Updates from November, 2021 Toggle Comment Threads | Keyboard Shortcuts

  • Kate 20:48 on 2021-11-08 Permalink | Reply  

    Ensemble candidate Hadrien Parizeau – grandson of the sainted Jacques – is criticizing Denis Coderre’s campaign, not for its lack of vision, or for presenting its proposed budget at the very last minute, but for not enthusiastically supporting the CAQ’s Bill 96, the one designed to tighten language laws in Quebec.

    Which tells me that Hadrien has no clue what municipal politics are about.

    Hadrien Parizeau was defeated in Ahuntsic-Cartierville’s Saint-Sulpice district.

    (How long till the party changes its name from “Ensemble Montréal – Équipe Denis Coderre“, I wonder.)

     

    • Ian 18:31 on 2021-11-10 Permalink

      Pretty rich given JP’s famously being educated in England. Deux poids, deux mesures.

  • Kate 20:38 on 2021-11-08 Permalink | Reply  

    A reader recommends this Globe & Mail piece about the experiences of French expats in Quebec – mostly in Montreal.

     

    • Max 21:10 on 2021-11-08 Permalink

      I had to laugh at the “Americans who speak in French” description. That’s only about a million miles away from how the local francos characterize themselves.

    • Daniel D 21:22 on 2021-11-08 Permalink

      Insightful article. Take this with a pinch of salt and consider it a personal take: As a Brit in Montreal, my observation is Québécois culture is closer to the U.K. than France in spite of language.

    • Daisy 09:34 on 2021-11-09 Permalink

      I agree with Daniel. My Québécois spouse also claims he would feel more at home living in the UK than in France.

    • Kevin 10:41 on 2021-11-09 Permalink

    • Robert H 18:24 on 2021-11-09 Permalink

      Il me semble qu’il y a toujours eu cet engouement chez les Québécois pour le mythe, la pop culture et le kitsch de l’Americana, peu importe qu’il s’agisse de cow-boys, d’immitateurs d’Elvis, ou d’Hollywood.

    • Robert H 18:33 on 2021-11-09 Permalink

      En fait, ce qui est vraiment remarquable, c’est le changement d’attitude des Français à l’égard du Québec : de l’indifférence et du ridicule historiques (“quelques arpents de neige”) à Montréal est le nouvel Eldorado !

    • Kate 23:04 on 2021-11-09 Permalink

      Robert H, l’expression “le far west” m’a toujours amusé, c’est pas utilisé en anglais, seulement en français, pour l’ère mythique du cowboy.

  • Kate 15:20 on 2021-11-08 Permalink | Reply  

    The matter of Michael Rousseau not speaking French continues to sputter through the QMI-sphere like a Roman candle that won’t stop – Denise Bombardier says she’s the one enduring aggressions from the “woke” – but it crossed my mind just now that the scandal ought to be the rarefied world of the big CEO in our economy. A CEO can work in any language because they’re surrounded by a horde of drones enabling them so they can make the three decisions the corporation needs them to make every year to earn their vast salaries.

    Yes, Air Canada should have a bilingual CEO. But the fact is, it doesn’t matter. The airline’s structure – a typical corporate structure – means that drones are feeding the CEO with royal jelly in whatever flavour he needs.

     

    • JP 16:20 on 2021-11-08 Permalink

      I agree with your assessment, Kate. It doesn’t ultimately matter if CEOs are bilingual or not…as long as they do speak English.

      I think Air France’s CEO (or one of the top guys) is a uni-lingual Anglophone, now living in Paris…he used to be one of the top guys at Air Canada. I haven’t heard about them making a fuss…I guess it comes down to being insecure about one’s identity, collective or otherwise.

    • dhomas 16:59 on 2021-11-08 Permalink

      The CEO of Air France – KLM is Benjamin Smith:
      https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Benjamin_Smith_(homme_d%27affaires)
      He was formerly the “Président” at Air Canada from 2014 to about 2018. I linked to the French Wikipedia article, since the English one for Air Canada makes nary a mention of him.

