The SPVM wants a study done on the possibility of a merger with the Laval and Longueuil forces. It also wants to shed tasks like managing school crossing guards, which it may consider beneath its notice.
I don’t know why, but my reflex response to this is: let’s not let the cops get too big for their britches. Even their camo britches.
Denis Coderre remains coy about his political plans, but says he’ll be publishing a book in 2021 about his vision for Montreal.
Can’t wait to hear about his plans to have Evenko manage the public spaces in every neighbourhood.
This seems the wrong way around. Don’t you first make a plan, and then become mayor to execute it? Maybe that explains why his stint as mayor seemed so headless, only driven by his own desire to be important.
His teeth are very yellow.
Can’t write a book without lots of coffee
Planners are already dreading the traffic snarls in 2022 and 2023 when the L-H-La Fontaine tunnel closes for needed repairs, shunting all that traffic onto the bridges. Getting people out of single-passenger vehicles is the ideal, but everyone loves their single-passenger vehicles.
People will take the metro and the REM if the alternative is sitting in gridlock for 1.5 hours just to cross the river. But there’s a huge amount of truck traffic that goes through the tunnel and I shudder to think of all of that spilling onto Papineau and de Lorimier.
One of the outcomes of the pandemic will be many more people working permanently from home. Or at least companies much more open to that possibility. I work for one of the largest employers in Anjou and downtown. With the Mt Royal and LaFontaine tunnels closing we were already planning to rearrange workspaces to allow employees to work from home home half the time. Instead of taking a year to ramp up that change we hustled to get 95% of all employees working from home within one week in March.
The gym owners’ coalition has given up the plan to reopen illegally on Thursday, but some will be holding protests.
Outdoor rinks can open but there can’t be any hockey, says Dr. Mylène Drouin.
Over the last few years, while boards still go up in parks, I’ve rarely seen the rinks in use. Winter is now such a chronic cycle of freeze and thaw that I doubt that outdoor ice is very appealing.
Well here in NDG they usually put the boards up early in October and they haven’t so I assume the city works crews have already decided that it’s a good excuse to do even less work than usual. The rinks get a ton of use around here, especially in the evenings, we avoid the more popular ones because there are too many players. Also, the fact that kids can’t even play outdoors seriously sucks. I’m far from a covidiot but at some point we’re going to have serious mental health problems with the kids if they aren’t allowed to be kids at all for the foreseeable future.
Why can’t the kids play outdoors?
Sorry, should have said ‘play hockey outdoors’. I’m specifically talking about adolescents / teens / young adults.
walkerp, pickup hockey is a contact sport.
dwgs, they’re already considering that.
Kate, pickup hockey is not a contact sport. The rules are understood by all and if someone doesn’t know they quickly get told. Generally speaking players only have skates, gloves, and a stick (some wear helmets) so there’s no contact and you’re not supposed to lift the puck because nobody wants to get a frozen puck in the shin.
And as to your link let’s just say I’ll believe it when I see it. They’re going to increase access to practitioners? How? Where are all these new practitioners going to come from? We don’t have enough of them now and there’s no way a whole lot of new ones are going to come online anytime soon. I’ve had reason to need a mental health professional for an adolescent and the waiting lists are literally years long so the only choice is to go private at 150 to 250 dollars an hour. I’d rather see organized sports continue with safeguards in place before the damage is done.
dwgs, OK, sorry. I thought pickup hockey was fairly anarchic.
I agree it’s grim. But panning over major social upheavals that would’ve touched Canadian society over the last century – how did kids manage who lived through the Spanish flu, the Depression, two world wars? Most didn’t have access to mental health practitioners – the idea of mental health has evolved a lot over the century, too – but society didn’t fall apart.
I see dense basketball games and some soccer games in Saint Raymond. It would be trivial to stop after dusk, stop turning on the lights. Wouldn’t stop daytime games though.
I don’t see how they can stop hockey games unless they put up barriers or something. At least the hockey players seem to be from the same neighborhood. There aren’t enough people in those age groups playing basketball to be from Saint Raymond.
