Toula Drimonis tells us why she’s voting for Valérie Plante.
Updates from November, 2021 Toggle Comment Threads | Keyboard Shortcuts
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Kate
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Kate
Now that 514 and 438 are almost saturated, area code 263 is coming next fall.
I’d like to see a division of how these numbers are used. Many people who used to have two numbers – a landline and a mobile – have given up on the landline, so presumably those numbers go back into the pool. So is it that each member of a family now has a separate number?
MarcG
After many years of resistance I was finally forced to get a cell last year (doctor wanted patients to wait outside and phone them when it was their turn). I got a 514 number.
Ephraim
450 was expanded to 579 in 2010 and 354 is reserved if they ever need to expand from that.
514 split to create 819 in 1957, split to create 450 in 1998. Overlaid with 438 in 2006 and now we are getting 263.Kate
Ephraim, did you ever phone phreak?
Blork
My sweetie and I live in the 450 and between us we have two phone numbers, both 514s. (No land line.) Does that make me a faux-50?
Ephraim
No Kate. But I did have over 80 phone lines in my house at one time. Bell installed my own set of 100 pairs. Ran two of the largest BBSes in Montreal 🙂
dhomas
I may have connected to your BBS at some point! I was pretty active on local BBSes in the 90’s. I even got one up and running for a short while. I have fond memories of playing LoRD and TradeWars. I’ve forgotten most of their names by now, but some names stood out like Crazy Al’s. Which did you run?
MarcG
Another ex-BBSer here very curious to know which one Ephraim ran. Those “doors” were super fun. Does anyone remember Permanent Waves – was the SysOp’s name Ford Prefect? I finally read The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy last month and the name rang a bell.
Kate
I also BBSed back then. There were some ferocious arguments against a white supremacist who used to lurk around.
Ephraim
I ran two adults only BBSes 🙂
And both have facebook groups, though not very active, for those who want to find others who were on there.MarcG
OMG PimpWars! (I found a list of old WWIV doors). My poor 13 y/o brain.
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Kate
After a terrible start to the Canadiens’ season, scuttle is already swirling around the possible fate of Marc Bergevin.
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Kate
After two serious fires in a week in empty buildings downtown, the merchants’ association is demanding stricter rules for landlords. Where so many buildings were built tightly side by side, it’s not only your property that’s at risk, but all your neighbours’ too.
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Kate
A Montreal man who claimed benefits for a dozen nonexistent children has been ordered to pay back the $144,000 he collected over 11 years.
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Kate
When he left the mayor’s seat precipitately in 2013, Michael Applebaum collected a $268,000 golden handshake. He’s going to be keeping it. The law was changed in 2016 to bar elected individuals from getting any such payment if they leave their post to do prison time, but the appeals court holds that the law can’t be applied retroactively in Applebaum’s case.
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Kate
The headline here suggests insights into commercial vacancies but doesn’t actually provide them, and I think the analysis of St‑Denis Street fails to see a couple of issues.
In a recent study, some commercial streets were shown to be doing really well, largely because they serve a local clientele. But St‑Denis – between Pine and Mont‑Royal, at least – has never felt like a neighbourhood shopping street. Since the 1980s at least, it’s been a more worldly, upscale street, with no basics like a grocery or hardware store, but rather clothing, cosmetics, home decor and cafés. (Yes, there are a couple of health-food stores – expensive ones.)
But, and this is something we don’t often discuss – St‑Denis is also a highway, literally. It’s Autoroute 335. A shopper can’t easily hop from one side of the street to the other, on a whim. Cars totally dominate. You can’t close the street to traffic for a street sale, as you do on other shopping streets.
And maybe we’re beginning to find this arrangement uncongenial.
DeWolf
It’s a strangely negative take considering the low vacancy rates on most streets, and of course it fails to note the trend over time, which is that vacancy rates are declining. As I mentioned in my comment to the last article, St-Denis has cut its vacancy rate more than half since 2019, despite the hardships of the pandemic. If you only read this Journal article you’d be under the impression that Montreal’s commercial streets are struggling.
