CBC has a feature on attempts to save Chinatown from the developers.
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Kate
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Kate
Public health says there will be 1550 winter refuge places for the homeless this season, 100 fewer than last winter. TVA has more details on warming stations and a 24‑hour indigenous help service.
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Kate
Ensemble’s Dan Kraft, who had become controversial in recent days over social media posts, has resigned as a candidate in Outremont. Among other things, he had sneered at the death of George Floyd (“He lived like a delinquent and died like a delinquent”), compared Projet Montréal to Stalin, and has implicitly denied climate change.
Coderre was fine with all that and is quoted as saying Kraft was a great guy. I wonder what his students at UdeM have to say about him.
Update: More on Dan Kraft from CTV, and more Coderre blaming the people who revealed Kraft’s opinions to the world.
If someone posts ideas to openly accessible social media, including a blog, they should always be aware that the content is there to be found.
marco
Oh well. Bye bye Dan Kraft. Next!
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Kate
As I post, Justin Trudeau is swearing in his new cabinet. Steven Guilbeault has finally been made environment minister: the longtime Equiterre and Greenpeace figure, who was expected to go right into that role after his election in Laurier-Ste-Marie in 2019, was unaccountably made Minister of Canadian Heritage in that cabinet. Guilbeault will be attending COP26 in Glasgow with Trudeau in a few days.
Marc Garneau, who was moved to Foreign Affairs early this year after being transportation minister since 2015, is out of cabinet. I read somewhere Monday that he’ll become an ambassador, but that’s not in the news Tuesday, and I doubt he will quit as MP for NDG‑Westmount so soon.
Update: Here’s the list. Of the other Montreal MPs, Mélanie Joly has been given Foreign Affairs, Marc Miller is now Minister of Crown-Indigenous Relations, and Pablo Rodriguez is Minister of Canadian Heritage and Quebec Lieutenant. David Lametti is back as Minister of Justice and Attorney General.
JaneyB
That is really great news about Guilbeault. Finally! He must be thrilled.
walkerp
Guilbeault will be the ultimate abyss test of the liberals and all their empty rhetoric about climate change. Will he actually push for real change or just be a face promoting their latest greenwashing plan that does nothing to challenge industry?
walkerp
And Joly to Foreign Affairs surprises me. I find her amazing in her ability to use so many words without ever saying anything of substance in both english and french. Will be curious to see how she works out.
jeather
I looked at Wikipedia, apparently there are currently 6 indigenous liberal MPs. Wonder why neither of the two cabinet posts about Indigenous people, or relations, were from that group. (Given Jody Wilson-Raybould’s experience, maybe they refused?)
Marc Miller is my MP and I continue to dislike him.
Bert
Does the PM swear in their own Cabinet? Is that not the job of the GG?
EmilyG
Is there any minister of arts/culture? Or did I miss that?
Kate
EmilyG, not as such. The Canada Council and the CBC are managed by Canadian Heritage, so I suppose that’s as close as we get.
Bert, while the MPs take an oath to the Crown (hence the GG) but the cabinet is conceptually the choice of the PM and not the concern of the Crown. I think. I will look it up.
H. John
MPs and cabinet members take the same oath:
Oaths of Allegiance Act
R.S.C., 1985, c. O-1
I, ……………….., do swear that I will be faithful and bear true allegiance to Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth the Second, Queen of Canada, Her Heirs and Successors. So help me God.
“Swear” can be replaced with “affirm” and the “So help me God” dropped.
H. John
From the House of Commons Procedure and Practice Manual
“The obligation requiring all Members of Parliament to take the oath is found in the Constitution Act, 1867, with the text of the oath itself outlined in the Fifth Schedule.
