The Journal profiles several households that the pandemic has convinced to give up on Montreal and go live in the regions.
Updates from June, 2020 Toggle Comment Threads | Keyboard Shortcuts
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Kate
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Kate
A man was shot by someone in the same car on Saturday morning in Hampstead. He’s not expected to die.
David565
“gunshot wounds”
Certainly not how I remember Hampstead.
Kate
Doesn’t say they had any connection with Hampstead other than driving through it.
Ian
There’s a big Russian gang scene in Hampstead FWIW
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Kate
A group of merchants along Mont-Royal Avenue has signed an open letter asking that the pedestrianization of the street be given a chance to work. They’ve just been thanked by the mayor.
walkerp
Nice.
Wish we could see some bigger names on there. And I’d like to see the names of the owners who are fighting aggressively against this change.John B
To find out who’s against this, (and boycott them!), here’s what worked for the Verdun bike path last year:
The most vocal opponents are often interviewed in the articles about how businesses are dying because of pedestrianization.
If there’s a borough council meeting that involves the subject, (or maybe even if it doesn’t), see if you can watch the section where the councillors take questions from the public, often the really opposed people will be there, and if the opposition is organized, a lot of them will be there. This may be weird because of COVID-19.
Also, if there’s a local Facebook group there will be discussion there, although some of the most vocal offenders may have been banned from the group…
CE
I think it’s important to let the merchants know that you’re boycotting them and why. I have a couple friends who live in the Plateau and follow local politics closely. When some stores on Rachel started putting up fake à vendre signs with Luc Ferrandez’s phone number, in protest of parking restrictions, they went around and told the stores they normally shop at that they wouldn’t be coming in anymore. A few merchants ranted at them but when they explained their case – that the stores are fighting interventions that would make their lives, as residents, more pleasant – it gave some of them pause and maybe they reconsidered their views.
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Kate
Saturday evening on Radio-Canada, a feature called Québec My Country Mon Pays will examine the mysterious motivations of Quebec anglos.
david813
Should be interesting, and could give francophones some insight into the identitarian basis of angryphonism. I’m sanguine about the Quebec anglo experience overall, but I admit that’s a super Montreal-centric view and I, like most Quebec anglophones my age or younger, speak french. God help you if you’re some multi-generational monolingual anglophone making a bitter last stand in Rawdon or Baie Comeau or whatever. The world must seem a hostile and unjust place.
Kate
david∞, do you ever get tired of signalling that you’re one of the virtuous anglos?
David565
I do, yeah.
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Kate
The SPVM is closing Station 33, which serves Park Extension, and La Presse has figured out why – the new owner of the building has ties with the mob. It’s unclear whether the area will have its own station again at some point.
walkerp
Ah, interesting! Excellent journalism here, since none of the politicians seemed to know what was going on. Many things to critique here. How does the SPVM not prepare ahead of time for this contingency? They are now without a building where they once had one in an area where prices are (were) skyrocketing. Bad administration. How also do they get to make a move like this without explaining it to the public or anyone in politics ahead of time?
Chris
If they bought or built a whole new building, someone would complain: “Why are they wasting money? They should just rent from an existing building!”
Kate
walkerp, given the station was in place before the building changed hands, could politicians or the SPVM have blocked the sale even if they knew that the new owner had been in business with the mob?
walkerp
Probably not blocked the sale, but as a business you should always have a contingency plan for when your lease is coming to an end. And that plan should be triggered when the building you are in is going to be sold. Usually the plan is to cost out a move and other leases and find a bunch of potential spaces to move into.
An organization the size of the SPVM should have an entire department that just deals with real estate who should have put that plan into motion and found another spot to move them into. Ideally that happens before you have to leave, but you can at least do better than getting kicked out and having nowhere to go for a year.
But then again, this is the Quebec government and the cops so not super surprising that they feel they don’t have to follow basic business practices. There only real stakeholders are themselves. The people of the neighbourhoods they are supposed to be protecting are clearly not a priority for them.
Kate
Good point, walkerp.
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Kate
A new building constructed to house Microsoft’s lab in Mile Ex is generating so much ventilation noise that it’s blighting the lives of people living in the area. The landlord, Canderel, is promising to act.
Uatu
Yeah everyone’s for hi tech firms moving into the neighborhood until they find out that it comes with an incessant drone from cooling systems. Just be thankful that there isn’t a full-blown server farm which is relentless regarding noise
Mark Côté
Many high-tech firms have everything in the cloud now, and offices are (well, were) just the place where people went to work together. Research labs like this one with their own computer networks on site are a rarity these days.
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Kate
The Quebec transport commission has published its report on the fiery tanker truck crash on the Met in 2016 in which driver Gilbert Prince lost his life. The blame is pointed squarely at Bombardier’s slipshod maintenance of its tanker fleet and of the particular vehicle whose known tendency to stop suddenly without warning was the cause of the crash.
This is not the first time Bombardier has been blamed for that crash. Last summer, a news item said Quebec was suing the firm to recoup the cost of repairing the segment of elevated highway, which was badly damaged but repaired in double quick time to put the Met back into service.
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Kate
A black high school graduate was labelled as most likely to become a wanted criminal in his high school yearbook. It was covered up with an easily peeled sticker, but now Lindsay Place school is apologizing and promising to recall the book and produce a new version.
Blork 23:41 on 2020-06-27 Permalink
In two years time there will be a surge in Lyme disease and Zika virus cases and they’ll all come running back.
JP 01:24 on 2020-06-28 Permalink
In some of the cases discussed, the people already had roots or a connection to the region. It’s more of a “return.”
It may be feasible or attractive for some to move away. It depends on a bunch of different things. My roots are in Montreal; my career and social network are rooted here. I’m not moving to some place where I don’t have friends and family. The pandemic showed me how important that is for me.
Kate 12:14 on 2020-06-28 Permalink
Agreed, JP. If people either have sufficient savings to move from the city, or have the kind of work that can be done 100% onlne, it may be a solution for them, but it certainly isn’t for everyone.
I don’t know how good the broadband is in some of the regional spots, though.
I couldn’t do it, because living out there 100% requires a car, but largely because I am a city person and the country gives me the creeps.