Changes are being made in homeless shelters, including a 125-bed red zone at the old Vic, following several outbreaks among the homeless. A second hotel will also be allotted downtown for those who test negative.
Updates from December, 2020 Toggle Comment Threads | Keyboard Shortcuts
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Kate
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Kate
The street was closed around St-Édouard church, at St-Denis and Beaubien, Monday afternoon, after debris fell from one of the bell towers. Nobody was hurt. Not clear from this when or whether the streets have reopened.
DavidH
But the real problem is the bike path, obviously.
Chris
? I don’t see anything in the article about the bike path…
DavidH
@Chris, the priest from that church is on a crusade to remove the REV bike path from the front of his church. Says it’s dangerous for people to cross it when they get dropped of by car. People have to use the St-Denis side of the church only because the Beaubien side is a hard-hat area with scaffoldings where no one ever works on the decrepit building. If the Church took care of its building, the place would actually be safe. Instead he’s been rambling for week about the danger of bike paths.
qatzelok
“Il est venu le temp des pistes cyclables
Le monde est entré
Dans un nouveau millénaire…”
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Kate
STM security has seen twice as many people in crisis this year, but their increased visibility may have been due to the steep drop in other passengers.
JS
According to the article agents “intervened” twice as much since the arrival of the pandemic as before, not that there’s been more crisis reports. Maybe the presence of normal crowds has a mitigating or calming effect on vulnerable people?
Blork
Well it’s pretty common knowledge that mental health issues have soared during the pandemic. It’s not just that many people are out of work or at least have lost their income security, but there is a huge amount of uncertainty at play. Uncertainty about when this will be over, when jobs will come back, exactly how dangerous it is out there, when classes can go back to “normal,” etc.
A lot of people are completely immune to the mental health effects that kind of uncertainty, but many others are profoundly affected by it.
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Kate
It’s worth using an incognito window to read this nice Les Perreaux piece in the Globe & Mail about retired calèche horses and how they’re doing.
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Kate
TVA looks back at 2020 in Montreal and at things that happened besides the pandemic.
La Presse nominates the words of 2020.
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Kate
As of the new year, Kahnawake is barring visitors from buying cigarettes in its tobacco shops, in an effort to stop the spread of Covid.
Chris
Right, wouldn’t want the people they’re selling poison to to get sick! Smoking kills about 45k Canadians per year (covid at 15k). Also, a little late in the game to decide this, no?
Kate
They don’t want to get sick themselves either. Kahnawake closed itself off completely for a period early in the pandemic but reopened in June. I haven’t followed how their policy has evolved since then, and I don’t know why the cigarette stores are not already closed by the current lockdown rules, not being essential, but in general Quebec has learned it’s wiser not to intervene on Mohawk lands.
Michael Black
It’s their territory, their rules. The issue here is they don’t want outsiders coming because of the Virus, and apparently those cigarette buyers can be quite pushy. It’s significant that they’ve chosen health here, since at other times they’ve shown sovereignity in other ways.
There were stories last fall about people being mistreated at the big climate march, so few causes are completely pure.
Chris
>They don’t want to get sick themselves either
Ah, so even more selfless than at first glance! /s
>It’s their territory, their rules.
Which of course doesn’t make their rules any less open to criticism than anyone else’s rules on anyone else’s territory.
Allowing selling totally non-essential things (that hurt the respiratory system, during a respiratory virus pandemic!) while more benign and more essential things are forced closed is insane.
Better late than never though.
dwgs
Also, people drive their cars to go buy their smokes.
dhomas
Allison Cummins put it very well the first time this topic came up about cigarettes during a pandemic:
https://mtlcityweblog.com/2020/03/26/thursdays-initial-corona-stories/#comment-122302Imagine trying to quit smoking now. I’ve quit smoking in the past, and stress is definitely something that makes you relapse. There’s probably no worse time than right now to try to quit smoking.
MarcG
As an ex-smoker and someone who has friends who still smoke I can vouch for this unfortunate fact. The first few years after I quit every time it changed seasons I would think about smoking, taste it, smell it, want it, and then it stopped. When the cold hit this year and I wasn’t feeling great it immediately popped into my mind. This is 10+ years after quitting.