The REV has addressed the issues you describe with St-Denis. There are now only two lanes of slow-moving traffic, and there are three new crosswalks with little landscaped islands that make it far easier to hop from one side of the street to the other. The crosswalks in particular have really improved the pedestrian experience of the street, and it’s far more pleasant to sit on a terrace having a coffee when there aren’t cars blasting by at 60 km/h.
Kate
Good points, DeWolf. Thank you.
mare
Yeah, what DeWolf said, St-Denis used to be a real highway and the fastest route between downtown and the North of the island and Laval. Not anymore, and now it’s a much nicer street to walk and sit.
Because of the traffic calming a lot of St-Denis’ north-south traffic has moved to St-Laurent/Clark, Park and also to Papineau, which all have traffic jams during most of the day now. Sitting on a terrasse on Saint-Laurent in Little Italy is not a pleasurable experience.
East-west traffic north of the St-Denis rail underpass coming from Van Horne (which is a main artery to go around Mont-Royal on the north side and connect to the Papineau bridge and the 40-East—and a way to avoid the traffic jam on the 40) has also increased with the Bellechasse REV and the bike path on St-Zotique. Traffic on Rosemont and Beaubien has noticeably increased and the constant chaos near the Beaubien and St-Hubert intersection is not fun for either pedestrians near the metro nor for passengers in the busses that are stuck. St-Hubert is also full of cars that aren’t local traffic, which defeats the ‘woonerf’ experience they wanted to create.
I live in that area but drive only occasionally and mainly observe the traffic as a cyclist, but if it’s your daily commute I can see you’re annoyed. Traffic is a “nightmare”, and most people won’t admit that they *are* the traffic themselves, so they blame other changes.
I guess the anti-car image of Montreal gained some points there, and The Journal loves to feed those sentiments.
Kevin
Do we really need to have hundreds of thousands of people moving from home to office five days a week when we’re in a climate emergency?
Picture Trudeau announcing at COP26 that all federal employees will work remotely, and that companies will be given incentives for not having workers commute.
We keep talking about drastic change, right? Well there’s a drastic change.
Poutine Pundit
The latest St. Denis makeover with the REV has really made it far more pleasant to walk along, and vacancy rates have gone down, as said above. Those planted medians are genius, and I wish they’d done more than three.
The bits of St. Denis near Rosemont and Jean-Talon metro stations could use a little of that love. That six-lane highway in front of Rosemont station and Marc Favreau library needs rethinking to make it more pedestrian friendly. The concrete median strip and narrow crowded sidewalk on Jean-Talon could be replaced with something leafier.
mare
@Kevin I have the impression that *a lot* of commuter traffic that barrels through the streets of Montreal doesn’t go to and from downtown, and they aren’t people with desk jobs that can work remotely. Instead they’re people going between the industrial parts on the North-shore and South-shore, and the industrial parts on the island itself in the East (Dorval, Lachine etc) and West (Anjou, Montreal-Est etc) where they work, to the place where they live, which might be at the other side of the island of Montreal, and often off-island. That traffic came back very soon after the lockdown, because the people working in those businesses can’t work from home (or it’s impractical, like for office staff in factories or suppliers). And it has even increased because more people travel by car because they are reluctant to car pool or use public transport (if that’s even a viable option).
We have 5 bridges that are not *real* highways, but according to Google maps, taking them still makes a faster (and cheaper) route from the North-shore to the South-shore and vice-versa than the blocked *real* highways and tunnel, especially during rush hour. And even if they aren’t *actually* faster (or just a few minutes) people still perceive a straight and more direct route as faster, because brains think that way.