Not sure if I mentioned this before, but when this all started my dad talked to my kids about his experiences with polio epidemics, and the people he knew who died or were crippled etc.
One thing that is different now is that online life is incredibly active. My kids have very vibrant group chats running on a constant basis with friends and classmates.
The kids are going to be all right.
Oh dwgs meant “play hockey outdoors”. I read play as in they can’t play in general.
Covid-19 is an indoor, small, badly aerated closed space disease (think classrooms and crowded workspaces). No need to close large gyms and interior pools, neither smaller places where air is exchanged more than 9 times per hour. (HVAC literature uses ACH as unit). https://pinboard.in/u:lutzray/t:covid-19/t:aerosols/
The city’s major parks are worn down from over-use this summer, as people deprived of other kinds of excursion and entertainment went to the park instead.
The city is holding off on a third of the roadworks planned for 2021, the official line being that it’s to give a break to residents weary of roadblocks. Mayor Plante recalls here that in 2014 a ten‑year street repair schedule was made up, but the impact of a pandemic couldn’t’ve been predicted.
I’m struck by one detail in this piece, about work planned in Griffintown: “essentiellement des chantiers d’entretien d’égouts et d’enfouissement de fils électriques.” Is it possible the massive build of high-rise condos in the area went up before anyone realized the 19th-century sewers couldn’t handle the load? This photo of “New Griffintown” was posted to reddit recently, and got a lot of comment, including one that echoed my thought: “They should rename it Little Toronto.”
Or “New Yaletown”. Resemblance is uncanny.
https://cf.bstatic.com/images/hotel/max1024x768/241/241234443.jpg
Wow, that photo is incredible. See that odd shaped building in the lower left-center that has some kind of green deck next to it and two little cabins? I worked in that building in the mid- to late-90s. If you had shown me that photo then and said “this is what it will look like in about 20 years” there’s no way I’d have believed it. It was such a ghost town then; I can only think of one place within walking distance (in the area shown) where you could even get lunch, and that was a bit of a dump. (There were more options in the other direction, towards Ave. McGill.)
The whole thing still boggles my mind on so many levels. Such a marvel in some ways, so many failures in others. The density fanatics must be having Dp= N/Agasms just looking at that photo, but New Urbanists are likely bawling their eyes out.
@Blork. I believe that building was manufacturing for Discreet at the time.
You got that right.
It was also support and training.
Cool. My first job after I moved to Montreal was at Discreet Support, not long after it was acquired by Autodesk. I guess by then they had moved the support team to the main building on Duke.
I think they waited for most of the residential construction to be done before they started to remodel the public domain, so that all the trucks and cranes would not damage the shiny new streets.
I’m happy to compare Griffintown with Liberty Village or New Yaletown. Griffintown is more attractive because its buildings are not as tall, and much more standardized in height and massing. The variety of finishing materials actually works in GT, because other important visual features (height, proportions) are more standardized. Variety only works if its complimented by standardization (repetition and contrast)
But I still don’t like the way the canal park wasn’t expanded, and that the result is that people party within a few meters of private balconies.
While I generally agree Griffintown went up too quickly and with far too little ground prep, the fact Montreal has 19th century water and sewerage infrastructure – particularly in that area – isn’t unique amongst large cities of the Northeast. It’s incredibly common.
That said, the city missed its one opportunity to dig up all the streets and rebuild everything, though those costs would have been passed onto the developers and that would have ruined their profit margin, likely cancelling all these projects.
Damned if you do, damned if you don’t.
Luckily there are thousands and thousands of new condo owners in Griffintown all paying their property taxes. Most of them also cut a 5 figure check for the “Welcome tax” before they ever stepped into their new homes. There should be plenty of money sitting around to provide these homeowners with the basic municipal services they pay for.
Ho there, fellow Discreet alumni. And to think it all used to be a Canada Post parking lot. Well and building.
