The record store owners hit with heavy fines in 2019 for staying open past 5 on the weekend have been told that the fines will stand and must be paid. Taylor C. Noakes writes feelingly about the frustration of these small business owners who are trying to survive both pandemic and bureaucracy.
Updates from December, 2020 Toggle Comment Threads | Keyboard Shortcuts
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Kate
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Kate
La Presse has a sheaf of stories about the east-end REM Wednesday: lots of uncertainties about its effects; will it be profitable? And while the mayor promises to hold back rampant gentrification around its route, Denis Coderre launches a possible comeback in blowing her off completely.
Jebediah Pallendrome
That’s funny I seem to recall Michael Sabia pitching the REM to premier Couillard who greenlit the project to fulfill a variety of unrealized commuter rail projects that had always been the responsibility of the province because Montreal is *legally prohibited from expanding mass transit*.
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Kate
Valery Fabrikant was denied parole Wednesday. Fabrikant is 80 years old and has always been denied any form of leave from jail.
Jebediah Pallendrome
Tends to happen when you don’t repent.
That said, Con-U’s own internal investigation confirmed the rampant departmental plagiarism Fabrikant says set him off.
It’s no excuse for murder, obviously, but this story has always had a Kafkaesque quality about it.
Bill Binns
Gotta have some reluctant respect for Fabrikant. He could have played the game and been out ages ago, happily living his life alongside all the other convicted murderers who walk among us. Write a children’s book. Start talking about Jesus to anyone who will listen. Nope, he keeps that middle finger held high.
Kevin
Those investigations also showed that Fabrikant lied about his background and made threats everywhere he was employed, including in the USSR.
Kate
This is like a stopped clock being right twice a day. Fabrikant did turn out to be right about Concordia’s bad policies – at the time – in according credit on papers in its engineering department, but other things he did, including murdering four people (and not even the ones he was angriest at, but simply people who had the ill fortune to be present in the building that day), shows his real nature. And he’s never admitted he killed innocent people and taken responsibility for his actions. He should stay behind bars.
Michael Black
He was never capable of “being nice”. He shot those people and thought he was justified. For him to change, he’d have to suddenly see very clearly what he had done. And he then probably couldn’t live with himself.
Most of his postings were about how he was the victim. He couldn’t keep quiet, so he set up some method to get his message out, annoying the family of the murdered, but also ensuring he’d stay in. And it didn’t stop there, all his fussing in court to have his way really bugged the judges.
As I recall, his postings slowed down, or stopped. I think some legal issue came up, as if he was lying low to present himself in a different light. But then the Dawson shooting made him post again. And it was an excuse to justify his killings.
I think that was the end of his postings.
He’s an old man with no friends. I actually thought he’d get out after 25 years and it’s three years after that. The only way he’s getting out is when he gets so old and frail the prison can’t handle him. And I assume he’ll land in some special facility for old prisoners, not a release.
H. John
@Jebediah Pallendrome
It wasn’t plagiarism.
It was including people’s names on academic papers to which they hadn’t actually contributed.
He did it from the time he started working at Concordia.
Fabrikant referred to himself as an “obedient scientific prostitute…”.
He wanted to stop because he wasn’t getting what he wanted; and, he threatened to go to the newspapers or authorities unless he got a promotion.@Kevin
No investigation, other than the newspapers, said he lied about his background or credentials. In fact the Cowan Report stated:
“In fact, much has since been written about Dr. Fabrikant falsifying elements of various CV’s over the years. I have compared them, and the differences are largely explicable, if one examines the differences in academic ranks and degree granting systems between North America and the former USSR.”
The University could not find one person who said that he or she had been threatened. People said they had heard he had threatened someone, but they didn’t know who.
During his trial, Fabrikant asked each and every university employee who he called to testify if he had threatened them, or if they knew anyone he had threatened. The answer was always no.@Michael Black
“…an old man with no friends.” And if today’s report of his latest court case is to be believed, no decent kosher soup.@Kate
He chose the people he shot. People have suggested Matt Douglas was just visiting the Dean’s office, that he was in the wrong place at the wrong time. Fabrikant has been clear he thought Matt was Dean Swamy’s close friend, and that Matt had been dropping by Fabrikant’s office to talk so he could report back to Swamy.I found it depressing that in December each and every news report when naming the four men he killed, then mentioned that he also shot a secretary – but didn’t name her. How difficult would it have been to say he shot 5 people, 4 of whom died. And to name all five.
Her name was Elizabeth Horwood.
Fabrikant called her as a witness at his trial, and asked her if at any other time had he ever threatened her.
Kate
Thank you very much, H. John, for the clarifications and corrections.
The secretary has been named before, because I recognized her name when you mentioned it. In a sense maybe she should be glad she doesn’t get named – because she survived.
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Kate
An arrest has been made in that murder of a north end dépanneur owner early in November. Francieli Ortiz-Vivanco turned himself in on Wednesday.
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Kate
The city’s hospitals are fighting multiple outbreaks of Covid; the Palais de Justice is putting special measures in place to keep journalists distanced during scrums around high-profile cases; residents in long-term care homes will be allowed one visitor daily over the holiday lockdown; Canada is promising that anyone who wants to be vaccinated will be able to do so by September.
