New ‘lean on’ supports installed around Sud-Ouest borough seem to need explanation. They’re not benches, you can’t sit – the closest analogy is the bars installed along some walls in metro stations, which are also of limited usefulness.
Updates from November, 2020 Toggle Comment Threads | Keyboard Shortcuts
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Kate
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Kate
Parking is not only going to be free on weekends till the end of the year, but also all evenings after 6 p.m.
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Kate
The Camillien-Houde has been closed for emergency work to secure one of the cliffs it passes beside.
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Kate
A man 93 years old was murdered in Ville-Émard on Monday, and police have already arrested a man in his 60s. It’s numbered as homicide #23 of the year.
Update: Giuseppe Calabrese, charged in the murder, is the son of the victim, Gennaro Calabrese.
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Kate
Journal readers have sent in denunciations of 200 businesses where they claim they were “greeted or served” in English. But even this piece admits that no law dictates what language a potential customer must be greeted in.
The CAQ wants to tighten the screws on the French language charter. (Translation of the TVA headline, “Québec pourrait serrer la vis” – not my editorializing.)
Once again, I emphasize I’m not banging the drum on this story – it’s almost the only thread I’m finding about Montreal on QMI sources just now.
Kevin
I just realized that next year is a census year.
So I looked up the release dates from last time around, and Stats Can released language data in August of the following year.If the schedule holds, language data will be released in August 2022, just at the start of the election campaign (voting day is Oct. 3, 2022).
I expect the census will show the number of mother-tongue Francophones in the city of Montreal will be around 45%. Maybe lower.
It’s going to be insane.
jeather
The Journal, whose reporting I don’t trust, said that they had something like 30 businesses where they were greeted in English, and 2 cases where they were told “I’m sorry, I don’t speak French”. (I don’t know the specific laws about retail — does every customer-facing employee have to speak French or just enough that there is always someone who speaks French available?)
Kate
It’s so ingrained that I can’t quite believe anyone’s hiring people who can’t speak French for public-facing jobs. Who are these people?
Jack
This is good and reflects where I would argue most of the English speaking community is. Quebecor needs these stories to sell PKP’s vision of the future.
https://cultmtl.com/2020/11/how-to-protect-the-french-language-without-weaponizing-it-montreal-quebec-oqlf-journal-gotcha-journalism-downtown-retail-stores/Myles
It’s very surprising to me as well that anyone who can’t speak French can manage to get hired. I would assume that for every unilingual Anglo, there are plenty of bilingual people to hire instead. When I was in university and looking for a retail job on the side, I always suspected my accent really harmed my chances, and I could speak French perfectly fine.
GC
Thanks for that article, Jack.
MarcG
The article suggests that retail stores are desperate for employees because pandemic and so aren’t being as picky.
Kate
Jack, I was going to link to Toula’s piece but you’ve done that, so thank you.
j2
You know, a whole bunch of people no longer need to live in Quebec to work for Quebec companies. Or vice versa.
Kate
j2, I was wondering about that. If someone living in Quebec is working remotely in a full‑time job anchored elsewhere in Canada, that company won’t be making payroll deductions for Revenu Quebec. People need to be careful about this.
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Kate
McGill having banished the old Redmen team name, the university has chosen the name Redbirds instead.
Jebediah Pallindrome
Was Martlets too obvious?
And isn’t a red bird a cardinal?
Kate
Martlets is the name they use for women’s teams. I guess they wanted some distinction.
The cardinal is the most common red bird around here, but there are other red birds and there are already teams called the Cardinals.
thomas
A martlet, featured on the McGill coat of arms, is a mythical bird without feet. So not a cardinal.
EmilyG
The martlets on the McGill coat of arms have feet.
EmilyG
And are still not cardinals.
I’ve heard that cardinals are called redbirds in some places.
thomas
@EmilyG That is they way martlets are depicted, with feathers replacing their feet.
Kate
Tim F
This is fine. Really anything is better than what they had. We can move on finally!
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Kate
As we’ve seen recently, the YMCA has been closing branches whose memberships couldn’t sustain the facilities. The NDG YMCA has been closed by Covid and its members have been nervous, but now the city has offered to buy a piece of land belonging to the organization, thus allowing it to continue, and reopen eventually. The land would be used for social housing and a public park.
The Google satellite view reveals that the Y appears to own most of that block in NDG, between Royal and Hampton, with grounds encompassing a running track and tennis courts.
Kevin
It’s a huge field that lies empty most of the year. The only time it’s really used is by the YMCA’s summer camp, although there is a garden tucked onto one side.
There is Montreal-run apartment building for people with low incomes in that block (corner Monkland and Royal).
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Kate
Monday’s launch of Quebec’s big green plan tends to cosset suburbanites, says Jonathan Montpetit in his analysis of what the plan does, and what it fails to do. Monday, hearing François Legault say on radio that he hopes to encourage people and not to pass laws to force the issue, my heart also sank, realizing he’s not willing to sacrifice any suburban votes for his green “principles.”
This blog doesn’t specifically follow environmental news, although this plan is too big to be ignored.
Don’t forget I also keep up a Twitter feed following environmental news, emphasizing local news but with other relevant links. Most enviro news goes there, but Quebec is putting a lot of money into what Montpetit seems to think are fairly toothless ideas, so I thought it worth a post.
