Mayor Plante said Monday that the city can’t police language.
A west-end MP got herself in hot water recently by saying she didn’t think French was in decline in Quebec. Emmanuella Lambropoulos’s remark has been called contemptuous and she has been dogpiled on by the Bloc and (seeing an opportunity for a jab) the Tories. She has since humbly backed down.
Police made a series of raids Monday and arrested five people who’ve allegedly been dealing in illegal drugs. Although CTV’s intro mentions opioids, the bullet lists a lot of drugs – illegal Viagra! – but no opioids.
Oh the crime… fun sex! I wonder if the cops had a hard time finding them?
A new mural of Nelson Mandela was unveiled Monday at Union United Church near Lionel‑Groulx. The brief video clip with the artist is nice.
A man who stabbed a woman in NDG four years ago failed to report to a halfway house in St‑Henri on the weekend. When the stabbing happened, Mathew Roberge was on parole for a previous homicide. Let’s hope the cops scoop this guy up fast.
It seems indicative that the REM trains have been unveiled in Brossard, not on the island of Montreal.
Update: Here’s a commented video description from Jay Turnbull at CBC. He says the REM is going to the airport, which I had understood was not by any means certain.
Ehh, come on now… I mean… isn’t that the only place they could possibly situate them for the time being? There’ll be garages in Brossard and near St Eustache. The control center is in Brossard. The first segment to be open will be from Brossard to Gare Centrale.
What are they supposed to do, truck a few into the city and build a stage in the Peel Basin to have it on display for the press?
This was perfectly acceptable, logical and economical as far as reveals go. They were dropped off at the garage (which is actually built) a few weeks ago at the location where they’ll be stored until testing begins on the portions of the tracks that are ready… mostly on the South Shore.
All I read in Kate’s comment was “the REM is to bring people from the suburbs into the city” and I don’t think there’s anything underhanded about that.
Don’t quote me, but someone in the old neighborhood told me the rumor is that they will indeed tunnel all the way to Dorval circle, but that they’re looking for savings on the airport station, so that it could well be delayed a couple years.
My guess is that it makes sense to tunnel while the TBM is in the ground, but that in a period of labor and materials shortages the priority has to be to build out the highest farebox recovery (ie. paying ridership) segments, and that these underground stations are just a lot more costly to build and the government support isn’t yet there. Speculation on my part.
There have always been a lot of rumors surrounding the rem.
A drop in restaurant patronage has led to a corresponding fall in poutine consumption and thus less demand for cheese curds.
Patriotic Québécois ought to do their bit and eat poutine more often!
I loved the alliteration in the title!
Poutine is pretty hard to make at home, at least with actual fried french fries, and if you take it out, you’ve got a congealed ball of yuck by the time you get home.
Ahhh…but there’s frozen fries at least. With a can of St-Hubert poutine sauce and some curds…very acceptable option.
Some places (e.g. L’Gros Luxe) will deliver the gravy on the side so you can add it just before eating (or even reheat it first if necessary).
There was a story months ago that there was a surplus of fries, because restaurants wete closed. Apparently a special type of potato is grown to make fries.
But I’ve not seen great sales in frozen fries.
QMI admits that, on the whole, younger francophones are less distressed by English used in Montreal stores than older folks.
I’m still amused that they’re beating the drum over 31 STORES.
One person walked into 31 stores over the course of a couple weeks, and that’s going to shape provincial policy. :/
Yes
In other words:
“L’anglais est une agression!”
“Ok boomer.”
Metro looks at five church buildings in Montreal converted to other purposes.
The town of Beaconsfield is suing the city of Montreal and the Quebec government for $2 million it says it overpaid in tax payments for services from the big city.
St-Lambert council is to vote on a new noise deal with Montreal over events held in Parc Jean‑Drapeau. Over the summer of 2020 you could’ve heard a pin drop, but the head-bangers will be back sooner or later.
“Quand on fait du heavy métal un mardi soir….”
Since when do they have these festival concerts on weekdays?
Rammstein were scheduled to play on a Thursday this summer… https://www.parcjeandrapeau.com/en/rammstein-event-show-music-metal-espace67-parcjeandrapeau-montreal/
Police are still trying to squelch illegal car parties in parking lots in and around Montreal.
We so seldom think out of the box. Since the car is the venue and the venue is supposed to be closed, seize the car until the Red Zone warning is over. Wonder how many people will risk bringing their car after that?
A man was stabbed near Berri-UQAM on Sunday evening. He’s both known to police and not cooperating with them.
On Radio-Canada, Michel C. Auger has a few questions about the REM including why, after an explosion in the Mount Royal tunnel in July, we weren’t told about it till November.
The first train cars from India are meant to be presented Monday so there’s bound to be more REM news later. TVA has some video from a REM construction site.
TVA says there’s a new homeless campsite, this one on Park Avenue near Milton, with three tents, but the accompanying photo shows at least half a dozen. Also I’ve seen a recent photo of the Notre-Dame camp still occupied.
I drove by the Notre Dame one last week, it was as big as ever. Temperatures have dropped since then though.
Last week was great camping weather. This week it won’t freeze, but sooner or later snow is bound to make a tent so unappealing that it’s preferable to take the city up on its offer of a shelter space.
Passing thought: where do hard-up people get tents, and where will they store them over winter?
You can come across used tents pretty cheap. Lots of people buy them thinking they’ll take up camping and either do it once or twice or realize they don’t much care for sleeping on the ground in the middle of the woods and never do it again. Those who keep at it, will find an almost unlimited supply of fancier tents to upgrade to over time and each time, they’ll sell their old tent for nearly nothing.
