The city has bought a plot of land in Rosemont with the intention of building 45 units of social housing.
Updates from June, 2020 Toggle Comment Threads | Keyboard Shortcuts
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Kate
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Kate
Summaries of Wednesday’s Covid situation in Montreal show a slight uptick after gradually declining numbers of cases and deaths.
I was out Wednesday, doing a few hours’ work for the place where I was laid off mid-March, which is in a limbo state of being neither really shut nor really open. About half the people on the bus wear masks, if that. I haven’t a formal count, but there’s a strong impression more women are wearing them than men.
Only a few people were working. One guy had lost his father-in-law to Covid, and another told me about a couple she knew whose kids brought it home, then the parents caught it, and they were all sick and sluggish for weeks.
On the way in, I said hello to the janitor, who was mopping the floor while wearing a mask “chin hammock” style i.e. completely uselessly. On the way home, I noticed that the man sitting behind me in the bus was “wearing” a mask dangling off one ear. It’s not a good luck charm, people, you’ve got to have them over nose and mouth or don’t bother!
Brett
Sounds an awful lot like the symptoms discussed in this post! https://mtlcityweblog.com/2020/02/03/apologies-for-sluggishness/
Kate
Brett, I have wondered whether that was Covid I caught in early February, but if it was, I got off lightly – less than a week of feeling woozed out, then I was fine. If they come up with a general antibody test I’ll be in line.
Brett
Kate, did you lose your sense of smell or taste? Apparently that’s the clincher.
Kate
I didn’t notice that symptom, but I don’t think I would’ve done. I felt crappy for four solid days and don’t recall paying a lot of attention to what I was eating. I wasn’t nauseated, it wasn’t a digestive issue, but my head felt sort of muffled and I spent most of the time sleeping it off.
DeWolf
I was optimistic that people could be encouraged to wear masks voluntarily, but no level of government has been up to the task of aggressively promoting their use. So maybe it’s time to make them mandatory – at the very least for indoor spaces like public transit and shops. The number of active cases is finally on the decline but there’s no reason to be complacent now.
If there’s no requirement, then at the very least businesses need to step up and be more proactive in getting their customers to wear masks. I was at Costco recently and while it’s not a requirement, they make a point of handing out free masks to anyone who doesn’t have one, and while I was shopping about 95% of people had a face covering.
Margaret Black
I did a curbside pick up from the Atwater Library Tuesday afternoon. I noticed the same thing with the masks, both on public transport (RTL and metro) and on the street. About half were wearing them, but I’d say equal coverage for men and women and often not properly installed. STM personnel were handing out the masks at Atwater, but I noticed a lot of people taking them and putting them in their pockets or removing them once on the metro platform. What’s with that?
DeWolf
Radio-Canada has an article today that discusses the benefits and risks of wearing masks. I think part of the problem is we still have a number of doctors telling people they’re too stupid to wear masks properly, or that they’re useless unless you put one on the minute you step out of your house and don’t remove it until you get home however many hours later.
The idea is that, once you’ve worn a mask, it’s potentially contaminated and you should not touch it at all until you can safely wash or dispose of it and then thoroughly wash your hands. Of course this is entirely unpractical if you’re spending most of the day out of the house and you need to stop for food or drink. Maybe we need advice that is less infantilizing: wear a mask, and if remove it during the course of your day, wash/sanitize your hands before and after.
Ian
I went to a local park today, Clark Park – easily 50 kids from toddler to teen and their parents were there. My kid, her friend, me, and the friend’s Dad were the only people in the whole place wearing masks – and the vast majority were making no attempt to physically distance in any sense at all. Picnics and everything. Interestingly it seemed to be pretty cross-cultural, too – that park is frequented by Anglo, Québecois, European, & Hassidic families.
I did notice the city only hooked up every other swing, which seemed like a good idea, at least. I know being outside is low risk but until this blows over I think I’ll keep to my yard.
Brett
Let’s clear up a couple of things:
1) You’re very unlikely to catch Coronavirus while being outside, because the air is so diluted. So wearing a mask outside isn’t necessary unless you’re in very close proximity to a lot of people. High humidity and temperatures over 30 degrees C also reduce transmissibility .
