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The prospect of running the Canadian Grand Prix with no spectators, or a very limited number, has inspired promoter François Dumontier to demand $6 million – “une subvention supplémentaire” – to make up for lost ticket revenue. While emphasizing she wants to keep the Grand Prix in the city, Valérie Plante says she needs to be careful with public funds.
If the Grand Prix is lost on Plante’s watch, Denis Coderre will be cracking out the champagne.
A 74-year-old pedestrian walking through a parking lot near Decarie Square on Sunday evening was knocked down and badly hurt as a driver pulled out of his spot. We are assured that the 26‑year‑old driver was not injured.
is the car ok?
CTV says there’s a large gathering at the Old Port Sunday evening in violation of curfew. I don’t know of a webcam right in the port, but there are a lot of cop cars clustered at the corner of Berri and St‑Antoine as I post – the closest city webcam on the map. Radio-Canada has the story now too. Video on Twitter from Giuseppe Valiante.
Update: There are reports of people breaking windows and setting fires around Old Montreal.
Another update: Seven arrests were made and more than 100 tickets given out.
Basically they’re saying “We want a Covid Zero policy”. I don’t see the downside besides a few hard weeks of isolation, but if it’s well explained that the benefits outweight the costs, surely everyone will agree that it’s the best plan. Imagine the government could tell restaurant owners “You’ll be able to open in 6 weeks” – how many votes would that garner?
Kate, if you ever want live cam, the city itself has many!
Sorry, was going to add… but suspiciously they are all OFF
Thanks, Mr. Chinaski. The camera I linked to is from that map, but since they’re traffic cams, there aren’t any along de la Commune, which isn’t a big traffic route, or any pointed towards the Old Port. The Berri and St‑Antoine cam was the closest I could get.
There used to be one or two touristy webcams in the port area, but they’ve been gone for a long time.
I wonder if a former Gazette writer is now working at CNN. Their article describing the protest as “mostly peaceful” at the top and very briefly mentioning the arson and smashed windows at the bottom was straight out of the summer of 2012.
That’s how these events tend to go, Bill Binns. Even hockey riots. Most of the crowd will be well intentioned, if excited. Then a small number of casseurs show up and break shit so that the riot cops have an excuse to move in.
Whether these people, or some of them, are agents provocateurs, is always under debate. In a few cases they’ve been proven to be exactly that. But I’m not saying they always are: mob action is bound to have an inflammatory effect on the nervous systems of some twitchy people.
If I’m Montreal police, I’m looking at the people they rounded up in the Old Port Saturday morning and seeing where they were Sunday night.
@Kate – Maybe, but given that criteria, every protest and most outright riots are “mostly peaceful”. The Tiki torch thing in Charlottesville was mostly peaceful. There was only one arrest. The incursion at the US Capitol was mostly peaceful as only a relative few people in that crowd committed any crime more serious than simple trespassing.
Every person in an illegal assembly has to own their part of any violence that occurs since the crowd serves as cover for those “bad apples” or whatever you want to call them.
Bill Binns, using that argument you could outlaw all protest because of the risk that the bad apples might cause damage.
We’ve had many big protests here that didn’t descend to destruction. Most of the 2012 actions were not like that – I went to several, and some of the biggest ones went off with no damage. Several big environmental protests since that time have remained entirely peaceful. The massive demo against the Iraq war in 2002 never turned to any breakage – I was there for that one.
This Instagram video shows several bicycle police taking down a man in Jeanne-Mance park with extreme force. CultMTL says right-wing media are claiming the arrest was because the man was flouting lockdown measures, but the Gazette item says police have not spoken up yet on the incident, and CultMTL quotes a witness saying it apparently had nothing to do with breaking pandemic rules.
Update: More description from the CTV version.
Projet is willing to discuss disarming some police, but you can see in this video, if five guys dogpile on one, they don’t need to be armed.
Doing my taxes, I find myself wondering how much cash Quebec gets by taxing federal benefits.
I remember a story from earlier in the pandemic about the governments of Saskatchewan clawing back provincial support payments based increases to individuals’ incomes as a result of CERB payments. It struck me as pretty rich for the provincial government to be effectively confiscating federal support meant to help individuals.
Nobody should be taken by surprise by this. It was always part of the plan from the earliest discussions on CERB. They remind you again in a big bold font each time you sign up.
A fire on Sunday morning in an HLM run for seniors in Côte-Saint-Paul left one resident dead and sent others to hospital.
Patrick Lagacé does some head-clutching about the real estate market.
I spoke to the head of Angus Reid last week about a recent poll.
About 28% of Montrealers (similar figures in Toronto, Vancouver, Halifax) are hoping for a crash in housing prices – a drop of 30%.
Is it possible? Yes. I know people who bought in the US in 2007 and when they sold in 2017, didn’t break even.