I see the cheapest MEC tent is around $250 (and the sky’s the limit) but you can get a reasonably sound-looking tent at Canadian Tire for about sixty bucks.
>This week it won’t freeze.
Forecast high for Wednesday is minus four, so I hope they have warm gear. Actually, if you can handle the associated colder temperatures, snow can be preferable to rain. What’ll really dissuade people is freezing rain or 15 cm of snow followed by a serious thaw that soaks everything.
Oof, I missed that – or else it changed since I posted. Minus four on Wednesday!
The Plateau is now a billboard-free zone.
I’m curious who loses out here. Did landlords lose a chunk of revenue, and if so, will rents rise to make it up?
I was vaguely approving of this move before from a general anti-advertising perspective, but didn’t really think it would have that much of an impact. Now that it is done, I have to say it is a subtle but significant improvement to the view up Avenue du Parc.
I had the same question. It took them several days to cut up, bring down and then cut up more, the framing for the one on Parc and Villeneuve. That was a serious steel frame. You could have built a bandstand on top of it.
Short answer… yes. You lose revenue and your building is unprofitable, you get to pass it on. The same way that asking for your apartment to be painted is going to cost you in rent in the long run
walkerp, in the video accompanying the piece I linked, Alex Norris is exulting over getting that huge billboard down off the Pierrefonds Apartments building at Park and Villeneuve. Will the building’s structure react to having that much weight taken off it, I wonder.
Is like to know if the city will money up and take a serious crack at graffiti and tags. Virtually every shot in that piece had eyesores at *eye* level. The billboards may have been somewhat ugly, but the visual pollution of graffiti is significantly more jarring.
In some cases the billboards made it easier for taggers to climb, so at least in some cases taking down the scaffolding will limit the areas they can hit. I don’t think removing graffiti is a priority at the moment.
Now if only they can do something on cutting down on those horrid tags.
I find tags interesting. There were 2 crews that passed along the riverside in Verdun recently. K6A, who do legal work around town, that big one at Pine and St-Laurent for example, left some really nice cursive handwriting-style ones all over the place in a very pleasant blue/green hue. A week or so later 3 obviously much younger and less experienced writers came through as TMA. One of them writes the name “belly” and actually has some talent – the lines flow well, creative touch with letters, some drawings of faces that are neat. Their friends stuff is trash but not everyone can be an artist, sometimes you’re just a kid hanging out with your friends doing dumb shit. I also like trying to piece the story together. What time was it? How old are they? Where do they live and how did they travel to get here?
For some young people, tags are the only free speech they have.
Advertisers have waaaaay more than they should.
If tagging is free speech, they need new outlets. Can we suggest tiktok?
“the only free speech they have”
I dunno what purpose hyperbole like that serves.
Is people’s only beef with graffiti that they find it unaesthetic? If so I think it might just be low-hanging fruit because cities in general are pretty fucking ugly if you ask me.
Kevin 22:34 on 2020-11-16 Permalink
That’s because she’s under 40 and so actually knows the French language isn’t threatened by a reporter finding a dozen foreigners working retail in Montreal.
dmdiem 23:37 on 2020-11-16 Permalink
Just to reiterate:
“L’anglais est une agression”
“Ok boomer”
david132 02:58 on 2020-11-17 Permalink
Mme Plante n’a pas répondu directement à une proposition citoyenne qui souhaitait la création d’un comité de la langue française pour la Ville de Montréal et qui «proposerait des mesures structurantes pour le français».
Hmm . . .
Douglas 12:05 on 2020-11-17 Permalink
Emmanuella should have just dug in. Never apologize when they want to rip you apart.
paul 12:26 on 2020-11-17 Permalink
Census data shows that the number and % of french speakers has increased in the province since the 1990s, so she is 100% right that French is not in decline.
There are however less households that speak only french and a smaller % of unilingual francophones in the province over the same period. We are becoming more bilingual, which unilingual francophones view as a threat as opposed to seeing it as a successful result of language policies.
These stories are never based in fact, only in politics and populism.
Chris 21:22 on 2020-11-17 Permalink
>We are becoming more bilingual, which unilingual francophones view as a threat
I suspect there’s data to support that view. A fast googling shows a century ago most Māori were unilingual, then a shift to bilingual, then a big decline.
If most/all francos eventually become bilingual, and the rest of the continent speaks English, then there’s social and economic benefits for them to shift their focus to English, to pass that focus on to their offspring, and on and on for generations. It could end up similar to Native American languages, i.e. endangered.
Michael Black 22:08 on 2020-11-17 Permalink
French is spoken in France, and a bunch of other countries. It hasn’t disappeared, and it’s not going to disappear.
There is no one native language. So numbers were small to start with. Then came European disease, which decreased population a lot. Then a deliberate attempt to erase language and culture, including residential schools.
Something like 150 people are fluent in the Syilx language. It skews to elder. I suppose there’s a bonus since it’s a Salish language so other People speak languages in the same grouping. But it’s hard to sustain, not enough speakers even if people want to learn. Parents don’t teach their children to speak, parents have an inherent need to communicate with the newcomers. The relationship is the teacher. But that can’t happen if the language has been taken from the parents and maybe the grandparents. So it falls to the few teachers. And that’s never the same thing as parents talking to their children with love.
There’s a difference between some people losing their language, and a language disappearing