2)Black people are four times as likely to die from Coronavirus disease than whites, even after controlling for socioeconomic status. So if you’re European, Anglo or Québécois, young, and with no co-morbidities, you’ll almost certainly survive.
3) Cuomo said most Coronavirus cases in New York after mid May came from people who were staying at home anyway. No one is sure why.
4) There are still signs posted on every apartment complex door that say masks aren’t an effective way to protect the population. They were posted way back in March and haven’t been updated…Blork
There is also some evidence that COVID-19 is more of a blood disease than a respiratory one, which helps explain the strange blood symptoms being seen like strokes and whatnot. Today there are stories circulating that blood type might be an issue too, with type A people being at higher risk and type O people at lower risk.
GC
I’m curious how you’re defining “Québécois”, Brett, when you make it sound like one has to be either black OR Québécois.
Interesting, Blork. Not exactly what I want to hear, as an A-positive person, but interesting.
Michael Black
But months back they were saying people with existing conditions were more susceptible if they got The Virus. Diabetes I think was mentioned, and that seems common among black and native people. So environment may be an issue, or perhaps one might say poverty.
It’s easy to be dismissive of the old or black people or whatever, if you aren’t in one of those groups, but it matters a lot if you are in one of those groups.
But if there is a pattern, there’s always exceptions. So it may not be just about others.
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Kate
There’s concern about the humpback whale in the Old Port, because she’s out of her normal habitat and could be getting weaker. But there seems to be no safe way of chivvying a whale in the direction you want it to go.
Why she’s here remains a mystery.
The Journal claims a humpback was seen near here in 2012, but Global’s piece leads with the statement that this is the first time such an animal has been recorded off Montreal.
Ginger Baker
She’d be a hell of a new attraction for the Biodome but I think they’d have to turn the Big O into a pool
EmilyG
I saw the whale yesterday. I hope she’ll be all right.
Kate
I can’t help thinking, if she just wanted to loaf for awhile, couldn’t she simply ride the current back downstream till she got near Tadoussac? But maybe whales don’t loaf.
Raymond Lutz
She came to warn us! Yes, she is a renegade whale from the future: the others didn’t want her to come back to prevent H. Sapiens extinction.
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Kate
The city has pushed its tax deadline till September.
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Kate
There was a stabbing in Lachine Wednesday afternoon. Nobody’s dead, nobody’s been arrested.
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Kate
The head of Tourisme Montréal says the city’s reputation is in tatters due to coronavirus, and needs a lot of help to be rebuilt.
Two organizations concerned with the fate of the downtown core are proposing various means Le Devoir calls audacious, to draw people back downtown again.
The mayor may have to ask Quebec for permission to run a deficit to offset the extra costs caused by the pandemic.
City hall’s promised new (temporary) cycling and walking paths are coalescing quickly and people are using them. Others, of course, complain.
The owner of a successful grocery store in the Plateau lays out in detail why food and other basic goods are going to be more expensive, as his costs have soared to adapt his business to new demands.
Jonathan
I LOLed at that TVA reporting on the ‘pandemic’ bike paths. They took one lane out for a new bike path.
That is actually right next to my workplace. Haven’t been there since January, but there are not very many vehicles rolling on that part of Rachel.
Dominic
Isn’t every other city in the world facing a tourism crisis? Not sure why Montreal’s reputation is any worse off than NYC or all of Italy since they were all hot spots.
Ephraim
Sorry to have to remind people…
Tourisme Montreal is NOT a government agency, although they LEVY a tax of 3.5% on tourism businesses without giving them any representation. It is the Chamber of Commerce of Metropolitan Montreal (used to be Board of Trade of Metropolitan Montreal) and is a “not-for-profit” in that they pay out big surpluses to the people at the top so they don’t have a profit. They can say what they want, but about 75% of the tourism businesses in Montreal have NO voice because they won’t pay Tourisme Montreal more money than the 3.5% that RQ collects on their behalf. In other words… they are as reliable as cable installation appointments.