JaneyB
So…December. Nice.
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Kate
TVA trumpets that 700 new jobs will be created in Montreal by Sonder, a competitor to Airbnb, and another player in the process of removing regular rental units from the city.
Update: The deal was made after Quebec agreed to a $30-million loan some of which does not have to be paid back.
vasi
Hmm, I’m hoping Sonder will be preferable to Airbnb.
Airbnb avoids playing by the rules by claiming it just “connects vendors and customers”, and pushing responsibilities down to the landlords. So it avoids hotel licensing requirements, insurance costs, business taxes, zoning restrictions, etc. And of course the landlords generally don’t uphold these responsibilities either, but there’s so many of them and it’s so disintermediated that it’s hard for the authorities to go after them.
Sonder owns or leases the rentals themselves, and appears to stick to all the laws–taxes, zoning, licensing, etc. Ideally this means they’re not undercutting hotel prices, but just offering a different experience, And if not, and this does constrain the available rental units, it should be much more controllable via taxes/zoning.
DeWolf
Sonder seems more like a hotel company that is trying to tap into the Airbnb market, not an Airbnb clone. Their three Montreal properties are located in former commercial buildings so they haven’t taken over any residential units (yet).
One of the new Sonder hotels is located in the former Guérin textbook factory on the Plateau. It’s nice to know that, if my entire family or a group of friends visit from out of town, they have the option of staying nearby in a place that isn’t some illegal Airbnb. There’s a huge demand for tourist accommodations on the Plateau and almost no hotels to meet it.
Ephraim
I don’t mind if they do it legally. Sonder usually makes a deal with a condo builder, so they have their own separate building within a building or take over a building. If they are licenced, then they wouldn’t be apartments around town, because the city won’t give you a permit beyond a few streets. In the Plateau, it’s St-Lawrence, St-Denis and Sherbrooke street, if I remember correctly. In fact, when RQ starts doing it’s work, a lot of those places should come back to the rental market, because they can’t get the city permit that is required to get a permit.
Kate
I hope you guys are right. On Facebook today my MNA, Andres Fontecilla, QS, posted “Son modèle d’affaire? Louer des appartements à long terme et les relouer à court terme à des touristes et des gens d’affaires. Traduction : son profit, elle le fait en retirant du marché immobilier des centaines de logements qui pourraient servir à loger des familles en pleine crise du logement. M. Fitzgibbon est bien fier de dire que ce prêt d’Investissement Québec va renforcer la place de Montréal dans le secteur des technologies numériques et de l’intelligence artificielle. Soit, mais à quel prix?”
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Kate
The Journal has a fierce screed Wednesday morning against building an elevated train through downtown Montreal.
Blork
Well, that does read like a drunken rant, but I will admit the idea of an elevated rail line through downtown does seem weird and very retrograde. I’m trying to think of any other city that’s doing this, and I’m coming up blank. Most cities that I can think of have been removing their elevated urban transit lines (and highways).
As I think about it, Chicago’s elevated transit is very useful and it’s highly integrated into the cityscape, so much so that much of the city has essentially grown up around it. But it’s been there longer than living memory, and effectively defines the downtown core. It is big and noisy and blocks the sky and all that, but Chicagoans have always seen it there and they know no other version of downtown, and the radiating lines have also been there for as long as anyone can remember.
The only elevated transit system that I can think of that isn’t big and ugly and disruptive is the Seattle Monorail, but that hardly qualifies for comparison given it only runs for about a kilometre and a half and basically just shuttles tourists from downtown to the Space Needle.
Faiz
Look at teipei, Vancouver and Sydney for good modern example of urban elevated systems. There are quite a few more in developing countries.
It’s rare in rich urban centres because they consider the additional cost of tunnelling worth it.
Ive seen some pretty beautiful elevated structures, in France especially. So they could make it work.
Most important to note that it’s not going to be a big metal monstrosity like Chicago, nor a loud polluting motorway like the metropolitan. Worst case it’ll look like the elevated rem tracks in west island.
DeWolf
Wow, there are a lot of wild and unsubstantiated claims in that editorial. “Ils favorisent la formation de poches de pauvreté. Ils attirent la criminalité”? Seriously? This paints a picture of people fleeing downtown to get away from the monster train, which would be comical if it wasn’t complete nonsense.
I’m not keen on the idea of an elevated railway down René-Lévesque, but only because I don’t trust the CDPQ to do a good job with it. Elevated metro lines are not inherently bad, noisy or ugly. Paris and Berlin have some very nice examples. Vancouver’s SkyTrain routes are now lined by condo towers, so obviously people don’t mind living next to exactly the kind of elevated railway the REM is proposing.
DeWolf
There’s also this gem:
“Essayez donc de faire passer une telle horreur dans l’ouest de Montréal. Sur René-Lévesque (qui à Westmount s’appelle toujours Dorchester), jusqu’aux environs du boulevard Décarie, par exemple. Pensez-vous un seul instant que les anglophones de Montréal l’accepteraient? Jamais!”