The Act states: “Every Member of the … House of Commons of Canada shall before taking his Seat therein take and subscribe before the Governor General or some Person authorized by him … the Oath of Allegiance contained in the Fifth Schedule to this Act …” The wording of the oath is as follows: “I, (Member’s name), do swear, that I will be faithful and bear true Allegiance to Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth the Second.” [208] As an alternative to swearing the oath, Members may make a solemn affirmation, by simply stating: [209] “I, (Member’s name), do solemnly, sincerely, and truly declare and affirm that I will be faithful and bear true allegiance to Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth the Second.””H. John
At Government House, cabinet members who are returning in the same position are announced and introduced to the Governor General. Those who are assuming a new position take further oath of office:
OATH OF OFFICE
I, _________, do solemnly and sincerely promise and swear (declare) that I will truly and faithfully, and to the best of my skill and knowledge, execute the powers and trusts reposed in me as…
So help me God.
Kate
Thank you, as always, for the clarifications, H. John.
H. John
To personalize the three possibilities during swearing in today’s cabinet:
David Lametti, Minister of Justice & A-G: returning to cabinet in the same position. He’s been sworn in before, so today he was simply introduced to Her Excellency.
Melanie Joly, Minister of Global Affairs. Already a cabinet member but switching positions, so she took a new Oath of Office, and was then introduced to Her Excellency.
Pascale St-Onge, Minister of Sport and Minister responsible for the Economic Development Agency of Canada for Quebec is new to the House of Commons and to the cabinet. She took all three oaths:
Oath of Allegiance, Oath of a Member of the Privy Council, and Oath of Office, followed by being introduced by the PM to the Governor General.The wording of these oaths can be found here:
Josh
jeather: My understanding from conversations I have had with Indigenous folks is that putting someone from one of those communities into either of those portfolios is a very contentious idea.
This is a piece that gets into why not all Indigenous people necessarily want to see one of their own heading up those ministries: https://www.tvo.org/article/what-justin-trudeau-doesnt-understand-about-indigenous-government-relations
Kate
H. John, if you come back to this thread, I have a question: When the Queen dies, do they have to retake a new oath to the new monarch?
H. John
Kate, the Interpretation Act, R.S.C., 1985, c. I-21 says
Demise of Crown
Effect of demise46 (1) Where there is a demise of the Crown,
(a) the demise does not affect the holding of any office under the Crown in right of Canada; and
(b) it is not necessary by reason of the demise that the holder of any such office again be appointed thereto or, having taken an oath of office or allegiance before the demise, again take that oath.
The Manual of Official Procedure of the Government of Canada says the Governor General isn’t covered by the above Act and therefore must renew her/his oath, but not Lieutenant-Governors, Privy Councillors, Cabinet ministers, senators, the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, other judges, and employees of the public service. It’s silent on MPs, but I would guess they don’t.
In the UK:
“Following the Demise of the Crown (the death or abdication of the current monarch), all Members of Parliament and members of the House of Lords take an oath of allegiance to the new Sovereign at the first meeting of Parliament under a new monarch. The House votes an Address to the Crown in response to the official notification of the previous monarch’s demise, expressing condolences upon the death of the previous monarch and pledging loyalty to his or her successor.”
Kate
Thank you, H. John.
Orr
Walkerp: as you note, Steven Guilbeault proved he was more than willing to follow the Canadian political tradition of new Ministers’ don’t-rock-the-boat Liberal Party regulatory-capture with his abominable Broadcasting Act re-write at Heritage, so I assume he received the extractive industry’s approval to move to Environment.
Steven is smart, and we’ll know soon enough why he is sure Canada definitely needs to keep building those new oil-export pipelines.
Would be more than happy to be surprised at the opposite occurring.
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Kate
The Journal has more details on the young man who was shot at in St‑Michel early Monday and ended up 100 feet down in the Francon quarry, having fled from his attackers by scaling a fence. He was recovered by firefighter rescue specialists and is in bad shape, but cops don’t even know yet whether any bullets hit him. This is the old quarry the city uses as a snow dump in season.
Jonathan
And this is the quarry that Quartiers Montréal wants to transform into a milieu de vie.
Kate
Back in the Tremblay era, there was even a plan floated to put a mall in there.
walkerp
It was to have been a floating mall? 🙂
Kate
Only in springtime.
