Following the death of a cyclist Monday at Park and Mont‑Royal, both major municipal parties are promising improvements at what’s always been a tricky intersection. Denis Coderre’s solution, of adding a roundabout at that spot, seems notably outré even for him.
Updates from September, 2021 Toggle Comment Threads | Keyboard Shortcuts
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Kate
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Kate
A hot shot real estate guy, whose name you’ve probably seen on signs outside posh houses – including the premier’s house in Outremont – was fined $20,000 for letting someone else take mandatory real estate training for him.
To be honest, I had no idea you had so much formal training to take for this job. I thought all you needed was a plausible manner and plenty of greed.
Blork
That fine is a fraction of his commission from the Legault sale, plus look at all the free publicity he’s getting.
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Kate
A respiratory virus that isn’t Covid is rife among young children in Montreal. There is no vaccine yet against respiratory syncytial virus.
The city has put up a new phone line so parents can get a medical appointment for their kid rather than taking them to the ER.
MarcG
I’m really not a fan of this future we find ourselves in
Ephraim
From the reports, vaccination for kids 5 and up should start in November with 1/3rd of a dose.
The thing is, if we know that the largest group at the moment are kids 10 and under (likely 12 and under), then WHY are they at in-person school? Or am I the only one that doesn’t think that sending them to schools with poor or no ventilation is questionable?DeWolf
Kids are back in school because the risk of long-term harm due to Covid is lower than the risk of long-harm due to having missed two years of education and socialization. Online learning is pretty much useless for young kids. That’s why most pediatricians have been advocates of in-person schooling throughout the pandemic.
Mark Côté
Another reason is that France has been very adamant about kids needing to attend school in person. As I think was remarked here once, if a Quebec policy seems out of place, look to France to see what they’re doing.
Kate
if a Quebec policy seems out of place, look to France to see what they’re doing.
It is so true. I don’t remember who said it here but it’s a tendency I’ve been noticing for years.
Ephraim
The reality is that the government should have insured proper ventilation, but that wasn’t done. So we are sending kids to school to get sick. The problem isn’t the need to educate kids, the problem is the government that didn’t ensure a safe place for kids to go.
Same idea as with Chicken Pox… which explains why we have a whole generation dealing with shingles. We just don’t know the long term effects of Covid.
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Kate
Starting Tuesday, performance artist Victor Pilon will shovel the equivalent of 300 tons of sand from one side of the East Hall at the Olympic Stadium to the other. It will take one month.
I have questions. Is this Pilon’s way of getting arts funding for a program of getting into shape? Could Pilon be putting his physical efforts to more practical use, e.g. helping with a harvest somewhere outside town, or working as a hospital orderly?
DeWolf
But that wouldn’t be art. You might as well ask what’s the point of painting or sculpting when you could use that energy to go work in a factory.
dwgs
Perhaps he could single handedly build a retractable roof as his next project.
Kevin
He’s calling it an ode to suffering, and says he is still suffering after his husband died in a car crash four years ago. https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/montreal/students-colleagues-mourn-john-abbott-professor-sylvain-duguay-1.3971253
Kate
DeWolf, painting and sculpting at least creates an artifact we can look at.
Meezly
Art, esp. performance art, can be ephemeral. Having no physical artifact can make it more precious, even memorable. It can also be a f**k you to the commodification of the arts-industrial complex.
jeather
I’m not against performance art — some of it can be really exceptional. I am a big fan of this new one.
Kate
Ah well, I guess I’m a bit of a philistine in this area. Maybe as a graphic designer, who has to create concrete and effective work to order, I have misgivings about art which just sort of hangs in the air as an idea and doesn’t leave us with an artifact.
JS
Kate’s right you guys. All those musicians and dancers are wasting their time performing their art in public instead of changing diapers or picking fruit.
dhomas
@JS Music and dance can be recorded to be appreciated later, so it’s not really a fair comparison. I suppose they can film this artist shoveling sand, but I don’t know that anyone will want to watch that.
Also, I find your comment’s sarcastic tone was a little disrespectful.Kate
Thank you, dhomas.
JS, you’re quite right to reprimand me. Thank you also.
