Denis Coderre says he’s worried about the state of Montreal. It’s floated here that he may be considering a return, but Denis, please remember we’re still in a pandemic and everyone is worried about the state of everything.
Coderre’s image has also recently been used in ads by an outfit shilling a weight-loss product – without his assent.
Citing a tweet from CBC’s Joanne Bayly: Quebec has 187 new COVID‑19 cases, highest daily total since June 7.
A window was shattered by a bullet downtown Wednesday evening, but details are scanty.
Le Devoir’s Jean-François Nadeau tells how St Helen’s Island and the old military fort there became a penal colony during World War II, when Britain sent a group of men of Italian citizenship (or even recent Italian ancestry) here as prisoners. The fort later became the Stewart Museum, which is doing a tour there on the topic, covered in a brief video from CBC.
(Second item today linked with World War II. Odd.)
Shoe drops: This story isn’t news, although I don’t think I quite understood before that the internees were sent by the British. But it just crossed my mind to wonder: where were the women? As many women of Italian birth or parentage as men must have been living in the UK at the time, so were they not considered a risk, or were they sent somewhere else?
An HLM building has been standing empty in Centre-Sud for three years during a housing shortage. The building has a new roof and has been heated every winter, but apparently it needs further work to be considered livable – and the city is waiting for Quebec to come across with cash for housing.
$1.5 million? Send in the renovation clowns.
Item says the mayor is waiting for $1.4 billion…
My mistake.
What’s a coupla hundred million bucks between friends?
The city’s blue collar workers hoped, when Projet took the reins, that city hall would turn back from Denis Coderre’s policy of preferring private entrepreneurs and mobilize its own workers instead, but now they say there’s been little change on that front. The workers have to hammer out a new contract, their old one having lapsed in 2017.
The first electric Bixi station was installed this week at Cégep Marie-Victorin in Rivière-des-Prairies.
Bixi is now being run by Alexandre Taillefer, who says the Bixi system has had a good season and is not facing a deficit, has added a thousand electric bikes this year and will add another thousand next year.
I was very sceptical of these electric bikes at first, but I’ve used them a number of times and they’re a great alternative to the metro when I’m going on long, hilly journeys. Earlier this week and ended up in Westmount. I didn’t want to take the metro back, but luckily there were some blue bikes around and I was able to ride up and over the mountain with minimal effort. Totally worth the extra dollar.
They’ve also been useful when I go downtown to get groceries at one of the Chinese or Korean supermarkets. I’m able to get home with a heavy backpack full of food without getting sweaty.
That said, my bike has been in repair purgatory for two months, so we’ll see if I keep using the electric bikes once I have more lightweight alternative to the regular Bixi tanks.
What is an electric bixi station? Aren’t they all electric? Can you not park non-electric bixis in it?
Seconded what you say, DeWolf, those electric bixis are so much fun and make going up the hill so easy. It’s a covid gamechanger for going out in the city when the weather is nice. No need to worry about when subways close or taxis.
From the article, it looks like this station charges the bikes – the others don’t treat the electric bikes any differently from the normal non-electric ones. Do they then have to take the blue bikes away to charge them regularly?
I’ve been confused about the charging situation too. They clearly don’t charge in the regular stations because I’ve come across some that have a low battery light. That’s an obvious problem. I guess these new stations will help concentrate the bikes so they don’t overwhelm regular stations while also keeping them charged.
I thought they charged when you pedaled and braked. I guess the electric station ensures full charge?
Pedalling drains the battery because of course you’re getting assist, the braking systems aren’t efficient enough to get enough electricity from braking to be meaningful. Regeneration braking can be harsh in order to be efficient. Entropy says eventually the losses will outweigh the gains too.
I’m sure the system relays battery status on at least docking if not via cell and the bikes are recovered by a team member.
The building destroyed by fire on the Lachine Canal this week was the last relic of World War II in the area, according to TVA. But it’s not like we’re too concerned about those – an entire block of WWII-era industrial buildings was razed in Ahuntsic not long ago, in the big block bounded by Chabanel, Esplanade, Louvain and St-Laurent, and hardly anyone batted an eye. (If you go here on Streetview it’s a big empty lot – step back to 2015 and it’s a cluster of brick buildings.)
Oh wow, I hadn’t realized that fire was so close to where I live. I’ve walked by that old building dozens of times and often wondered what it used to be. I took this photo of it at sunset not long ago.
Nice pic!
CBC asked an SPVM chief inspector why the new street checks policy doesn’t address driving while Black and he talks about safety and the highway code.
Tangentially, this piece in the Guardian tells about a journalist who joined the police force in Paris and has just published a book about the violence and racism he saw daily in police practice there. Obviously it’s not a carbon copy here, cultural differences apply, but power of that kind tends to corrupt people in a similar way.
Is it surprising to find that itinerance has been on the rise in the Plateau since downtown was largely abandoned by everyone else?
The first part of the lockdown was pretty grim for a lot of homeless people that rely on panhandling.
Ian 21:09 on 2020-09-03 Permalink
Ugh, Denis? It’s like an ex who won’t stop texting. We know you’ve changed but we’re over you, now you need to move on, too.
Alphonse 07:18 on 2020-09-04 Permalink
Mr Denis Coderre stay where you are ….forget return to politics….your not competent…enjoy your retirement