Prediction: in 20 years, Griffintown will be a much more lively and interesting neighbourhood than Yaletown or Liberty Village/CityPlace/Humber Bay Shores, simply because it’s so jam-packed and weird. The streets are narrow, whereas in Vancouver and Toronto they’re too wide, with a lot of empty space that gives those newly built areas a vaguely suburban feel. And far from being the condo-land that its reputation suggests, Griffintown actually has quite a lot of social housing in the form of co-ops, as well as rental housing, so it’s less socioeconomically homogenous than its equivalents in Vancouver and Toronto. For now, it’s a chaotic mess, but that’s exactly the kind of neighbourhood that eventually evolves into something worthwhile.
j2, ahoy!
qatzelok, good point. The new buildings are indeed less tall and more appealing.
DeWolf, I hope so. When I see places like Moretti, hotels, fancy hardware and furniture stores, it doesn’t bode well. But other things like the cool bike cafe is nice to see.
I think comparatively speaking, Griffintown is much more affordable than the rapid gentri days of Yaletown, so hopefully that will create more socioeconomic diversity than its TO and Vancity counterparts.
It’s the Hotel Place Dupuis, overlooking Place Émilie-Gamelin, that’s to become a homeless shelter until the end of March. This isn’t the first time the hotel has been commandeered – it was briefly a Covid hospital at the height of the first wave.
This was actually the first hotel that came to mind when they announced they were looking for a hotel. It has a pretty uneven reputation and could use a re-do. A hotel with 4 stars shouldn’t have as many complaints as they had, though a good part were because of the neighbourhood. Ever try walking around that area? You can’t walk more than 10 steps before someone panhandles, The hotel went from Hotel des Gouverneurs to Ascend in November of 2019. The hotel has pretty uneven reputation, though by changing management companies, they did get the previous reviews removed.
The hotel has 347 rooms and 6 suites. So they are only taking over part of the hotel? I wonder if they are going to try to keep the other rooms running… and how would that work? Ascend is part of Choice Hotels, but it’s their only high end property in Montreal.
Oh joy. The Village takes another one for team Montreal. I guess we beat out Outremont and Westmount to attract this valuable new addition to the community.
Of course, this isn’t a home run success yet. This new shelter will have to compete for guests against other new facilities offering such perks as open bars, Pitt Bulls stay free policies and plentiful shopping cart parking.
Going to be interesting to see how this plays out as Place Dupuis has an army of private security that stays very busy trying to keep the local marginalized / victimized population out of it’s building. In the before times, the Place Dupuis food court was one of the few places in the Village where you could get through an entire meal without being pestered by beggars. Now the beggars have their own private entrance to the food court.
Nobody seems to want to make a distinction, but some of this is about the nouveau-homeless. They were borderline in terms of finances, lost their jobs due to the Virus, and are now living in tents. They want what they had, which means at least a tent and a “normal” life. They only need a little boost, they haven’t lost so.much that it takes a big effort to get back to where they were.
I don’t think most people have a real understanding of homelessness. They lose everything. They get there through.multiple reasons, and it can get worse because of their situation. So it’s not all “drugs and depression”, for some that comes because of the situation of being homeless.
Homelessness is one of the asymmetries of society. Homeless people have assumed I was homeless, and it’s inclusive. “Authority figures” if they make the same assumption, are doing it to exclude me.
Bill Binns, if you don’t like living in the Village, you could always just move.
Every time I see a story about homelessness, I cringe waiting to see what new way Bill Binns will have found to compare human beings to vermin. It never stops being galling to see how far some people can go down the route of dehumanizing others.
@Emily – We are full time house shopping as much as you can in the current environment. By summer I hope to be complaining about a much nicer neighborhood.
@Myles – The “homeless” dehumanized themselves first.
Not knowing much about the Montreal hotel scene, and back when it was Hotel des Gouverneurs, I chose it as a budget-minded hotel for wedding guests, thinking it’d be suitable for our still youngish friends. I chose a fancier one on the Sherbrooke strip for family. Oddly my in-laws picked Gouverneurs over the fancy one – it’s not like they couldn’t afford the fancier one. My SIL was appalled by the poly-blend bed sheets.