Kate
MarcG, my mother smoked for years then quit, and told me much later that she still got a craving from time to time.
I’m glad I didn’t start, even though it meant sacrificing a large piece of being cool in high school.
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Kate
Urbania asks how the blind get around in winter and speaks to five Montrealers about how they manage.
mare
How do the disabled in wheelchairs get around in the winter?
The ones I know don’t get around, and stay inside. Busses often don’t stop —and when you’re sitting in a wheelchair you get too cold waiting 20 minutes to the next one—, adaptive transport is a joke and the metro is not accessible.
And I see even less people in wheelchairs in the winter than in the summer. I’m possibly not in the right places, I bet there are more in suburbia and in malls.
EmilyG
Mare brings up an important point – Montreal can be extremely unfriendly towards disabled people.
And as for malls, there are some that are more wheelchair-friendly, but sadly not all of them are. Society really needs to do more for disabled people, instead of just saying, Well, things work for most people, so what if some are inconvenienced.
(You can look up “social model of disability” for more information.)Ephraim
The city constantly removes handicapped parking spots. There is no report on the number of spots available. And parking enforcement should just write tickets even if someone is in the car in a handicapped parking spot without the hanging tag.
The city doesn’t have enough places for people to sit in some places. Older people and the handicapped often need to stop. Even planters offer a pace to lean against.
We don’t hold pedestrian spaces as inviolate (a fast moving bicycle/skateboard feels threatening to a handicapped person who may not be able to twist to see where the threat is coming from.) Think of what it feels like with you unable to twist and holding a cane or using a walker. (I live next to a rehab).
Police don’t ensure that crossing pedestrians don’t have to wait extended periods (the invisible handicapped often can’t stand still for long periods.)
There are plenty of things we don’t think of that would make things for older people and the handicapped better. But until you have to walk with a cane, help someone with a walker, etc. It’s hard to understand.
I was temporarily handicapped at one time, my mother is in a walker, my friend walks with a cane, my father walked with a cane. When you deal with it, you realize how vital this access is. Just someone stopped in a handicapped spot means that you have to look further away… because they think it’s a waiting zone.
Michael Black
The dog has become impatient in old age, some corners are so complicated that it’s a long time between pedestrian lights. I can’t say I’ve noticed it lately, but for a time I was seeing a lot of cars blocking sidewalks where they are sloped for wheelchairs. Or cars parked on the sidewalk, that really sticks out this year when the sidewalks are already too narrow for distancing. And cars stopped or parked in bus stops makes it harder to get on and off busses.
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Kate
Here’s a good Le Devoir op-ed on the need for government to truly act on serious rent controls. Alexandre Petitclerc says social housing is needed but it doesn’t solve the housing problem for the many working people who need an affordable place to live, without the nagging worry of being pushed out for profit.
steph
“limites sur l’augmentation des loyers entre deux baux,” ??? The limit is the same regardless of a lease change.
smd
@steph But without a provincial lease registry you’ll never know what the previous rent was. The self-reported tenant data at http://www.monloyer.quebec is a good start but needs to be made mandatory and searchable, much like the yearly average of an address’ Hydro bills.
steph
If you don’t believe what your landlord put on your new lease, take him to the Régie (newly renamed the
Tribunal Administratif du Logement). It should be easy for a landlord to prove how much he was receiving.Kate
steph, who’s going to sign a lease for a rent they can’t afford on the chance that the previous rent was significantly lower? You need access to open information about the previous rent so you can use that to negotiate a fair rent before you sign that new lease.
steph
Don’t ever try to negotiate, the landlord will just choose another candidate. Accept the terms, sign the illegal lease, move in, and take it to to the Régie to sort if needed. The yearly rent increase should be following the calculation guidelines regardless of a change of tenant. Let the landlord prove in front of a Régie judge what the previous rent was and his calculation for the increase.
I’d advise to even pay a deposit when asked (even if they’re illegal). let it be your 2nd months rent. The landlord won’t have a leg to stand on if he tries to take you to the Régie.
It may not put you on the best terms with a landlord, but if your landlord is willing to be bend the rules, so should you.
