there are of course a million interpretations of every religion, Judaism included. I’m certainly not saying all, or even most, Jews take Leviticus seriously, but some do. Again, we see the spectrum of some taking it seriously, some discarding just the bad parts, and some doing what walkerp pondered in his first comment: discard the whole thing once they realize the depth of the rot.
jeather
“Prohibited” does not equal “gets stoned to death”, which is what you claimed.
Chris
I did not claim “stoned”, only “put to death”.
Did you even read that wiki article? Let me quote more: “the majority of Orthodox Judaism puts male-male anal sex in the category of yehareg ve’al ya’avor, “die rather than transgress””
Still can’t / won’t actually cite me anything in the Talmud, eh?
Kevin
Chris
it’s obvious you have failed to grasp the two most essential points about religion.
1) The documents are a guide, not an infallible rulebook
2) Religion is about belief.C’mon, the book of Genesis provides two contradictory stories about what came first. Tackling it with logic is obviously contraindicated.
jeather
“I’d rather die than X” again doesn’t mean “And therefore X should be a capital crime”.
I will not cite the Talmud, no. You’re the one who made the claim.
Chris
Kevin, I mostly agree with your 1 & 2, a big caveat though: of course some people *do* consider them infallible rulebooks.
jeather, what claim do you think I have made? Reread what I said:
“How do people stay in Judaism when their god says that gays should be put to death?”
Did Yahweh say that or not? He did, right there in Leviticus 20:13.
Do you think I am claiming most Jews think gays should be put to death? I am not. Do you think I am claiming most interpretations of Judaism think so? I am not. I am claiming Yahweh said so, and have cited where.
If I understand you correctly, your claim is that it doesn’t matter that Yahweh said it, because Judaic law comes not only from Leviticus but from the Talmud also. Fine, show us. I’d love to see the contortions to wiggle out of god’s clear instructions. (Also, notice our claims are not actually incompatible.)
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Kate
There may be an ice storm this weekend.
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Kate
One man’s car was shot at in Ahuntsic and another man was shot in a Dorval parking lot early Thursday. No fatalities, no clues.
Update: La Presse’s Daniel Renaud counts six instances of shots fired since the beginning of the year.
walkerp
The gun death numbers are trying to get a head start on the car death numbers after being so badly outperformed last year.
Kate
walkerp, nobody has died yet from homicide this year (that we know of).
walkerp
I didn’t say they were succeeding! 😉
Blork
Kate, maybe you should add a “Gun Deaths” line to your scoreboard.
JP
I feel like I’ve been hearing of more and more shootings lately…and around neighbourhoods that are close to me or that I visit. I hope this isn’t a trend that’s here to stay in Montreal. It’s particularly alarming that the victim in the Ahuntsic shooting says he has no idea why he was targeted…
Kate
JP, as Kevin said here recently, the very fact that we have so little crime means that minor incidents get reported here as they wouldn’t be, in a more violent city.
As for that guy – chances are the shooters made a mistake over the vehicle and he wasn’t the intended target at all. I still think about that poor old guy who was shot dead outside a north-end Italian café a couple of years ago because he bore a slight resemblance to a mobster some guys were gunning for. It happens.
Dhomas
@JP: if I were a criminal that was not yet “known to police”, I’d also say I have no idea why I was targeted.
@Kate: about Montreal having very little crime, I completely agree. I have a colleague who lives around Seattle who told me a couple of years back while I was visiting that there are so many home invasions (apparently due to the opioid epidemic), that they don’t even bother reporting on them. At the time, the news of the now-convicted murderer/home invader (from a few posts above) was still fresh in my memory, so I found it odd that this could be so common elsewhere.
Kate
Dhomas, you make a good point. Everyone “known to police” must at some point not have been.
david100 21:14 on 2020-01-09 Permalink
A few years ago, I was walking around Maisonneuve knocking on doors for the NDP candidate, and I was just amazed at how many new homes had gone up, totally off my highly Ville Marie/Plateau-centric radar. It was eye-opening and impressive.
Robert H 22:14 on 2020-01-09 Permalink
À l’arrière de cette façade de plex humble et classique se trouve…un veritable palais! Je m’en prendrais , faut que j’appelle mon baquier d’abord. C’est officiel: on a decouvert Hochelaga-Maisonneuve. Restent-ils encore des secrets immobilière à Montréal?
Kate 23:08 on 2020-01-09 Permalink
RobertH: I know a couple of areas in town which are not yet spoiled in that way, but I’m sure as hell not going to list them here.
Mr.Chinaski 10:08 on 2020-01-10 Permalink
I will : Ville-Émard, Cartierville, le vieux-Lasalle (Bronx), Sault-au-Récollets dans Ahuntsic, Longue-Pointe. Il ne reste que pas mal juste ça dans le “Montréal-central”. Dans quelques années, le REM va ouvrir d’autres secteurs.
Robert H 10:58 on 2020-01-10 Permalink
Shhhhh!
Blork 12:05 on 2020-01-10 Permalink
I finally took a look at that house. Eww. I am not impressed by that reno job. The materials and proportions are totally wrong for a space like that. For example, those highly patterned ceilings like you see in the dining room and a sitting room can be very impressive with a 12-foot (or higher) ceiling. Put them in a house with a nine-foot ceiling and they become oppressive. Plus all that texture and tone in a house with many small rooms. OMG it makes me want to flee! Just looking at the photos has me reaching for the Atavan!
walkerp 12:29 on 2020-01-10 Permalink
It’s horrific. It screams 90s Quebec rock star filtered through garbage east coast contractors using faux-expensive materials. And I bet the original fixtures and decor were so beautiful.
Dhomas 19:53 on 2020-01-10 Permalink
@Mr. Chinaski: my parents live in Sault-au-Récollets. The houses on their block are selling for over 1 million dollars.
@Walkerp: I was shopping for a house about 4-5 years ago. Already then, “HoMa” was in full gentrification. All that was on the market at the time were fixer-uppers that were real expensive, not including the several tens of thousands of dollars in renos/repairs. I would see what people would put out on garbage day and it was often Ikea boxes with old, real wood furniture next to it. Some of the houses I visited had beautiful wood mouldings and even built-in wooden furniture like “vaisselier” (what’s the word for this in English?).
Kate 20:37 on 2020-01-10 Permalink
Dhomas: China cabinet? My Villeray flat has one – a corner cabinet in the middle room. This building dates from around 1930. Friends who lived in a building of similar vintage in NDG had exactly the same cabinet in their place. One of the regulars who comments here has very similar cabinets in his place in Rosemont.
I was once in a place in the posh part of St-Hubert Street in the Plateau, the sort of very high-end triplexes built for professional people back in the day, between Roy and Rachel. The built-in cabinetry there was spectacular – looked like confessionals in an upscale church.