We also had no idea that Hotel des Gouverneurs hosted an annual Fetish Weekend, which took place the same weekend as our wedding. I remember feeling slightly embarrassed for my Christian cousin & wife who were also staying there and would share the same elevator as the fetish’d out attendees.
Fast forward a dozen years later (give or take). Interesting to see Hotel Place Dupuis make this pivot. The hotel was probably struggling for some time, so to have this opportunity from the city to house the homeless is a good move.
Bill Binns: your American is showing.
Meezly: it’s a comedy setup, the fetish weekend and the Christian relatives.
j2: I was trying to find something to say to BB, but you’ve said it all.
@Bill Binns – That’s good.
I’d suggest you could look for something around my area, but I’m not so sure we want undesirable people in the neighbourhood around here.
EmilyG: burn!
I don’t understand why everyone here is applauding the ghettoization of the homeless.
thomas, there’s a range of opinion here, not everyone is applauding.
But the fact is, evidence shows there are more homeless now than at the start of the pandemic, and they have to go inside somewhere as the weather gets colder. The regular shelters are too densely packed on cold nights, normally, to be safe during a pandemic, so what else can the city do?
I think it would be far better to triage the residents and distribute them to smaller hotels throughout the city based on their needs and their likely path to finding stable accommodation. I guess this plan is simpler bureaucratically and politicians don’t have to deal with NIMBYists.
After studies, the city has definitively abandoned the bain portuaire it had hoped to build in the Old Port.
Item reminds us it was originally a Denis Coderre notion.
It’s not the water quality that’s the problem, but the strength of the current and the remaining activities of the old port that make it an unsuitable location. I can just see the thing coming unmoored and floating off downstream with its swimmers yelling for help.
Also, the fact that the city has no juridiction with the Old Port, it is part of the Canada Lands Company
True, but deals have been made. Doesn’t the Bota Bota spa use some federal land?
Yes but those are rentors that Canada Lands accepts to have. They do not want and have never wanted the “bain portuaire”. So it was mostly a wish, all those concepts and ideas were moot points.
Do we know that Canada Lands was against the project?
Elsie Lefebvre applauds the CAQ intention to crack down hard on English in Montreal; Richard Martineau sneers at 25 years since the big federalist gathering in Montreal on the eve of the 1995 referendum. You’ll notice he makes up hateful quotes from imaginary “Canadians” to justify his own hatred.
Will Quebecor ever figure out that everything they worry about is tied to the rise of the 450?
Elsie is positioning herself to run for Mayor. The more crowded the field the better the chances for Plante.
Just for laughs I translated both their articles to English to read it. I wonder how they would feel about that. A couple of paragraphs complaining about the clouds in the sky.
There’s a Covid outbreak at St. Mary’s Hospital with both staff and patients testing positive.
oh wow thanks for sharing this…
mare 09:17 on 2020-10-29 Permalink
Smart plan! Then nobody can claim anymore that cops don’t live in the area where they police.
Ephraim 10:54 on 2020-10-29 Permalink
Horrible idea. The racism in SPVM is bad enough. This would make it worse. Police need to be respected… and we have NO respect for our police in this city, just fear.
Things we need before this include full civilian oversight. Full auditing of data access. Body cams to protect police and ourselves. A system that allows a policeman to be fired for cause. In other words, the union can protect them upto the civilian oversight, but at that point, if the civilian oversight says they are to be fired, they are fired and the union must accept it.
steph 11:10 on 2020-10-29 Permalink
Can the police shed traffic control? paying someone 60$ + overtime to switch lights is ridiculous.
Ephraim 11:13 on 2020-10-29 Permalink
Steph, that’s one of the things that is a legacy. The city decided to actually BUY manual systems and other city’s manual systems even after everyone else was pulling them out to go to centralized systems. It’s one of the things we need to replace in this city, so they can be centrally controlled.
david335 01:07 on 2020-10-30 Permalink
I don’t really watch teevee or read much internet and so, consequently, base my experiences with the police on my 30-something years of experience, good and bad, rather than . . . an imagined experience bleeding in through facebook and other American sources. However, it seems pretty clear that getting even more suburban types rolling around town would definitely not improve policing in Montreal.