Here’s the best explanation I’ve seen about why boroughs differ in number and type of councillors they have.
Updates from October, 2021 Toggle Comment Threads | Keyboard Shortcuts
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Kate
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Kate
Although a recent news item said the white collar workers at city hall had signed a contract, there are other unions not under that umbrella, such as the city’s architects, who are on the brink of a strike.
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Kate
Projet Montréal has unveiled its election platform which includes 250 promises, the major ones being listed here. There will be more on this.
Ephraim
Bicycles for the handicapped? Seriously, they keep on removing handicapped parking. Now they expect them to use a bicycle to go into town? I can just see 80 year olds with walkers and people with heart and back problems, having trouble with balance all RUNNING for a bicycle. Seriously…. they need their parking back and loading zones for transport adapté.
Kate
Ephraim, TALK to them. Email your councillors, email your borough mayor, tell them what you think and why it matters.
Voting is not enough. If you see something that’s not working right, you need to speak up.
John B
There are bikes, or more accurately trikes, suitable for people with some handicaps, and that can carry a wheelchair while a more able person pedals and steers, combined with electric assist these, theoretically these should be able to replace cars for a lot of trips, even for people who are less physically able.
But they’re useless if there isn’t a universally-accessible cycle path and parking network, including somewhere to park at home. Someone with balance issues might be willing to try biking, (or trike-ing), on a bike path, but it’s not going to happen when the “bike path” is 20″ of gutter at the side of the road where falling means being run over by a car.
And honestly, turning most parking spots into handicapped parking, bike/trike parking, and loading zones would make the city much more pleasant.
Basically, its great to encourage cycling, but even as an able-bodied cyclist who is fairly comfortable in traffic I feel like we’re getting a bunch of half-measures.
Ephraim
What handicapped people need in this city is more accessibility. And that means, more parking spots, more loading zones for transport adapaté. And the loading zones are key, when you need to get in and out of transport adapté. And while meter ticket people are told to be non-confrontational and not write tickets if someone is in the car… if it’s a handicapped spot, they should take a picture of the back of the car, plate, colour and make/model. And walk to the front to see if they have a handicapped mirror hanger. And to avoid confrontation, they shouldn’t need to hand them to ticket or interact. They should just write the ticket, attach the proof (time stamped) and have it mailed to the owner. Enough people get a ticket for “waiting” illegally in handicapped spots and people will soon stop. Maybe the handicapped spots parking signs should be “No stopping except handicapped permit”.
It’s like the problem with the bike sign. The city claims that there is no official Quebec sign for NO BIKE RIDING, only a sign for WALK YOUR BIKE. And so, we get those green walk your bike signs.
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Kate
CBC’s Laura Marchand looks at the city incumbents refusing to run again this year who cite abuse from social media as the main reason they’re unwilling to remain in the game. All public figures get abuse, but politicians who are also visible minorities suffer from it in double measures.
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Kate
Excellent piece in L’actualité on the deepening fracture between Montreal and the rest of Quebec. An interview with Régis Labeaume, retiring as mayor of Quebec City, is at the heart of this piece: Labeaume is blunt in saying that immigration is a major reason Montreal is so different from the rest of Quebec, but that Quebec needs immigrants to keep its economy moving.
Lots of interesting stuff here. “Des participants issus de communautés ethniques ont affirmé se définir surtout comme des Montréalais, car ils ne se sentaient pas autorisés à se dire Québécois.” Me too, buddy. Me too.
DeWolf
Another interesting point in the article: people from the regions are less exclusive in their conception of who is Québécois than people in the outer ring suburbs of Montreal.
// Les habitants de la banlieue de Montréal sont plus nombreux que ceux des régions à exclure du « nous » québécois les personnes issues de la diversité et à croire que celle-ci constitue une menace à leur identité, montrent des études publiées en 2014 et en 2021. « Des gens dans nos groupes de discussion, et particulièrement ceux de la Rive-Nord, disaient se sentir “envahis” par les nouveaux arrivants quand ils vont faire un tour en ville », explique Luc Turgeon. //
It is remarkable just how homogenous some suburbs of Montreal are, while others like Brossard, Laval, etc. are now just as diverse as the city itself. Sometimes I think “the regions” are unfairly demonized because the true heartland of the reactionary, conservative, CAQ-style nationalism is suburban Montreal.
Kevin
@DeWolf
Someone needs to remake All in the Family and base it in Laval, and it would be just as relevant today as a show made in the 1970s.Poutine Pundit
@DeWolf: That is surprising! I would’ve thought suburban Quebec City was bad as well, based on my own experience growing up there, but I looked at Turgeon’s study and it lists some of the politically conservative northern suburban ridings (Vanier-Les Rivieres, Charlesbourg) as the places most OPEN to immigration. Conversely, the Terrebonne-Mascouche-Repentigny area seems to feel the most threatened by immigrants.
Clément
@DeWolf: 2 Québec Solidaire MNA’s in Quebec City. 0 in the 450.
Blork
I wonder if there isn’t a paradox at work in these situations. For example, take a chunk of “region” somewhere, where there is hardly any diversity, and you might find people are more open to “others” because they hardly ever see them, and as such, they don’t feel “threatened” by them (I mean threatened in terms of identity). They probably welcome that one family from India, or that new doctor from Africa, etc., because it adds a touch of color to their otherwise very white community, and therefore makes them feel very urban.