      That said, the CEO of Air France according to English Wikipedia is Anne Rigail:
      https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Air_France
      The French Wikipedia lists her as DG or Directrice Générale, which I believe is COO in English:
      https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anne_Rigail

      All that to say, the French part of Air France is run by someone who is and speaks French. The multinational part, Air France – KLM is run by a British guy. BTW, he speaks French, which makes sense since the head office is in France:
      https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vZS61HUPdX8

      If Air Canada was part of a multinational organization (example, if United acquired AC and the combined company was United – Air Canada) and the CEO of that company did not speak French, I don’t think anyone would bat an eye.

      I think it is pretty bad optics for the CEO of a flag carrier airline like Air Canada to have a CEO that doesn’t speak the local language. I know it’s possible to do it, but it doesn’t mean it’s a good idea. I think the worst part is that it would have taken very little effort spread over 14 years to learn the language of the place you live (like Benjamin Smith did).

    • thomas 17:25 on 2021-11-08 Permalink

      @JP Benjamin Smith was unilingual when he took the job, but has since learned French well and seems very comfortable in french language interviews.

      Given that a major part of the job description of any Canadian aerospace CEO is to regularly beg levels for government for subsidies, you would think he would have the sense to speak in the language of the donor.

    • Ephraim 17:46 on 2021-11-08 Permalink

      Let’s be realistic, AC can afford for him to go through Berlitz. If Celine can do it, so can he.

      CEOs are generally big picture people, they make decisions that guide a company from the top, like which brand of aircraft to buy, rather than the specifics of which aircraft are needed. So he decides if AC is going to buy Boeing or Airbus, but not if they really need 787s or 737s…. that’s something someone below him would hand him.

    • Uatu 19:05 on 2021-11-08 Permalink

      I agree with your assessment, Kate. Ultimately the most important language is $$$$$ no matter what the CEO speaks. If he’s unilingual but still brings in the money then who cares? Nobody did before he opened his mouth. CEOs have attendants running after them to handle everything else. But yeah, Berlitz is a good idea.

  • Kate 12:15 on 2021-11-08 Permalink | Reply  

    Although media initially called it that Côte-des-Neiges-NDG had gone to Lionel Perez, at 11 a.m. Monday Radio-Canada is giving the green check mark to Gracia Kasoki Katahwa, although the count is now at 37.4% to 37.3% (11,889 votes to 11,846), a real nail-biter. 298 of 299 polls in.

    Outremont is final, but with a count of 4,151 to 4,128 for the Ensemble candidate, probably a recount there as well.

    RDP-PAT was close, but Projet’s Caroline Bourgeois is now ahead of the Ensemble candidate by nearly 500 votes, not quite final. (Update: Final tally gives Bourgeois a 306-vote lead over Ensemble’s Lyne Laperrière.)

    On thinking about the results: CDN-NDG and VSMPE both had Projet women mayors last time, who fell out with Projet over issues with the borough hall people. Now both boroughs have women mayors again – let’s hope for less drama this time around.

     

    • DeWolf 12:22 on 2021-11-08 Permalink

      Katahwa currently has a lead of 43 votes. I can’t see Perez letting this go without a recount. Personally, I can’t decide whether I’ll be happier to see him gone, or happier to see him struggle in office, given that his brand of politics is to complain about everything without offering any solutions.

      Outremont is another close one. Philipe Tomlinson (the Projet incumbent) is trailing Laurent Desbois (upstart Coderre guy) by only 23 votes. All polls are counted but I can’t see how that wouldn’t result in a recount, especially given that there were 299 rejected ballots.

    • Mark Côté 12:57 on 2021-11-08 Permalink

      Final count has Katahwa winning by 83 votes.

    • Kate 13:04 on 2021-11-08 Permalink

      Good! That borough needs new faces. That it’s a woman of colour is a plus.

      But there’s no way Perez isn’t going to challenge this.

    • Mark Côté 17:57 on 2021-11-08 Permalink

      Katahwa’s lead has since grown to 177 votes since the last “final” count.

    • H. John 00:09 on 2021-11-09 Permalink

      I was wondering. Where did you turn for your election results?

      I used Radio-Canada.

