Updates from October, 2021 Toggle Comment Threads | Keyboard Shortcuts
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Kate
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Kate
Valérie Plante is opening her tax returns for the last four years, but Denis Coderre is refusing to follow suit.
Coderre also says he will reveal what he’s been doing for the last four years – if he’s elected. Which means that anyone voting for him is buying a pig in a poke.
steph
IIRC that pig in a poke American politician did the same, and it worked.
Kate
Once.
Phil M
She’s been mayor for the past four years. We already know what her tax returns are. This is not the example of transparency it’s being made out as.
dhomas
The story is obviously not about Plante being transparent about her income, but about Coderre (and to a lesser extent, Holness) refusing to be. What does he have to hide? This seems like a recurring theme with him. Last time, he didn’t want to release the information about the Formula E until after the election (though it ended up coming out before the election). What we learned during the last election is that when he seems to be hiding something, he usually is.
Kate
Phil M, yes, we know what she earns as mayor – the question would be about any other sources of income. As it would be about Coderre.
But we know what we need to about Denis. When he wasn’t elected mayor, he distanced himself from city politics, letting his colistière sit rather than doing any of the “lesser” work himself. He’s only interested in city affairs if he can be the big boss.
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Kate
A man found dead in Lasalle on Sunday morning is being called the 28th homicide of the year. Except that he had marks of violence on his body, nothing else is mentioned about the cause of death.
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Kate
A march was held Saturday to remember Romane Bonnier, murdered earlier this month, and to protest conjugal violence. CTV says her family and friends also held a memorial service Saturday.
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Kate
The Journal’s history piece this weekend is about Lucien Saulnier (1916‑1989), Jean Drapeau’s sidekick, to whom we owe a lot of the basics of our metro. Despite his prominence during that era, nobody’s ever written a book about him, although the old courthouse building (being used as an alternative city hall while the real one next door is fixed up) has been renamed after him.
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Kate
The Journal has a piece headlined Montréal se dirige vers une année meurtrière and the big picture of a truck made me expect a report on pedestrian deaths. But no, it’s about homicide. We’ve had 27 so far this year, of which about half have been due to guns. But the actual total (compared to the numbers given for the previous ten years) is not the big deal the headline suggests. Varying from highs of 35 in 2011 and 2012 to a low of 23 in 2016, it’s probably unavoidable that a city this size will have two to three dozen murders a year, of all types. People get mad, and people get even.
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Kate
Radio-Canada looks as several interesting boroughs in the election.
A reader pointed out to me this La Presse story about the two women Denis Coderre is considering for his executive committee chair, should he win.
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Kate
Overnight social media reports say the Super Sexe building is on fire.
Update: photos from TVA and video from CTV.
That’s the second vacant building on Ste-Catherine to be damaged by fire this week.
LJ
There was also a fire Saturday evening around 5 PM on an upper floor of a new building going up where the gas station used to be at the corner of Mountain and La Gauchetiere (or Avenue des Canadiens). Several fire trucks had arrived by 5:15 and at 5:30 they were ready to hose it down from ladders on top of their trucks.
j2
We could smell it near the superhospital. We were concerned some airbnb’ers were toasting marshmallows in the backyard, which would devastate the block. SIM were patient when they explained the source was 50 blocks east (counting differences in addresses, and yes these are the narrow direction). I was concerned it was the regiment there.
Max
Alas, the sign is shot.
https://globalnews.ca/news/8339137/montreal-super-sexe-strip-club-destroyed-suspected-arson-police/
I’ve noticed broken windows on that building for months now. I guess the owners weren’t planning on paying it any attention until after the big Ste-Cat redo was done. Hopefully the creepy facade can be saved.
YUL514 22:17 on 2021-10-31 Permalink
There are stories of poll mismanagement in CDN-NDG, I’m assuming the media will pick up on it tomorrow. My in laws were turned away today because their polling station had, get this…run out of ballots. I’d like to know who’s running Elections Montreal, what with all the Trumpesque tactics of Valerie and what not. No polling stations in some of the Jewish Seniors residences in the Snowdon area. This to go along with voting down the option of mail in voting. I wonder why Valerie didn’t want citizens (seniors) mailing in their ballots, hmmm….what could be the reason?!
Kate 22:38 on 2021-10-31 Permalink
YUL514, Elections Montreal is a nonpartisan body. It is not run by Projet Montréal.
YUL514 23:14 on 2021-10-31 Permalink
I’m aware it is nonpartisan but you shouldn’t be running out of ballots, too many things have happened to make me suspicious. As I said, who voted against mail in voting and why do you think they did? The answer is obvious.
mare 23:51 on 2021-10-31 Permalink
I went yesterday at around 19h and there were 9 volunteers (or are they paid?) and no voters. They were happy to see me and took their time to fold the ballot for mayor, lots of candidates on that one. I brought my own pen —and refused the pencil they gave me— to fill some boxes. I did my best, we don’t have incumbents in our borough, so new people. I’ve only seen the Project Montreal councillor candidate going door to door, and she seemed nice.
Kate 08:27 on 2021-11-01 Permalink
mare, poll workers are paid, they’re not volunteers. I’ve done this work in the past (at all three levels) and would gladly have worked this year for the federal and municipal elections except that they didn’t have a vaccine mandate for their workers.
Kate 08:31 on 2021-11-01 Permalink
YUL514, you’re changing your argument. Someone at Elections Montreal may have messed up – may have miscalculated the number of ballots needed in one location. It’s not a conspiracy.
Jonathan 08:41 on 2021-11-01 Permalink
According to Elections Montréal, a lot of senior residences, where they usually set up advanced polls I am told, refused for this election. Maybe because of the lack of vaccine mandate?
John B 09:36 on 2021-11-01 Permalink
I realize that seniors residences are often used for voting because they give seniors easy access to vote, but I wonder if we should really be giving one voting bloc, especially one that tends to favour inaction and outdated policies, an advantage in getting to poles.
Perhaps if there’s going to be voting in seniors residences there should also be voting in university dorms, CEGEPS, youth centres, and/or CPEs, during the week, at drop-off & pickup time.
Joey 10:05 on 2021-11-01 Permalink
Advance polling is supposed to be for people who can’t make it during the regular polling days/hours, isn’t it? We’ve come to treat them as “regular” polling days but that’s probably not how the folks managing the election approach them. To complain that there weren’t enough ballots to handle the people who wanted to avoid regular* election day lines is a bit much, IMO.
I say ‘regular’ when in fact Elections Montreal already expanded regular polls to include a second day to accommodate voters…
EmilyG 11:45 on 2021-11-01 Permalink
I voted in an advance poll on Saturday.
I moved recently, so I’d made a mad dash to City Hall a few weeks ago to get on the list of people able to vote, as the deadline was a few hours away to get on the list and I hadn’t realized it.
On Saturday, I went to a local school where the advance polling station was. It took a long time. When I got into the gym where voting takes place, a slow worker took a very long time to find me on the electors’ list. It might or might not have been because I got on the list at the last minute (though my name was between my dad’s and my sister’s, who had voted earlier in the day and had long been on the electors’ list.)
And while they were trying to find me on the list, I had to go with someone who was standing near a worker who was wearing her mask on her chin (and nobody said anything about that.)
It was a very frustrating experience, but at least I got it overwith.