DeWolf
When I read the headlines that Legault was pushing for the “electrification of transport” I was excited to read about all the new tramways and metro lines and intercity trains, only to realize that what he actually meant was… electric cars. You know, the most expensive and inefficient form of electric transport, the kind of thing that allows us to pretend we don’t need to significantly change the way our cities are built or how we live, we just need to get a car that plugs into the wall and voilà, problems solved.
Of course there was also some vague support for public transit projects, some of which the CAQ has already threatened to cancel (Blue Line extension, Quebec’s tramway…).
JP
Suggesting tramways, metro lines and intercity trains does nothing for his support base. He has to propose a solution that is viable for them if he wants to be politically successful, and so his plan can’t remove cars.
Em
I ready this article yesterday, and it made me wonder if it’s a losing battle.
It’s not about Montreal or Quebec specifically. Rather, it points out that the majority of Canadians live in suburbs, they want backyards and big trucks, and they don’t want to be pushed to change, especially from so-called “urban elites.” I understand it comes from a conservative point of view, and that not everybody in the suburbs feel this way, but a lot do.
Forcing a bunch of change on people who don’t want it is never going to go over well for any politician.
GC
“hopes to encourage people and not to pass laws to force the issue” We’ve seen how well that works out, with the pandemic!
Chris
Amazing that you can get an $8000 subsidy to buy a car, but you have to pay sales tax to buy a bicycle. Sigh.
>Forcing a bunch of change on people who don’t want it is never going to go over well for any politician.
I dunno. Politicians have forced a lot of change on people ‘because covid’, and incumbents have been reelected in New Brunswick, British Columbia, and elsewhere. So it’s possible. The difficulty is that covid is a short term problem and humans are pretty good at short term problems, but we really suck at long term problems like global warming.
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Kate
Bixi, which just closed for the season, came out of this year without a deficit.
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Kate
The city has lost 4,280 parking spaces during the Plante administration, but that’s still fewer than 1% of the parking spots in town. There’s more detail: 2,844 have been lost to bike paths, and others have gone away for safety reasons like being too close to intersections or to school environs.
david132
“288 places tarifées ont été retirées pour faire place à des projets de pistes cyclables . . . Le dégagement des intersections a pour sa part entraîné la disparition de 318 places tarifées. Et 208 places de stationnement, tarifées ou non, ont été supprimées pour la réalisation de projets de piétonnisation et de voies partagées.”
Such a miniscule number of paid (ie. the highest demand) parking spaces have been withdrawn that this probably shouldn’t even be an article, and certainly not one in the Devoir, unless the point is to directly rebut another, more misleading article.
Ephraim
What I don’t see… how many handicapped spots have been lost, added or replaced? These spaces are a lot more vital.
qatzelok
Call me a pollyanna, but I like to focus on the postiive: on how many cyclists are not being put into wheelchairs – or memorialized with ghost bikes – due to having have safer bike infrastructure.
qatzelok
Also, when you were younger, did your mother or social studies teacher teach you that you would always have a free place to put a car? Is that in the constitution? Is it good economics?
Kate
Ephraim, that’s a very good question. It should be asked and I hope it is.
MarcG
The added some street parking spots near me by reducing the size of the no-parking zone around fire hydrants. Is the 4280 just a count of those removed or does it account for those created as well?
Ephraim
Kate – There isn’t a single spot anywhere around PdA/Desjardins anymore. (There are two in Chinatown) And yet… Revenu Quebec is there and people need access. Maybe part of the mandate for licencing parking structures should include reduced price parking for 1 to 2 hours for those with handicapped parking permits. These are NOT long term parking spots. This is for people who need to do business in the area and can’t walk far. And people forget that many handicaps are completely invisible, spinal stenosis, arthritis, chronic pain. All handicaps that you can’t actually see but make each step painful. It’s not just those in wheelchairs and braces.
And the other thing we forget is that we should have 5 minute loading/unloading zones or allow them to stop in bus zones to allow handicapped people that are being transported in/out. Even if driven by someone who isn’t handicapped and can park further away, they need to be loaded and unloaded close… the walker/chair set up for them, etc. If there is no place to do it, you have to block traffic to do it.
Azrhey 22:00 on 2020-11-17 Permalink
Hostile architecture is hostile! *insert much swearing here*
Michael Black 22:26 on 2020-11-17 Permalink
Having something to lean on is way better than nothing. When the occupational therapist took.me for walks last year, I leaned against lamp posts a few times. If you have to stand (rather than walk) having something to lean against is really valuable.
At least some benches disappear before the snow comes. I assume because otherwise they’d block snowplows. Something to lean against doesn’t block as much, and nobody has to shovel it off after a snowstorm.
If this is instead of benches, maybe it’s suspect. But if someone’s lying on a bench, it’s not too useful to others. There’s a fine line between “anti-homeless” and things that may incidentally not be the best solution for the homeless. People don’t seem to complain about security guards telling a person perceived as homeless to move on, but that seems way more anti-homeless than this.
Ephraim 11:11 on 2020-11-18 Permalink
Not very helpful for the handicapped….okay, useless.