      When I tried Elections QC, I got nothing for Montreal:

      https://donnees.electionsmunicipales.quebec/resultats.html?v=66023

      Using CDN-NDG as an example, La Presse and the English paper got the result for mayor wrong.

      Do we have a problem of one site, or local media (most underfunded) depending on another?

    • dhomas 04:53 on 2021-11-09 Permalink

      I was curious about other cities within Montreal’s urban agglomeration, so I started looking around. I really think merging the city into one was the right call at the turn of the century.
      Are there really 7 elected officials for l’Ile-Dorval? If so, do they need this for a population of 5 permanent residents and 49 registered voters?
      https://donnees.electionsmunicipales.quebec/resultats.html?v=66092
      Senneville, Baie d’Urfé, Montreal-Est, Montreal-Ouest, Sainte-Anne-de-Bellevue, Hampstead. All have quite small population: 921 to 6973. Are we not doubling up bureaucracy for population that could be served just as well by their neighbours in Montreal?
      But L’Ile-Dorval is the real mystery for me.

    • Tim S. 09:06 on 2021-11-09 Permalink

      dhomas: don’t underestimate the importance of local identity. I know people in Greenfield Park who are still really angry about being merged into Longueuil. If that encourages people to have a sense of belonging and investment in their community, I would argue that’s a good thing.

      Also, most elected positions in smaller towns will be part-time and paid accordingly.

      Finally, while I would say there is a need for some kind of regional government, the interests of those of us who live in the denser city will not be served by having our mayor elected from the suburbs. Just look at the difference in where the Project and Ensemble votes came from. We have our own neighbourhood identities too (assuming you’re in Montreal proper).

      H. John: On the night I just googled Elections Montreal and got to this page: https://elections.montreal.ca/en/

    • DeWolf 09:59 on 2021-11-09 Permalink

      I agree with Tim. Just look at Toronto, which went through mergers but with a more centralized system of governance than we have here. Downtown is held hostage by the suburbs, to the extent where anything that serves the interests of downtown residents is stalled or undermined by suburban councillors. Just look at the effort it took to implement the (massively successful) King Street transitway. Or the Bloor Street bike path – which, despite heavy use during its pilot run, was only extended due to pandemic emergency measures, and is still officially temporary.

      Montreal’s municipal system is unwieldy and could be improved, but the general approach of giving boroughs some autonomy over their territory is a good one. If Anjou or the West Island had gotten a vote on Luc Ferrandez’s traffic calming measures on the Plateau, we never would have seen the improvements around Laurier metro, Christophe-Colomb would still be a high-speed traffic sewer, and suburban commuters would still be blasting down narrow side streets at 50 km/h.

    • dhomas 11:03 on 2021-11-09 Permalink

      @Tim S & DeWolf you make very valid points. Upon reflection, I agree with them. I kinda went down a rabbit hole with Ile-Dorval and made some sweeping generalizations. I still don’t understand the point of Ile-Dorval as a city, though. More elected officials than residents is just weird to me.

  • Kate 09:26 on 2021-11-08 Permalink | Reply  

    Full lists of Montreal election results are available on most platforms – here’s CTV’s and Radio‑Canada’s. A few results that caught my eye:

    Balarama Holness received 7.3% of the mayoral vote, and his Mouvement Montréal won no seats.

    Ten Eleven out of the city’s 19 boroughs were won by Projet Montréal mayors and seven six by Ensemble. Anjou and Lasalle were won by borough-level parties. (Emendments since the announcement that Lionel Perez actually lost CDN-NDG.)

    Neither Giuliana Fumagalli nor Sue Montgomery got close to winning back their mayoral seats. Laurence Lavigne Lalonde – previously a councillor in Hochelaga-Maisonneuve – is now mayor of VSMPE. Ensemble’s Lionel Perez is leading as mayor of CDN-NDG with 37.71% of the votes, but Projet’s Gracia Kasoki Katahwa is close at 36.92%, and there may be recounts.

    Also facing possible recounts are Outremont, where incumbent mayor Philippe Tomlinson (49.87%) is trailing Ensemble’s Laurent Desbois (50.13%) and RDP-PAT where the Projet mayor is at 48.62% against Ensemble’s 46.26%.