Perhaps he is not aware that the two REM lines currently under construction in the West Island will run primarily on… elevated railways?
Ephraim
I think it will just look very weird on R-L. Where is it going to be, middle of the street? And what’s the point of where it’s located if it’s running parallel to the metro line. It’s not until Honore-Beaugrand where it doesn’t duplicate what the metro already does.
Kate
I’m reminded of the idea proposed about ten years ago to run trains on an elevated track around the Bell Centre so that Windsor Station could live again. I don’t think anyone took those too seriously, but these plans could actually make it possible!
su
If they use the same hideous brutalist tightly interspersed support pilons as are strung all along the 40,
I imagine there will be a popular backlash. The promotional cartoons for the REM seem to skirt around the pilon eyesore issue. Not a problem along the 40 wasteland, but seriously concerning when running along a pleasant boulevard, and the scenic shoreline of the St Lawrence.Ant6n
I remember proposing that the rem erst island branch should be built more north, to be closer to pupation – theres a huge hydro Quebec right of way that could’ve been used to urbanify the area. I was told that could only ever be done as a subway.
One thing to note about other examples: Vancouver’s relatively recent elevated lines aren’t very urban, Vancouver isn’t super walkable like Montreal for large stretches, and the downtown portions were tunnelled.
Berlin, like Chicago had had its Downtown ELs built a long time ago, with a relatively nice steel construction. Since the thirties or so more urban areas have generally been tunneled.
Maybe the problem is that the people pushing for this thing don’t care about the city anyway. All they need is a shuttle with a dead end stop downtown, a kind of frequent commuter line, not urban transit.
Kevin
I’m with @su :the concrete pylons running beside the 40 are massive and make you feel like you’re underneath the Metropolitan — but you get the same sense for every elevated highway/railway. It’s the same in Queens, NYC.
I’m just not looking forward to having a train running right past the second-floor window of my office…
Faiz imam
Just some info for everyone, on RL the structure will run right in the middle of the street. Once it hits Notre-dame it will shift to going along the North sidewalk.
And HOMA to PET on sherbrooke it will be in the middle again.
Legault made an interesting point in his presentation. In the decades ahead there is a massive amount of Petrochemical infrastructure in the east that we will not need anymore (or at least much much less of). That some very polluted by useful land to sustainably expand the population of Montreal.
So just like REM v1, a lot of this is explicitly based on the idea of created the conditions for new sustainable development, as opposed to (BOTH) improving the lives of current urban residents nor helping suburban drivers get into town.
Ant6n
Using language like “will” instead of “would” or “is planned to” makes you sound like a shill again
Jebediah Pallendrome
There’s one principle reason why an L is a bad idea for Montreal, and a half-n-half is even worse:
Winter.
One major snow dump and the L stops working.
Winter blizzards are literally the whole reason subways exist in the first place.
And subways that are entirely shielded from the elements last longer than those exposed to them.
And this is *literally* why Montreal built the Metro and not an elevated train or a a new tram back in the mid-1960s.
Ten years from now we’ll all be blaming Val Plante for building the REM while Michael Sabia privatizes healthcare as Prime-CEO-Minister.
We bring this on ourselves.
su
Oh yes I guess the big move of the Port of Montreal to Contrecoeur will open up another vast area to development as well.
qatzelok
@Faiz iman “…on RL the structure will run right in the middle of the street….”
The owners of the hundred-million-dollar towers along R-L will be fine with this?
ant6n
Maybe the CDPQ-Strategy is like they did for the airport: propose something non-workable but cheap and profitable. When the city and province come back saying that downtown section won´t work unless underground, CDPQInfra will come back and say “fine, but you`ll pay for the unnecessary luxury, and we´ll still own the infrastructure in the end”.
su
According to this article, developers pay royalties to have REM stations located at their projects.
https://renx.ca/developers-decry-montreals-much-longer-project-delays/.
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Kate
Jonathan Montpetit, always worth reading, writes about the progress of Covid in Quebec and how it may be a year before a return to something approaching normality. Toula Drimonis cited another writer on Twitter calling this moment half time.
The magic number is to get 70% of the population vaccinated, which will take time. Tuesday it was reported that only 40% of the staff at Maimonides are willing to be vaccinated – and these are people who’ve seen the ravages of Covid close up.
JaneyB
I was just listening to a podcast on the subject and that expert was suggesting that it might take only 45% of vaccinated/previously infected to get to herd immunity. So there does seem to be debate about the magic number. A few weeks from now, after we hear about any new side effects, I think more people will join in. We’ll get there.
Tee Owe
Wherever ‘there’ is – meant in a friendly way
Tim 13:29 on 2020-12-17 Permalink
If anyone is wondering why anti-government attitudes are gaining strength, the intransigence of government and its bureaucracy in this case (and in the case of land theft in an article yesterday) provides ample evidence to support those attitudes.
The wry, tongue in cheek “creative” put down from Richard Ryan, as he laughs in the face of small business owners, needs to be remembered at the polls next year.