The city wants its 28,000 workers back in the office as of November 29.
Updates from November, 2021 Toggle Comment Threads | Keyboard Shortcuts
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Kate
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Kate
No surprise here: Denis Coderre is leaving political life and declining to sit as an ordinary councillor at city hall. Sound bite: the election wasn’t about the issues, it was about him. Bye, Denis.
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Kate
The Rover’s Joe Bongiorno talked to several people involved in education about the CAQ’s proposed new Quebec citizenship course.
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Kate
An Ïle Bizard man found guilty of drug charges in 2018 has been granted a new trial because his right to be tried in English was violated.
Yves Boisvert has an interesting piece about the situation: Simon Jolin-Barrette wants to abolish Quebec’s long tradition of appointing bilingual judges, and force all trials to be held in French, with interpreters, as if English were a strange foreign language. But there are already not enough able interpreters, and – as Boisvert says – the courts know quite well where bilingual ability is needed in the court system and where it isn’t. “Il ne suffit pas de renforcer la loi 101, de faire la promotion du français, de l’exiger de plus en plus, de franciser les immigrants ; il faudrait apparemment avoir peur du bilinguisme des professionnels.”
Spi
Simon Jolin-Barette that only a few weeks ago was outraged at the head of a company that is required by law to provide service in English and in French for not speaking French is at the same time waving off a defendant to have his trial in French of English. Then again his level of hypocrisy is nothing new.
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Kate
It was reported on CBC radio Friday morning, and even on reddit with a photo, that the beautiful chalet in St‑Viateur Park was on fire overnight. But I can’t find a conventional media link to the story.
Update: Later, CTV posted a brief report saying a firefighter had been injured, but with no indication of the extent of the damage to the building. St‑Viateur is a lovely little park, whose elegant landscaping is complemented by the curving arches of that pretty gloriette. Let’s hope it can be restored.
Ian
I passed by today and the little cupola on top was pretty damaged but it didn’t look like anything irreparable.
Meezly
There’s a lovely annual winter festival at that park in late January or so. You can warm up inside the building and have yummy treats, as there are hot chocolate, apple cider, baked goods, hot dogs, etc. I hope they’ll be able to repair the building by then.
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Kate
Following from that cyclist death this week, the mayor is appealing to Ottawa to pass a federal law requiring side bars on big trucks.
JaneyB
Good. And I will write a note to Ottawa echoing that – as we all should. It’s harder to ignore the mayor if she has a chorus, people.
Kate
JaneyB, good point. At least, any heavy truck that’s going to go through city streets ought to have them.
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Kate
QMI worked out that one out of every four councillors at city hall lives in a different borough from the one they represent. Notably, Gracia Kasoki Katahwa, elected as mayor of CDN-NDG, lives in Hochelaga.
I note also here the common use of the expression “official opposition” to refer to Ensemble. Since this has been a theme on the blog lately, I’m wondering (H. John probably knows, but maybe someone else does too) whether we even have a formal entity called “official opposition” in municipal politics, or is this another imitation of the Westminster system that isn’t written down?
Blork
I typically roll my eyes when people get all worked up about cops and firefighters not living in the borough where they work (what is this, “Mr. Rogers’ Neighbourhood?”) but this is different. If you’re an elected representative for a borough, you really oughta be living there. Or at least close. I wouldn’t cry about a Councillor living a few blocks outside of their borough, but there’s a lot of distance between Hochelaga and CDN-NDG; in terms of both distance and culture. Seems weird.
qatzelok
In the case of Gracia Kasoki Katahwa, it looks like NDG had to look to other boroughs to find someone nice who wouldn’t create a toxic environment.
DeWolf
I always think of Helen Fotopulos, who was councillor for Mile End and mayor of the Plateau despite living in Côte des Neiges. She did some great things like leading the demolition of the Pine/Park interchange, and she did seem very attentive to her constituents. I was actually surprised when I found out she didn’t live on the Plateau.
At the same time, she sometimes seemed a little out of touch with the very nature of the Plateau, like when she dismissed the Mile End industrial district as a “no man’s land” despite the flourishing creative community that was there.
Mr.Chinaski
In Lachine, one of the elected councillor lives basically 50m from the city’s limit.
I can go both ways, the irony is that I would rather have somebody elected in Outremont living in CDN or Parc-Ex, compared to living in upper outremont.
H. John
Kate, in a quick search of Quebec laws (Cities and Towns Act, Charter of Ville de Montréal, and an Act Respecting the Remuneration of Elected Municipal Officers), there is no mention of a municipal opposition leader.
I looked at the last one because it’s always easier to follow the money.
At the federal level, the leader of the opposition gets an addition to her/his salary, office expenses, etc. The same is true in Quebec with extra salary listed for the Premier, Official Opposition Leader, and Leader of the Second Opposition.
In Montreal, extra salary is based on membership on various committees (e.g. the Executive Committee).
The Gazette gave a run down of City and borough salaries in 2015:
And the city’s web site provides this breakdown for 2016:
Kate
Thank you so much, H. John.
H. John
Marlene Jennings, who was the federal MP for NDG-Lachine from 1997 to 2011, being elected 5 times, never lived in the riding.