Jeff
It reminds me of that one artist who stood in public and said “you can do anything you want to me” and people did all kinds of stuff to her. I think it’s like abstract art, where the art is in the provocation of feeling and thought, like, what would people do to her? What would I do? What does she think will happen? And with this digging guy, it raises questions like “is this really more pointless than my job?”, and in my case, I don’t think so. Also, I somewhat enjoy digging dirt. I find it therapeutic, so theres that aspect of it too. Maybe it’s a meditation. I can dig it
JS
(I jest in light ribbing; no harm intended)
Kate
Jeff, that would be Marina Abramovic.
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Kate
A man was shot as he walked along a posh residential street in TMR early Tuesday, drove himself to hospital, and is not talking to police.
TVA also reports that shots were fired at a car dealership on Decarie overnight. Cops don’t know whether these two incidents have any connection except they both happened in TMR.
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Kate
A cyclist is in critical condition after getting hit by a truck at Park and Mont-Royal on Monday afternoon. The driver is said to have fled, but police caught up with him in Outremont.
Update: The truck driver will be charged Tuesday, but the item doesn’t list the charges.
Chris
Seems she has died. 🙁
Will the motorist be charged with anything? Hopefully there will be follow-up in the media.
Kate
Bad news, but thank you. I suppose it’s possible, if it was a heavy enough truck, the driver could claim he never felt a thing.
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Kate
The STM is being reprimanded by the Inspector General for accepting ballooning costs on three of its contracts, and not even ones directly concerning transit – two are for office equipment and one (a rather minor one, relatively) for publicity. I would imagine the STM can defend itself for spending a bit more to communicate pandemic measures to clients.
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Kate
The city firefighters have come out in support of Valérie Plante.
DeWolf
Hopefully this is a sign that people haven’t forgotten how much Coderre slashed public services during his term, all while lavishing public money on corporate buddies like Evenko.
Kevin
I think it’s got more to do with the provincially-imposed pension fund changes and firefighters storming into city hall.
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Kate
Since the pandemic, the numbers of homeless are rising, most particularly First Nations and Inuit people, an observation made by a woman who has gone from being a homeless person to working with the homeless herself.
September 30 has been declared the National Day for Truth and Reconciliation, with a commemorative march planned.
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Kate
A Toronto Star writer goes off on Montreal and Tampa Bay sharing a baseball team as a terrible idea: “it was cockamamie when it was first proposed and it’s cockamamie today.”
Mitchell
I love that word, cockamamie. Such a treasure.
Mitchell
And such an interesting history: https://www.vocabulary.com/articles/wordroutes/a-far-fetched-etymology-that-seems-a-little-cockamamie/
Kate
That’s great, Mitchell, thank you!
Kevin
Anyone who doesn’t think it’s a scam should visit the Videotron Centre.
You can park right by the front door 24/7, 365+.
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Kate
Angrignon Park is going to be spiffed up, and with a light hand, at least. More trees and bushes will be added and it sounds like they’re not planning to include new any features that would take away from the green space.
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Kate
The Gazette has a Marian Scott piece talking to various people weighing the issues in the mayoral race.
Both Plante and Coderre are promising to start a lease register in an effort to limit rental increases.
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Kate
Here’s an odd Mario Girard piece which comes to a tortured conclusion. Because the EMSB tweaked the dragon’s tail recently by stating that Quebec is not a nation (a radical idea it later withdrew), Girard suggests this bad attitude is why the EMSB doesn’t want to have a new school building constructed on the grounds of Dunrae Gardens, one of its schools in TMR.
“Les francophones sont maintenant majoritaires [in TMR]. Les anglophones doivent aujourd’hui se tourner vers des institutions comme les commissions scolaires pour faire valoir leurs droits.”
He even goes on to suggest that the students are likely to clash because of linguistic stresses.
And yet he entirely ignores the simple, Occam-like reason why the EMSB doesn’t want the new school built on its land: it doesn’t want to give up its playing fields. You can see on Google maps that putting a second school building on that land means neither school would have space around it. The EMSB’s resistance to this plan needn’t have anything to do with anglo rights.
Also note the accompanying La Presse photo which totally distorts the proportion of the lot where the existing school stands.
Kevin
I know it’s been a long pandemic, but two years ago the Education Minister took several schools away from the English board and gave them to a French board. (General Vanier and John Paul I)
I’m beginning to think that Mario Girard is just not very good with details.