Dominic
@Ephraim I wonder if business owners can just refuse to pay. I wonder if anyone has tried a court challenge on that
Ephraim
Dominic, I don’t think so, it’s collected by RQ. Tourisme Montreal wants a separate fee to be a member… if you refuse to pay that, you aren’t a member, have no say and they won’t even supply maps unless you pick them up in St-Laurent. Needless to say about 75% aren’t members. I think there used to be 2 or 3 B&B members out of nearly 100 B&Bs. That’s why all the data they provide is worthless… no one is really giving them data. All the know is how much they get from RQ.
Blork
There’s a part of me that would no mind seeing this city and others go back to being just cities instead of being tourist playgrounds full of gimmicks. Yes, I know that’s an old saw (remember “I’m not a tourist, I’m a traveller?”). Sure, there’s all those tourism jobs and all, but it’s all just so pathetic and boring. A couple of years ago I saw a bunch of teenage American girls go screaming into Forever 21 on Ste-Catherine, and all I could think was “FFS it’s no different from the Forever 21 in whatever city you’re coming from.” (To be fair, they might have been coming from some backwater in upstate NY that doesn’t have a Forever 21 but I DOUBT IT.)
OK, back to my happy face.
vasi
Honestly, I don’t think Montreal is very gimmicky as a tourist city. There’s only a few things that are almost entirely for tourists—the cruise terminal, Place Jacques Cartier, that’s about it? Maybe if you’re picky you could add the stadium, parts of Crescent, a couple of churches. Otherwise most attractions get as much attention from locals, such as festivals, museums, parks, sports, etc.
It’s nothing like, say, Miami, where the tourist parts are practically a separate city from where people actually live.
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Kate
The Journal captures a notable pileup in the parking lot of a grocery store on Jarry. Three cars ended up looking like the toys of a hyperactive toddler.
mare
A major malfunction of the car, did she have a seizure or TIA or did she lose her shit when she saw the person who just cut the line at the cash? I can’t wait to find out how this drama will unfold. I don’t read Le Journal, so Kate,please keep us posted. (In a comment please, updates to original posts don’t make it to the RSS feed.)
Alison Cummins
The banal explanation is the most likely: she accidentally hit the gas instead of the brake, and when the car took off she panicked and pressed harder on the brake/gas.
A 65-year-old woman driving an SUV may have chosen it to feel safe in, suggesting she may not be a confident driver.
Blork
WTF? The item says the driver didn’t even shut off the engine, that it was still running when the police arrived and even after they yelled at the driver to shut it off. Yet only minor injuries reported, so it’s not like the driver was unconscious. FFS, maybe part of the driving exam should be the ability to not lose your shit when things get a bit tense. (Turning off the engine is the FIRST THING you should do after a collision!)
Kevin
Blork
That’s why every motorcycle has a kill switch on the right handlebar. Push the red switch up and poof!
Done here by a guy being silly https://youtu.be/7TJrGMk_f6E
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Kate
A couple of years ago, when the new Université de Montréal campus was proposed, observers said it would probably cause a rental crisis in Park Extension. As the campus was built, more warning voices came in, saying the same thing, talking about renovictions. And voilà, rents and evictions are up in Park Extension. It was clearly foreseen and it happened.
Alison Cummins
According to their old city councillor Susan Clarke, this is a feature, not a bug.
Alison Cummins
Aka “what happens when most voters in a borough are rich and most poor people in the borough are nonvoters.” Reinforcing that sticking disenfranchised people in the same borough with entitled people was deliberate.
david1991
“Rich” = No.
However, you’re right that the idea of building out a second campus up there was – everyone knew – going to change one of the poorest hoods. Parc-ex was already gentrifying because of the hardcore conservative anti-growth policies masquerading as progressivism that forced people further north, and massively jacked up the cost of living in inner Montreal across the board. You add a university campus to that, what do you expect?
In an ideal world, they’d have built a bunch of skyscrapers downtown.
david1991
I mean that the campus would have been built at as a Concordia II, in Griffintown or by the Jacques Cartier.
david1991
The Children’s would have been perfect.
david1991
And I’d also refer anyone new to this conversation so simply search “david” or “parc-ex” and find dozens of posts of mine on this very subject.
david1983 21:44 on 2020-06-03 Permalink
Yeah, going to be a part of this development: https://goo.gl/maps/R1zVVsGzd11etYHJA
Of course, should be a lot denser, but this project will be denser than most, and cost effective. So, can’t complain.