Implementing bridge tolls, with higher tolls on the smaller bridges, and in general during rush hour (congestion charge) might be a good solution to lower the traffic that passes *through* the city. It’s however politically impossible to implement, at the moment or maybe ever, because bridges are under federal and provincial control and the burbs have more political power there.
DeWolf
I’m sceptical how much traffic was actually displaced by things like the REV Bellechasse given that it was a pretty quiet street to begin with. I think the problems we’re seeing now have a lot to do with the fact that there are more cars on the roads than before the pandemic, and also because travel patterns have been disrupted. Traffic is just as bad as it was before 2020 but it’s behaving it very different (and often unpredictable) ways.
Kevin
Rush hour has changed significantly, but the daytime traffic is exposing those areas that are always over capacity because they are poorly designed-like the exits off Decarie North.
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Kate
Some experts say parking shouldn’t be made easier and car use should be restricted in the city. It’s a hard sell.
DeWolf
This is the only way to reach our climate goals while also making the city a better, healthier and more pleasant place to live. But it needs to be accompanied by investment in public transit. It’s not enough to not cut STM funding – the STM needs a massive funding boost so that buses all over the city are running frequently enough that people don’t feel they’re sacrificing something by leaving their car at home. (PM’s investment in boosting metro frequencies has really paid off, but the metro doesn’t go everywhere and the bus system has been sadly neglected.)
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Kate
Two studies earlier this year clearly delineated racist attitudes and practices in city works in Montreal North. Now its workers are getting impatient with the lack of action from the city despite promises made at the time.
M. Legault, if you needed an example of systemic racism, here it is. The city was blind to the racist actions in the borough until they were identified and called out by external investigators. Now they are very clear. But what makes this systemic racism is that it’s ingrained. It’s not written down – it’s understood. When a Black worker applies for a promotion for which their experience and skills make them eligible, yet a white person is appointed above them, not once but repeatedly in different situations over years, that’s systemic racism. There’s no official policy saying to do this – a requirement you have repeatedly claimed is needed to qualify actions as systemic – but it’s a deeply ingrained part of the culture.
In the reports, remember that not only the city itself, but the union too was also called out as oblivious to the racist culture, permitting it to go on unchallenged.
The city needs to act on this, but so does the union.
Meezly
We recently had dinner with parents of my kid’s friend. The dad was well-read and educated was seemingly able to back up his arguments with facts. He patiently explained how systemic or institutional racism will never be accepted by the Legault government. This is just a good exercise for me to remember his points of argument, so if anyone actually reads this or has thoughts of their own, that would be a bonus.
Systemic racism is a myth. He brought up two black American intellectuals, whom I unfortunately didn’t retain their names, who argue that relying on systemic racism as a blanket term is unhelpful in combatting racism. But then he brought up statistics and asked me, how many black American were actually shot and killed by police this year? He mentioned a ridiculously low number, like 18.
Also much of our education on racial inequality is formed by American activists, like CRT, which can’t be applied the same way for Quebec. Yet no one reads about Quebec history, how the French were oppressed by the English. Even though Quebec came into power during the Quiet Revolution, there has always been anti-Quebec sentiment being perpetuated outside of Quebec by English Canada and that itself is a form of racism.
Even if systemic racism is real, the ‘system’ that francophone Quebec is dealing with was inherited by the English, so the systemic racism that we have now was due to British colonialism. The French didn’t write the Indian Act, it was the feds who forced Quebec to have reservations and residential schools. Even though the CC was involved, Quebec have been working towards ridding the Chuch’s influence via their Laïcité laws. Quebec actually contributes millions of dollars to First Nations, much more than the feds, but are limited in what they can do by the feds.
He went on to say that the Quebec nation is still relatively new and that they have done a lot of work to create a social democratic society but they are often limited or hamstrung by the federal government. One example is immigration policy. The only things that Quebec has any control over are schools and healthcare. (he knew we were going to bring up those flaws, but he argued that Quebec control has been relatively new – while I’m thinking, is it still ‘relatively new’ when it’s been like six decades?)
