An SPVM policeman was disarmed then injured during a traffic stop in Park Ex on Thursday afternoon.
Update: The officer is described as seriously injured – TVA says he was shot – and there was an arrest Thursday evening.
Updates from January, 2021 Toggle Comment Threads | Keyboard Shortcuts
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Kate
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Kate
The REM is tweeting a live test on the tracks in Brossard.
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Kate
Apartment vacancies are up, but so are rents. I wonder if there’s any chance that market forces will push rents down, once tenants have more choice.
Kevin
More people moving to the suburbs, more people buying, less people here — Montreal’s budget is going to slammed in a couple of years.
DeWolf
The population of Montreal Island still grew by 2.3% from 2019-2020, Kevin.
https://statistique.quebec.ca/en/fichier/population-regions-administratives-quebec-2020.pdf
Granted, that only includes the first few months of the pandemic. But I would bank on a slow rate of growth for a couple of years rather than actual population loss. Especially when the border reopens and immigration picks up again.
Ephraim
It’s temporary. The students aren’t here… they will return
Chris
Kevin, humans have been urbanizing more and more for centuries; sure there could be small reversals here and there, like due to covid, but I’d wager Montreal and other cities will soon be on the up and up again.
Kate
Immigration also slowed way down in 2020. That too will come back.
Kevin
49,729 Moved to greater Montreal in 19-20.
24,880 Moved out of greater Montreal to the regions during that time frame.
That’s a record high outflow from the region and a net growth for the region of 0.7%. Equivalent to greater Winnipeg.
https://www150.statcan.gc.ca/n1/en/daily-quotidien/210114/dq210114a-eng.pdf?st=La5M824LThe Quebec Stats group points out the city’s net growth is only 5,000
That said, most Montrealers under 35 want to leave the city. https://ici.radio-canada.ca/nouvelle/1743954/montrealais-quittent-metropole-sondage
Yes it defies other global trends but I think it’s pretty clear that a lot of Quebecers dislike Montreal and don’t want to live here.
Chris
There are literally billions of humans living in places much worse off than Montreal, politically, economically, socially. So yeah, immigration will be back too.
Bill Binns
My wife has been working from home since early March. The soonest her company says they could be back in their offices is August. Many of her colleagues never want to go back. Productivity at her company has skyrocketed. People calling off sick is almost unheard of. It seems to be working well for both employees and employer. We think her and many of her colleagues will never go back to 5 days a week at the office. I’m sure similar situations are unfolding everywhere. This could be the start of a fundamental shift away from cities.
Once you don’t have the commute to worry about, it’s hard to make a case for living on top of each other on the island, especially downtown. The few houses for sale in places like Greenfield Park or St Lambert are selling in days. Our Real Estate agents are telling us there is a huge glut of people looking to get off the island.
Kate
Why would anyone leave the city at a time like this? I can get everything I strictly need within a few minutes of my place in Villeray. Given the pandemic circumstances, why would you go somewhere that would make provisioning during a pandemic more onerous and expose you to more people?
I guess the answer is: most people have a car.
Mark Côté
Well, conversely, a lot of the appeal of living in the city isn’t there now, viz easier socialization, restaurants, nightlife, etc., and it’s reasonable (if depressing) to imagine this won’t change much for at least another year. Plus, lots of people are in the city because the jobs are here (the main reason for mass urban migration over the last 200+ years). The city isn’t a healthy environment for everyone; I imagine it’s not uncommon for someone living in a crowded-but-also-dead area of the city to dream of open spaces at the moment.
I don’t think all those people have cars now, but presumably they have licenses (~70% of the total population of Canada has one) and a willingness to purchase a car if necessary.
DeWolf
News stories full of anecdotes of people moving to the suburbs are always kind of funny. If someone is trading an apartment in St-Henri for a detached house on a cul-de-sac in Brossard, that’s a pretty drastic change in lifestyle. Either they’re fundamentalists about being homeowners and willing to sacrifice atmosphere and walkability just to have a mortgage, or they’ve been considering that lifestyle change for awhile, and bars being closed is just an excuse to finally make the jump.