Michael Black
The Gazette says Ted Wright died Dec 12th. A big tennants rights activist, it’s interesting that his name seems to have surpassed Arnold Bennett. He started with the Housing Hotline, then went off by himself. I also vaguely remember him in the news for photographing something, was it English signs, or graffitti, I can’t remember.
He was only 71, I thought he was older.
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Kate
It wasn’t obvious to me as a news blogger, but stats show that the Montreal fire service dealt with nearly twice as many residential fires in 2020 as they did in 2019. One possible reason is that cooking is the biggest cause of house fires, and more people have been cooking at home this year.
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Kate
Another series: this one by Brendan Kelly on pandemic experiences including an interview with an STM bus driver who feels isolated from her passengers. The directory with other stories is called brendankellyrocks, make of that what you will.
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Kate
24 Heures is doing a series on “lost Montreal” with, so far, a look at the old Montreal library on Sherbrooke Street – seems odd to call the building “une anomalie anachronique” when we have similar buildings functioning as a courthouse and a museum, among others – it’s a classic Greek form based on the Parthenon.
Also in the series is a piece about Plaza St-Hubert back in the days of neon signs – “Time Square”? – and the zoo in Lafontaine Park which existed between 1957 and 1988.
Michael Black
The zoo was interesting because it wasn’t square boxes. A ship, a whale, I can’t remember what else. But the forms were as exciting as the animals, maybe more. I don’t even remember the animals, and I did go again around the time it closed. And probably that concrete not so nice for the animals.
PatrickC
The picture of the whale/aquarium at the Lafontaine Park Zoo brought back memories for me too, but also like Michael Black I have a hard time remembering any animals I saw there. Were there ever any llamas there? I have a fuzzy image of them, if I’m not confusing this zoo with another.
Kate
I have a feeling I was brought there when I was a kid, but my memories are also fuzzy. I don’t think there was anything very large or wild there. I think you could put a coin into a bubblegum machine and get a handful of something like Shreddies to feed to placid animals like goats or deer.
Llamas would’ve been possible, but I doubt there were ever lions, tigers, elephants or bears. I’m surprised they even stretched to having a camel.
CE
I’ve heard that there was some sort of religious component to the zoo. Wasn’t the whale that’s now outside of the chalet part of something to do with the story of Jonah and the whale?
Raymond Lutz
Raah! Conduisant ma fille à Montréal, j’évoquais la semaine dernière le souvenir de ce zoo même en passant devant le parc! Il y avait également tout près un labyrinthe fait de pières… Au Jardin des merveilles, j’ai souvenir d’avoir adoré voir et revoir le court métrage de l’ONF où un petit garçon sculptait un petit canôt (avec un amérindien?) qui dévalait le St‑Laurent…
Kate
Raymond Lutz! Voilà une madeleine de Proust. Le labyrinthe, je l’ai trouvé fascinant, mais vu qu’on habitait dans Verdun à l’époque, on ne visitait pas ce coin de la ville souvent.
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Kate
A mountain of construction debris in Laval has been on fire since Saturday and it’s probably still burning now. A Laval story, but the smoke may be visible from town.
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Kate
There was a suspicious fire overnight in a residential building in St-Michel. Anodyne news story, but what crossed my mind immediately is: why is a residential building (with at least 3 flats in it) standing empty during a housing shortage?
John B
I suspect it’s an AirBnB. There’s a place near me that’s had For Rent signs out for months saying “fully furnished, perfect for student” – I bet they’re trying to fill it at some overpriced level fully furnished until the short-term rental market comes back.
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Kate
We’re now caught up after the Santé Québec hiatus: nearly 6800 new cases in three days, and 110 new deaths.
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Kate
I see from local media that the death of Derek Aucoin has made an impression: not only was Aucoin a pitcher with the Expos, he was also born here.
dwgs 08:33 on 2020-12-30 Permalink
The link has gone 404. Someone near to me has been helping to deal with one of the outbreaks and it has been a shitshow. The last time I looked it hadn’t hit the media yet but it’s been ongoing for a couple of weeks.
Kate 09:50 on 2020-12-30 Permalink
The link is fixed, thanks dwgs.