Jack
Mario Girard is bad at being a columnist.
Kate
Kevin, I assume that Dunrae Gardens could simply be taken away from the EMSB and given to the French-language
boardservice centre. They might as well get on with it.
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Kate
The Gazette has published an excerpt of Linda Gyulai’s piece in Montréal: A Citizen’s Guide to City Politics on how power is used, misused and limited at Montreal city hall.
I bet this is the first time they’ve ever published anything from Black Rose Books.
I’ve got a copy of the ebook myself, but I wish I didn’t find it such an irritant that they write “Montréal” throughout even though it’s the English version.
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Kate
Nice work by La Presse’s Vincent Larouche reveals how a piece of land in Montérégie, once used by the federal government as a shooting range but since sold off, has been divided up among Montreal mobsters, among them Raynald Desjardins and various connections of the Rizzutos. These folks are also construction magnates, and they want to build up the land – but some local folks don’t want to see it despoiled.
Orr
I think that this land is *just outside* the ex-shooting range property.
The shooting range land is hoped to be added to parc national de Mont Saint Bruno and these people want to profit by selling deluxe-land on its doorstep.
“…le partage des terres agricoles situées stratégiquement en bordure d’un immense terrain vacant…” and the “terrain vacant” is the shooting range land.
AFAIK, the shooting range land has *not* been sold off.
Blork 21:54 on 2021-09-28 Permalink
Oh FFS. That will take a tricky intersection and turn it into a chaotic intersection. And make it completely impassible for bicycles!
Kate 21:56 on 2021-09-28 Permalink
See comments below about another Coderre story from today, Blork.
DeWolf 08:58 on 2021-09-29 Permalink
La Presse has an article today in which Coderre says this is all Valérie Plante’s fault, that everything has gotten worse over the past four years, and when Projet was in opposition they were super mean to him about cyclist safety. Then the article neatly contradicts him by pointing out that cyclist deaths were much higher when he was in office, and even higher before that.
https://www.lapresse.ca/actualites/justice-et-faits-divers/2021-09-29/cycliste-tue-par-un-camionneur-a-montreal/c-etait-previsible-et-c-etait-evitable.php
// Selon le candidat à la mairie de Montréal Denis Coderre, la situation a empiré depuis 2017. « Malheureusement, dans les quatre dernières années, il y a encore plus de décès [chez les] cyclistes notamment », a-t-il dit mardi, en décochant une flèche sentie à l’endroit de Valérie Plante. Peu après, M. Coderre a d’ailleurs affirmé que l’« opposition de l’époque qui aujourd’hui est à l’administration [le] traitait de tous les noms et ils n’ont rien fait eux autres non plus ».
Les chiffres montrent pourtant le contraire. Depuis que Valérie Plante est mairesse, 7 cyclistes sont morts sur les routes de la métropole, contre 11 sous Denis Coderre. Dans les quatre années précédentes, soit de 2010 à 2013, on en avait recensé 19. //
Coderre is a liar and an egomaniac. You can’t trust anything that comes out of his mouth.
Jeff 10:21 on 2021-09-29 Permalink
I was biking around the other day, and I feel like on his campaign posters in french neighbourhoods, he has a big beard and moustache, but in other neighbourhoods, he is clean shaven. This guy is BS.
j-elventybillionandone 17:41 on 2021-09-29 Permalink
@Jeff that’s interesting. Is there a reason why beard + moustache would connect more with francophones and clean-shaven with anglo / allophones? He certainly has been clean-shaven in all of his public appearances.
dhomas 02:45 on 2021-09-30 Permalink
I live in a pretty francophone area and I’ve only ever seen clean shaven Coderre.
Kate 09:13 on 2021-09-30 Permalink
Yes, same here. In fact, I can’t say I’ve ever seen Coderre with a beard.
MarcG 14:35 on 2021-09-30 Permalink
Maybe it was very well executed graffiti?
david82 03:34 on 2021-10-01 Permalink
If they really wanted to sort out that Parc/Mount Royal intersection, they’d buy up that service station and turn it into a tower. Get rid of that type of traffic and you’re getting rid of like 2/3 of the dangerous pedestrian/automobile interactions.