I have my own anecdotes: I know people currently trying to find places in central neighbourhoods and they’re having a very difficult time because there’s a bidding war for every plex or condo they make an offer on. Over the past several months, there have been several buildings and condos on my street that have gone up for sale at eye-watering prices, and they’ve sold within weeks. Property prises rose 20% last year which suggests there is no shortage of people eager to replace those fleeing to the suburbs or the countryside.
And as everyone has already pointed out, it all comes down to immigration. Montreal receives more immigrants than all but a few North American cities, and if it weren’t for them, its population would have been shrinking a long time ago. Same for Toronto, which had an even bigger net outflux of people last year. In both cities, native-born people have been streaming out for decades, but there have always been more than enough immigrants to replace. Once immigration resumes later this year or next year, growth will resume.
Kevin
Home ownership is widely perceived as a necessary step in retirement planning and wealth accrual, even if it’s not actually true. Moving to a place with more space is aspirational — and makes a lot of sense if you only have to go to the office once or twice a week .
Provisioning is also easy because of the rise in order online-curbside pickup. That’s not going to disappear when the pandemic is controlled in 12 months.
Neither will working remotely. Companies are already rethinking their corporate space around essential in-person meetings and having far fewer staff in person. And wait until more companies start hiring more people living in other provinces or countries instead of locals…
That’s going to translate to fewer jobs located in Montreal’s downtown core, and fewer jobs catering to those people.
My only question is how long until the city of Montreal will be fewer than 1/3 francophone. My money is on 2025.
Unless the Bill 101 reform includes tax penalties for companies that have people working remotely…
Joey
Bill says: “Once you don’t have the commute to worry about, it’s hard to make a case for living on top of each other on the island, especially downtown. The few houses for sale in places like Greenfield Park or St Lambert are selling in days. Our Real Estate agents are telling us there is a huge glut of people looking to get off the island.”
Yeah, same story in the Plateau. Our agents are telling us there is a huge glut of people looking to get into Mile-End.
Meezly
A parent in a parenting playgroup moved to Morin Heights in June 2020 – I assume one of many families fleeing to the countryside last year.
She had a prime spot in the middle of 2.5 acres of forest. She would see foxes and their cubs, wolves, turkeys by the dozen and eat wild raspberries every morning. She must have considered herself one of the lucky ones.
Then in November, the forest got razed and now she’s staring at empty land the size of 3 football fields less than 30 m from her front door. There was even dynamiting without notification and town council was closed to the public last spring during the pandemic apparently granting developers permission to do this kind of shit?
Whatever the case, there may be a number of sketchy suburban projects going on in the Laurentians and more. I hope local conservancy groups are keying in on possible unethical development practices.
I just can’t help thinking about the irony of humans fleeing the city to ‘get back to nature’, when it only results in the destruction of said nature to supply a demand for housing in rural areas.
The ‘huge glut of people’ thinking they’re getting away from human blight, only to be confronted by another form of human blight somewhere else.
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Kate
There’s a proposal to preserve the wetlands near the airport as a wildlife sanctuary, but it’s still not a done deal.
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Kate
A study by three UQÀM professors claims the SPVM failed indigenous women, handwaving missing person reports and generally failing to treat their concerns seriously.
Alison Cummins
Is there a difference between “claims” and “finds”?
Kate
Looking for a fight? 🙂
Alison Cummins
No, wondering if you’re hinting that the findings are likely spurious, and if there are things I should know.
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Kate
Covid stories have regularly pulled in two directions all year. Current example: a warning about how ordinary cloth masks may not work so well against the new, more contagious Covid variants, so we might be wise to wear better, more technical masks even outdoors; problems everywhere in getting the vaccines; constantly rising death rates around the world. The sudden rush of hope about colchicine as a Covid treatment at the Montreal Heart Institute has been shot down by researchers elsewhere.