When BCE is paying a dividend of 6% and banks are charging 1.33% for a mortgage….I doubt we are in for a crash. A crash will happen only in rates go down. They changed the requirements for a mortgage last week, it should cool the market slightly. But there is a heck of a lot of FOMO at the moment.
Then again, there are idiots who are actually leaving money in bank accounts at 0.1% interest. Loan the bank $1000 for a year and get $1.
I’m definitely hoping for a correction. Your house suddenly being worth a zillion dollars is nothing to celebrate if it’s going to cost 1.5 zillion to buy the next one. The tantalizing option is to gamble that maybe working from home will be permanent or 1 day a week or something and go buy a country estate in St Lazar or in the Townships with the proceeds from selling my 1200 sq ft row house.
A infectious disease specialist at the Jewish says Montreal needs to impose a proper lockdown now to avoid a higher third wave of Covid. Aaron Derfel’s analysis this weekend.
Valérie Plante says Projet needs a second term to bring about the metropolis on a human scale that’s her party’s ideal.
Ha! At the rate they’ve been going, they’ll need 10 more mandates. 🙁
Perhaps. On the other hand, maybe having 2 years of her term lost to Covid is a good enough story, something like “it prevented us from doing all the things we wanted to do in our first term”.
I wonder whether they have a bunch of visible changes lined up for their last year in office, I think Coderre did that. But it didn´t work.
La Presse’s Mayssa Ferah talks to three SPVM officers from atypical cultural backgrounds about their reasons for joining the force, and how a more diverse police force will be less alienated from cultural enclaves in the city.
QMI talks to a woman just completing her EMT training, who explains how practices evolved in response to Covid even as she was studying.
It was noticed everywhere Saturday that parks were packed with people all day and into the last evening without an 8 p.m. curfew.
Police broke up an illegal social gathering on a boat in the Old Port on Saturday. There are videos around showing the angry response of some of the participants, but they belong to a right‑wing media group I’d rather not attract by naming them. The videos are making the rounds.
A man was critically injured in a fight in the Village Saturday evening after curfew.
In a separate incident, a man was stabbed on Mount Royal Saturday evening.
steph 06:38 on 2021-04-12 Permalink
Ecclestone convinces us to pour millions of tax dollars into Grand Prix because the tourists turn Montreal a profit. Without those spectators this is a waste of money.
COVID travel limitations are EVERYWHERE in the world. I don’t see how Ecclestone has a leg to stand on. Who decided these sports need to limit the number of cities/teams? If Timbuktu wants to offer Ecclestone billions of dollars to host, why would he say no? Why would Timbuktu mean ‘no Montreal’? – They’re in Montreal because it’s profitable. Let Ecclestone take his blackmaill elsewhere, I’m sick of it.
Festivals are canceled again this summer – we get it.
Sprocket 08:19 on 2021-04-12 Permalink
I suppose it depends on what is in the contract.
mare 09:22 on 2021-04-12 Permalink
There are tons of US cities that are eying this North-American Grand Prix. And with their 60% vaccinated population in June (estimate) some politicians might be crazy enough to do it *with* spectators which will vastly improve the atmosphere and increase ad revenue. The timeframe to organize an event like that is very short though.
Kate 10:15 on 2021-04-12 Permalink
As steph says, there’s nothing in it for the city if it has to pay for the race but no tourists can come, but there may be some hope that by holding a race this year we can persuade them to come back next year. It’s kind of like propitiating an angry and capricious god.
Uatu 10:22 on 2021-04-12 Permalink
Hahaha like a pagan ritual where we burn a giant Wicker man filled with cash in the hopes we’re blessed with a bigger harvest of cash next racing season
Bill Binns 10:48 on 2021-04-12 Permalink
I’m a big believer in the Grand Prix and think the money the city spends on it is generally well spent. However, the last thing we need is tourists showing up from every corner of the globe this summer. They will come even if it’s impossible to attend the race. I’m sure of it.
Tell Bernie to suck it for another year. If he had a better deal waiting in the wings, he would have taken it already. If he’s not bluffing, oh well. Montreal has no problem putting together mega events in the summer. From what I have heard, the F1 teams themselves are big boosters of the Montreal event. Maybe that will help.
MattG 12:04 on 2021-04-12 Permalink
“A spokesperson for the City of Montreal said the city is ready and willing to hate the event.”
Heheheeheh
Kate 12:05 on 2021-04-12 Permalink
MattG, where’s that typo?
MattG 12:11 on 2021-04-12 Permalink
Well, it’s been fixed to aid, not hate.
“A spokesperson for the City of Montreal said the city is ready and willing to aid the event.”
Jim Strankinga 12:30 on 2021-04-12 Permalink
Bernie has zero influence anymore. Liberty Media calls the shots. I’m a big fan, and hope it returns to our beautiful circuit this summer, but at the same time I understand that there are more important things in the world and covid may ruin it all.
MarcG 12:34 on 2021-04-12 Permalink
People on a sinking ship entertaining themselves by pouring buckets of water over their heads.