    Roaring back into office for Projet are Ahuntsic-Cartierville’s Émilie Thuillier, Rosemont’s François Limoges, the Plateau’s Luc Rabouin and Sud-Ouest’s Benoit Dorais. Projet’s Will Prosper was not able to make a dent in Montreal North, where Ensemble’s Christine Black won with 63.8% of the vote.

    Equally roaring back for Ensemble are St‑Laurent’s perennial Alan de Sousa, Pierrefonds-Roxboro’s Jim Beis, and St‑Léonard’s Michel Bissonnet.

    And Craig Sauvé was re-elected in the Saint-Henri-Est – Petite-Bourgogne – Pointe-Saint-Charles – Griffintown section of Sud-Ouest, despite having left the caucus shortly before voting day.

     

    • Mark Côté 10:31 on 2021-11-08 Permalink

      Projet just squeaked into the CDN-NDG district of Loyola too after trailing for the first few hours. 2205 votes vs 2108. This was Christian Arseneault’s district before he left Projet and then resigned for personal reasons a little while after that.

    • DeWolf 10:32 on 2021-11-08 Permalink

      Coderre’s “concession” speech was something to watch. What a graceless egomaniac. Two failed campaigns in a row and he still can’t get it through his head that very few people want him to be mayor.

    • Kevin 10:39 on 2021-11-08 Permalink

      36% turnout.
      A few more of those and we’ll end up with the province appointing officials.

    • Mr.Chinaski 11:14 on 2021-11-08 Permalink

      CDN-NDG is too close to call, and going to a recount for sure. That would be an incredible blow to EM if they lose that seat

    • ant6n 11:18 on 2021-11-08 Permalink

      @Kevin
      Montreal is already run by the province, which is one of the reasons people don’t care to vote.

    • Mark Côté 11:22 on 2021-11-08 Permalink

      I’m sure it would have been Projet by a wide margin for mayor of CDN-NDG had it not been for the whole HR debacle here… I hope Projet makes some notes on how to avoid these blowups in the future.

    • dhomas 11:26 on 2021-11-08 Permalink

      I don’t understand how CBC can “call it” for CDN-NDG with 4 polls still needing to be counted and only a 38 vote lead for Ensemble Montreal / Lionel Perez.

    • YUL514 11:34 on 2021-11-08 Permalink

      38 vote lead for Perez with 295/299 polling stations counted. If those polls are from NDG or Loyola districts he will unfortunately lose.

    • Mark Côté 11:41 on 2021-11-08 Permalink

      dhomas: they called it very early for Perez when he was a few hundred votes ahead when I guess it was statistically likely that he’d win. The gap narrowed after that, but it seems they don’t take away the green checkmark once it’s there…

    • Mark Côté 11:43 on 2021-11-08 Permalink

      YUL514: Or Côte-des-Neiges which is 55.3% Projet. Interestingly that district is the only one that Radio-Canada are reporting as having more polls to count still, although they say 3 to go whereas the mayoral race somehow still has 4 to go…

    • YUL514 11:59 on 2021-11-08 Permalink

      PM now took the lead from Perez, great someone who doesn’t even live in the borough will tell us how things should be. EM team should have pounded on more doors in the two EM districts of Snowdon and Darlington where the voter participation was under 30%. They know people don’t get out to vote there.

    • Tim S. 12:09 on 2021-11-08 Permalink

      Coderre’s speech was something, the most ungracious concession speech I’ve seen since Jim Prentice in Alberta in 2015. Maybe it’s because I live in Peter McQueenland, but I don’t know where this idea that Balarama Holness is the anglo candidate comes from. Can anglos not also like public transit and greener streets?

    • Blork 14:32 on 2021-11-08 Permalink

      In the meantime, the new mayors of Laval and Longueuil are young enough to be my children, and I’m A-OK with that. https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/montreal/young-mayors-laval-longueuil-1.6240853

    • Kevin 11:15 on 2021-11-09 Permalink

      @Tim S.
      I think it’s that a good chunk of people in the borough were fed up with the ineptness of several years of Ensemble/Projet/Sue and voted for the other guy — in large enough numbers that Projet was able to squeak in.

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