And yet at the same time: pandemic provisions may be lightened in Quebec’s regions and retailers are keen to reopen.
But it’s been like this all year, the voice of caution, as reported in the media – but the same media giving a platform to people who want to throw off the restrictions as soon as possible. Sometimes it’s in the name of making money and keeping businesses moving, other times it’s more solemn, in the cause of keeping young people, old people, any people, from going mental.
qatzelok
In capitalist countries like our own, aren’t *both sides* of any story often about money?
DeWolf
It makes sense to loosen restrictions in many regions. There are only four active cases in the Gaspésie, none in the Côte Nord and no new cases reported. It’s hard to justify keeping people under indefinite lockdown and curfew when the threat isn’t present.
But if that’s the case, I really hope the province imposes restrictions on travelling between regions, similar to what we saw last spring. I wouldn’t put it past some people from the Montreal area to think now is the perfect time to go skiing in the Chic-Chocs…
Kate
DeWolf, exactly. People will do that, if they have a chalet or friends/family to visit in those regions, and bring the virus with them.
DeWolf
To your point about media coverage – I think there needs to be a reckoning about the role news media has played in the pandemic, particularly their influence in shaping public attitudes and public policy. As you’ve pointed out, when you step back and look at the overall scope of news about Covid, it’s completely incoherent. There’s a grab bag of stories that don’t make any sense together.
Part of the problem is sensationalism, which distorts reality in order to gain clicks and eyeballs. This has been a perennial problem in health journalism, where a single study with a limited scope is reported as the incontrovertible truth, with no focus on the limitations of that study. Another problem is the scientific illiteracy of most journalists. Then there’s the “both sides” fallacy that is still pervasive among reporters. And finally, there’s a bias towards bad news – “if it bleeds it leads.”
You can see all of this at play in vaccine coverage. We get sensational stories about the deaths in Norway or the vaccine data from Israel, both of which misrepresent the actual situation (the deaths may not be linked to the vaccine; 33% effectiveness was good news but portrayed as a failure). We get speculative, exceedingly dour analysis of the impact of vaccines, with stories reminding everyone that vaccines may not stop transmission. We get stories that make it seem like public health measures and the economy are diametrically opposed (“both sides!”). And we get politics coverage that lets politicians get away with falsehoods (like Erin O’Toole’s “last in line for the vaccine!”) because whatever they say is reported at face value.
These are all deep-rooted problems with journalism that have been around for awhile, but in a pandemic their impact is all too tangible. Inaccurate and sensational vaccine coverage increases vaccine hesitancy, for instance, which costs lives. Stories that pit health against the economy as if they are opposing sides of an argument can lead governments to make very bad policy decisions.
I’m not sure what the solution is, but it needs to start with a discussion. Unfortunately, many journalists are in stubborn denial that there is a problem or that anything can be done about it.
Alison Cummins
DeWolf,
I think dedicated science journalists with a science and research background are a large part of the solution. The question as always is, who is going to pay them?
Another part is teaching statistics and probability from primary school onwards. Probability is nonintuitive and understanding needs to be built up. Even establishing a common language: I make a clear difference between “most” and “almost all” but I can’t always count on the person I’m talking with making the same distinction.
I’d like to see “enlightened self-interest” make a comeback as a concept, but as long as churches are a primary driver of public discourse in the US with the accompanying unhelpful vocabulary of good and evil, I don’t see that happening. Once the US Supreme Court is stacked with secularist judges who decide that government staying out of religion means not recognizing religion at all and treating churches like businesses, we might be able to get somewhere.
If enlightened self-interest becomes a normal principle, we can make some headway with the idea of public health as a common good.
Right now governments often try to treat health as a private issue, especially in the US but also here. If health is all about personal decisions, what does public health even mean?
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Wasn’t the common good a useful idea 50–100 years ago, when unions were strong? And often associated with godless communists? I wonder if meaningful discourse around public health is only possible with strong manufacturing and unions, or monarchs who take a personal interest in the well-being of their subjects.