SMD
There is so much potential in that former quarry! The site is huge. The local community roundtable has been developing idea for it for a while now: https://www.vivre-saint-michel.org/projets/francon-c%C5%93ur-de-notre-quartier/. It is like the Namur/Hippodrome of Saint-Michel.
dhomas
If they could turn the nearby Miron quarry into a pretty decent park (Frédéric-Back Park), then why not do something with this quarry. My aunts lived nearby the Miron chimneys, back in the day. I remember when they brought down the twin chimneys, after multiple attempts. I saw one of them fall, but not the other.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cHX7rEG2Jh4Cadichon
Kate, there’s water there in summer too, the quarry was dug down to the water table.
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Kate
Nathalie Collard has a good terse piece here on Montreal’s role in Quebec essentially saying “don’t always ask what Quebec can do for Montreal, ask what Montreal can do for Quebec.”
Interesting to note that in his recent inaugural speech, François Legault never mentioned Montreal even once.
Jack
We are the economic and cultural motor for the ROQ. Without a strong vibrant Montreal what would the 450 look like….a dairy farm?
We have practically zero representation in Quebec City, in the Civil Service and in the CAQ government. I know the constitution written in 1867 could not anticipate the turn from rural to urban but our systemic weakness when confronting Civil Servants from Beauport is maddening. I think we need representation that thinks of our priorities first. Transit, Culture, Quality of Life, Immigration, Itinerance all require a cuddle in Quebec City. When they need cohesion and votes outside of Montreal they other us,Bill 21,98,Charter etc.
Any solutions?steph
> Any solutions?
City state status, and seperation from Quebec.
Meezly
If Montreal is really the economic centre of Quebec, it’d be interesting to know how much Montreal contributes in terms of taxes compared to the rest of the province. Perhaps Montreal already does do a lot for Quebec!
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Kate
A pedestrian was struck and killed by an STM bus around 11 Monday night in Villeray.
Jack
Why was that Bus on De Castelnau?
CE
Probably the Jean-Talon bus that terminates at Jean-Talon metro. It does a loop on De Castelnau before going back west.
Kate
I was going to add that info to the original post, but thought it was too local to be of interest! The 92 bus does just that. It loops northward a block, but doesn’t usually pick up westbound passengers until it gets back down to Jean‑Talon and St‑Denis. That’s why the bus was empty when this incident happened.
According to reports, it happened when the bus was turning. That’s when big vehicles are at their most hazardous for pedestrians.
DeWolf 10:02 on 2021-10-27 Permalink
One thing that isn’t mentioned in this story is that the upper floors of many buildings along St-Laurent and Clark are empty. That leaves them vulnerable to eventual redevelopment if they are allowed to decay – or fire, which has already claimed two important buildings on St-Laurent. The city needs to do something to enable (and push) property owners to fix up and rent out their properties.
I’m not familiar with the inner workings of the Chinatown Working Group but I really hope they’re focused on the Hillpark acquisition, which could wipe out the most historically significant block left in Chinatown. I worry the group is straying into blanket advocacy against all development, because some members were very opposed to a new commercial building that is being proposed for the vacant lot at St-Laurent and de la Gauchetière, even though it would replace a commercial building that burned down in 2007, and its developer and architect would both be Chinese Montrealers.
I also wish these stories would put more emphasis on Chinatown’s history, which is fascinating but rarely conveyed in its full detail. Instead there’s usually some hand-wavey mythology that doesn’t do the story justice. For example, the CBC piece states that “De La Gauchetière Street hasn’t changed much in 40 years,” which is not true at all. 40 years ago, there were half as many businesses. Things changed a lot with pedestrianization, which helped intensify commercial activity along the strip. At the same time, Chinatown never used to include St-Laurent, but with the construction of the Guy-Favreau complex, commercial activity spread east. That’s when the city rezoned everything east of St-Dominique to be strictly residential in order to prevent Chinese businesses from spreading further. That restrictive zoning did as much to constrain the community as the development of megaprojects like the Palais des Congrès and Guy-Favreau.
Still, it’s nice to see so much political and media attention being given to Chinatown. It’s small but mighty, and I think its compactness and vibrancy gives it a better chance of survival than Vancouver’s Chinatown, which is a sad shell of its former self.
Kate 09:33 on 2022-10-18 Permalink
A belated thanks for this thoughtful comment.