Contrast that with a suburb like Laval, that has changed dramatically in the past 30 years, going from overwhelmingly white to very diverse. That diversity feels like a threat (to identity) to some of those long-standing Laval people, who see all this change and aren’t quite sure what to make of it. So they dig in their heels and push back against it.
I suspect the same thing would happen to that random “region” town if they suddenly had an influx of immigrants from Asia, Caribbean, Africa, etc. (as opposed to just a few glimmering ones).
Jack
« C’est gros, ce que je vais dire : il y a une crainte d’être contaminé. Ça prendrait un psychologue pour analyser ça, mais je pense que les Québécois se sont longtemps sentis ostracisés, et maintenant ils transfèrent le problème sur les minorités. » Lebaulme
I’ve argued this before, but the cultural and educational inculcation of this “trail of tears” historic narrative to describe Quebec’s past, is partly to blame.
If you are told that you are perpetually under attack and have been victimized ( Quebec bashing, take a bow) and that strong leaders will defend you. How are you expected to welcome diversity.
Look at someone like Leo Major:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/L%C3%A9o_Major
In any other place we would name a mountain,school or street after him. Here Dollard, Delormier, Papineau, Levesque etc. function better for that narrative.Blork
Well, bear in mind that people like Dollard, Delormier, Papineau, Levesque, etc. all did things FOR THE GLORY OF QUEBEC! whereas Leo Major just did something kickass that had nothing to do with Quebec.
Quebec doesn’t beatify its (secular!) saints because they they were awesome; they only beatify people who do things FOR THE GLORY OF QUEBEC!
Sidenote: Longueuil recently renamed a podunk patch of grass that faintly resembles a park as “Parc Léo-Major. Conveniently, it already had some WWII military hardware parked on it. https://goo.gl/maps/GSPW2rpkR6EwgKg67
Uatu
What people say is different than what they actually do. Sure they’d say on a survey that they’d accept new minorities, but let’s see what they say when my “tan” relatives and I walk down the street loudly talking in our foreign ethnic speak….
Tee Owe
The Montreal-Quebec divide mirrors the New York- USA, London-England, Berlin-Germany etc divides. There’s also a Toronto-Ontario divide – it comes with being a metropolis.
Tee Owe
Before you all pile on – of course there are Quebec-unique aspects , but then there are local-specific aspects for all of the others too. Big City vs the provinces happens everywhere.
Robert H
Alors, Tee Owe, c’est dans l’article lui-même:
“…les différences de mentalité entre les urbains et les ruraux est « un phénomène sociologique de base » qui s’observe un peu partout en Occident — pas uniquement au Québec.”
Donc, c’est l’édition locale à la saveur québécoise d’un phénomène mondial. Il est frappant de constater à quel point les plaintes sont similaires : le ROC envers le Québec, le ROQ envers Montréal. En réalité, ces clivages se retrouvent ailleurs dans le monde. On entend dire que les Britanniques ont abandonné Londres aux étrangers, que les Français ont fui Paris et que l’État de New York déteste la ville de New York.
Et les banlieues? J’ai toujours pensé que leur attrait pour certains ne se limitait pas aux logements bon marché et aux espaces verts. «White Flight» s’en vient au Québec.
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Kate
François Amalega Bitondo, one of our more high-profile Covid protesters, was found guilty Tuesday of breaking sanitary laws by repeatedly entering a store without a mask. He was arrested last week because he wouldn’t wear a mask in court, but this latest piece doesn’t say how that was resolved.
Ephraim
The sentence was WRONG. They should have sentenced him to 100 hours of community work in a hospital COVID unit. There, he could choose to do it with or without a mask.
H. John
Paul Cherry’s article on Oct 01 for The Gazette explained:
“When Amalega Bitondo refused to wear a mask for his trial on Tuesday, he was arrested and the municipal court spent the following two days sorting out how to deal with his stance.
On Friday, he was allowed to sit in the same courtroom, without a mask, as long as he respected social distancing measures. They were easy to follow because his movements were limited to a tiny prisoner’s dock.”
Kate
Thank you, H. John.
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Kate
House sales are down by 28% in the Montreal area compared to a year ago.
steph
Volume is down, but prices are still up 13%-17%
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Kate
The Île Perrot windmill has been restored with new vanes made according to the traditional plan. Video has a brief look at the interior of the old mill. Somebody ought to actually mill some flour there and make a gimmick of selling the flour as a local specialty.
I initially thought this was about the Pointe Claire windmill, which also needs some work.
ottokajetan
“Somebody ought to actually mill some flour there and make a gimmick of selling the flour as a local specialty.” They do this at Les Moulins de l’Isle-Aux-Coudres near Baie-Saint-Paul. It would be a good idea.
Orr
There are several historic windmills on Montreal island/region and Quebec as a whole has more intact historical windmills (17) than any other place in North America. Many are excellent tourism destinations. Pointe-aux-Trembles’ riverside windmill was recently restored and is a beauty.
Nice to see that Ile Perrot wind mill has got some restoration.
Daniel 09:07 on 2021-10-07 Permalink
Oh, wow. Thank you for posting this. I have lived here eight years and am only now eligible to vote. Municipal government always seemed really complicated. I now see that’s because it is, in fact, really complicated.
Kate 09:27 on 2021-10-07 Permalink
It has gone through periods of being better and worse. There used to be different levels of voting power, depending whether you owned property or not. Crazy stuff. Then it was simpler for a long time and then they spawned the borough system and made it complicated again.
Congratulations on becoming eligible to vote, Daniel!