Tee Owe
DeWolf and Alison – you make good points – I want to comment on one theme, which is the role of science journalism, which includes science publishing – unfortunately science publishing companies profit motive is as base as any mass media – the tendency towards clickbait and ‘impact’ is no different for scientific journals as for newspapers, I wish it were otherwise, but not. This puts many well-motivated scientists and scientific commentators into a dilemma, they want and need to publish their findings and opinions but have to do so via commercial outlets that are not always so purely motivated. Just making a point that needs to be considered along with all the other very good points that you are making.
Kevin
I’ve been arguing for decades that people who are unable to balance a chequebook are not qualified to write health or medical articles.
I also argued for almost as long that most people are not qualified to make decisions about their own health care because they just don’t have enough basic information about how their body works.
JaneyB
The news coverage of covid has been a big part of the anti-masking groups and general confusion that many seem to feel. Simple informational coverage has been bad – the CBC frequently forgets that Toronto is not the whole country so many of their national stories get the local facts and measures completely wrong. I’ve written a complaint to them about this. Most importantly though is just the fact that most of the media these days is basically reflections on the lockdown experience or interviews / call-in shows asking people how they feel under covid. Why ask? We know it’s shitty and will be for some months yet. Asking people makes them agitated. Why can’t journalists cover something else instead? As far as I can see, media outlets everywhere have been profoundly lazy, half-assed or plain wrong since March. This makes me wonder newly about their competence in normal times.
Kate
DeWolf, that comment of yours should be expanded into a serious op-ed. Good work.
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Kate
Although there had been grumbling from some in the CAQ about the unwisdom of widening access to English-language education, Dawson College is to go from 7075 students to 7800 – even though, according to this piece, it has had as many as 7900 students enrolled at times over the last ten years. Dawson now has its eye on a possible cohort of 9000 students in the future.
The language grumbling appears in the coda, where the Mouvement Québec français gets its oar in.
Kevin
Are they the Judean People’s Front or the People’s Front of Judea?
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Kate
Was wondering, are our eternally open bagel shops now closing overnight? Or do they keep baking, but shut their doors to customers?
CE
I once heard that one of the shops, Fairmount I think, doesn’t even have locks on their doors.
DeWolf
St-Viateur started closing at midnight last April. I was rarely out late even during the summer but I definitely remember trying to get late-night bagels a couple of times and both locations were empty. But Fairmount says they are still working around the clock and they offer post-curfew delivery.
CanIRemainAnonForThisOne? 21:11 on 2021-01-28 Permalink
Finally some good news
dhomas 07:40 on 2021-01-29 Permalink
I don’t see it as good news. If it’s bad for cops to be violent towards citizens, why would it be good for people to be violent towards cops? Isn’t violence the enemy here? Also, violence breeds violence. Cops might become more violent in the wake of such an event.
Chris 09:55 on 2021-01-29 Permalink
Stop being so logical dhomas. Don’t ya know: cops are subhuman and the enemy! For some, “defund” the police is thinly veiled code for “Eliminate”, with a capital E, if you get my meaning.
Ephraim 16:05 on 2021-01-29 Permalink
There are good cops and valuable services that they provide. We can’t paint everyone with the same brush. Of course, a body cam might have also been a positive move in this kind of situation. People tend to not assault cops with body cams, because they know that there will be evidence against them. The same body cams that the bad cops don’t want around..
Kate 17:26 on 2021-01-29 Permalink
I’m seeing suggestions there may be reasons for this particular cop to be unpopular in the area, but I hesitate to say more.
dhomas 22:05 on 2021-01-29 Permalink
I don’t see him named in any of the stories. Only the suspect is named. Do we even know who the police officer is?
Kate 18:50 on 2021-01-30 Permalink
I have a later post with a link naming the suspect but I haven’t seen the police officer named anywhere.
Paul Berevoescu 20:51 on 2021-04-23 Permalink
Cops are subhuman psychopaths abd so is eveyone who supports them. We will kill you if you oppose us