He truly believes that Bill 21 isn’t inherently racist. If we look at the history of Quebec, the CAQ is only continuing the laïcité reforms that was started during the Quiet Revolution. However, I had to point out that Quebec during the 60’s isn’t the same Quebec today, which relies on immigration, and some people are from countries where religion and culture are deeply intertwined. He did agree with me that Bill 21 isn’t fair to those who may have to compromise a part of their cultural identity and that is problematic, but he insisted that Bill 21 is a law that aims to benefit the whole of society because religion in Quebec has been a source of historical conflict. He also went on to ask how many Muslim women actually left Quebec because of Bill 21 ? Again, he produced a ridiculously low number, like 12. This person worked with data and statistics, so I wasn’t sure how accurate he was or what his sources were.
He goes on to say, with all due respect, that as an Anglo, I only see one side of the story from English media. The rights of minorities in Quebec have received attention and support in the English-language media within and outside of Quebec, but the same cannot be said for the rights of the Quebec majority. French-speaking Québécois face a lot of discrimination and racism outside of Quebec, but this often does not get any attention.
I do agree with many of his points. French-speaking Québécois have become in some ways like how Germans were regarded in post-WW2. I remember talking to a francophone Quebecer who was a student in Professor Amir Attaran’s class. He would often single her out as a racist without any consideration that she had been educating herself on racial issues. Attaran is an extreme example of someone who has weaponized anti-Quebec sentiment, but this sentiment does exist and is very damaging.
This made me realize one major difference between English and French attitudes: francophones believe that immigrants should assimilate into their dominant society while anglophones tend to favor integration. This difference in mindset generally makes anglophones more tolerant towards other cultures and minorities. The irony I see that, even though anglos are often accused of colonial brainwashing, the concept of assimilation itself is a colonial policy!
I originally thought that Legault’s systematic denial of systemic racism was a political tactic, but now I realize that’s only part of it. He really does believe that systemic racism doesn’t exist in Quebec for ideological reasons. They are philosophically and psychologically hampered by their own ideology, which partly consists of an ongoing perception of victimhood and the shifting of blame. For me, this reaffirms that non-francophone and/or non-white Quebec minority rights will continue to be at odds with what the white francophone Quebec majority wants.
CharlesQ
The number of african american killed by police in 2019 was 329 (https://www.statista.com/statistics/1124036/number-people-killed-police-ethnicity-us/), nothing close to 18.
Kevin
@Meezly
That’s a wonderful example of flooding the zone with bullshit based on a false premise.I ask those presenting such arguments: do the people working in the power structures reflect society? If not, then regardless of intent, the system is producing a discriminatory result.
Meezly
@Kevin, yours sound like such a reasonable and simple argument and it’s something that my partner had brought up, but I think it was countered it with a comparison, like Quebec has fewer cases of racial profiling, hate crime etc. compared to other provinces. Every argument was countered with a comparison or deflection. It’s a nationalism not much different from pro-China advocates whom I’ve encountered. Any criticism of China and/or the CPP is automatically Sinophobic and a result of brainwashing by Western imperialism. There is really no arguing any sense into the discussion.
Kevin
Meezly
Pointing out something is bad elsewhere does not negate the bad impact here. That is, again, just flooding the zone (and it’s a common right-wing tactic).I like to interrupt these people and tell them what there saying isn’t relevant to our discussion. Limit it to one thing and one thing only.
What matters with systemic racism is the result, not the intent.
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Kate
Numbers were up at advance polls, with 12.9% of voters having cast their ballots on the weekend despite the rain.
Meezly 09:27 on 2021-11-02 Permalink
I hope Drimonis will be able to sway some votes. My only critique was that she didn’t mention Plante’s recent commitment for more police funding to combat gun violence. Even a mention of outside pressure as a possible factor, cuz $100M is a lot of taxpayer money.