CE
Gracia Kasoki Katahwa was interviewed the other day on Daybreak and she said that she had lived in both NDG and CDN for many years and knows the area well. She also said she’s planning to move back to the borough.
Kate
Thanks for the info, CE.
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Kate
Le Devoir has an op-ed talking about promises made by both Denis Coderre and Valérie Plante about extending services to the undocumented. Montreal has its share of residents whose status is unclear, who work for a pittance in poor conditions, afraid of making complaints in case they’re spotted and deported.
The piece eventually admits that cities simply have no power to overrule federal and provincial law. Montreal can give people access to its libraries and swimming pools, but not to health care or immigration. Coderre’s adoption of the “sanctuary city” idea from the United States was always an empty promise.
Mark Côté
Is there something fundamentally different from a legal perspective about how American cities can act as sanctuaries versus cities here, do you think? I figured it was just more of a stance, like a refusal from cities authorities to collaborate with immigration enforcement, so no reason that couldn’t work here. But I may well be missing something.
Mark Côté
Well seems several other cities in Canada have declared themselves to be sanctuary cities, and more are considering it. Indeed that article indicates that being a sanctuary city doesn’t mean overriding provincial or federal laws; that’s not what is intended by the term.
david4822
There’s a lot that’s fundamentally different about US cities, from the very basis of the government (they’re chartered level of governments as opposed to “creatures of the province”) to conditions put on block grants that fund things like police forces. But for the illegal immigrant thing, there’s not that much that’s different, and you’re right that generally sanctuary city policy is about not reporting crime-committing illegal immigrants to the federal authorities, refusing to accede to immigration enforcement ‘holds’ that are sent their way on criminals in custody, failing to cooperate with federal immigration enforcement operations on the ground, etc.
In some US cities (San Francisco, for instance), they give free healthcare to the indigent and their policy – which is not a sanctuary city policy in the traditional understanding – allows illegal immigrants to get the same services, and it seems that this is what people in Montreal are understanding the sanctuary thing to mean.
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Kate
A massive sculpture in the new UdeM campus, conceived as a climbing structure and costing $1M to install, is barred to climbers. Nobody wants to say why, but I’d bet it’s concerns over liability, and over looking like a fool at spending so much money on a climbing folly that can’t be used.
david4822
Of course it’s liability. One hand not talking to the other.
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Kate
Quebec will be paying more than $23 million for the block of old buildings on St‑Antoine that used to house Steve’s Music. The original plan was to enlarge the Palais des congrès, but is that extra, expensive space really needed now or in the foreseeable future?
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Kate
Once again the inbound La Fontaine tunnel will be closed on the weekend, dooming thousands of stranded motorists to spend their weekend on the South Shore. Drivers will face other obstacles as well over the weekend.
Blork
I for one will enjoy riding my bike along safe and segregated-from-cars bike paths along the river, then go hang out with the deers and foxes in the park, all the while enjoying wide open spaces, quiet and calm streets, good restaurants without lineups, and easy-to-achieve social distancing. Meanwhile, all y’all will be pressed up against each other where ever you go, breathing in each others virus-laden body fumes, while being constantly honked-at by crazed motorists when you’re not getting run over by trucks or beaten down by cops.
(Sorry, couldn’t resist.)
steph
Seeing how merchants complain about the parking spots… how come they dont complain about this??
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Kate
The trains being delivered from India for the REM are being found so faulty that they could be dangerous to passengers. All aspects of their construction, from the structure to the finishing, including the electrical wiring, has been reported as falling far short of spec.
Radio-Canada says the Indian workers are paid $2 an hour and pushed very hard for that. Some kind of tagline here about getting what you pay for seems called for.
mare
Cue request for additional Quebec government funds because of unexpected cost overruns in one, two…
su
The REM trains are the same ones wreaking havoc in Ottawa since starting up a year or so ago.
DeWolf
That’s not true. Although both systems use Alstom rolling stock, they’re completely different models built in different countries. The O-Train uses Alstom Citadis trains manufactured in Quebec, Ontario and New York, whereas the REM is using Alstom Metropolis trains manufactured in India.
James
The trains in Ottawa are completely different to the REM trains. These types of letters fairly typical on large projets. I’m sure that the trains will be corrected and nobody will notice in the end. Similar problems were detected by STM for the Azur trains and these were built in Quebec. Somebody is leaking information!
su
I stand corrected. The trains are different models, manufactured by the same company- ALSTOM
Kevin
The issue with Ottawa’s trains seems to be, in part, because the maintenance crews do not communicate when doing necessary work and are pretty inept about the work they do.
If you haven’t been following it, the LRT derailed because one crew decided to handtighten bolts, and never told the next crew the bolts hadn’t been torqued correctly.
I am reminded of engineers who never double-checked their designs and so ordered manhole covers that were too small for the manholes they designed — and nobody noticed until the first installation attempt.
James
The problems with Ottawa’s trains (Alstom Citadis Spirit) that involved federal safety investigators can be found here:
https://www.tsb.gc.ca/eng/enquetes-investigations/rail/2021/R21H0121/R21H0121.html
https://www.tsb.gc.ca/eng/enquetes-investigations/rail/2021/R21H0099/R21H0099.html
https://www.tsb.gc.ca/eng/enquetes-investigations/rail/2020/R20H0079/R20H0079.html
Tim S. 11:56 on 2021-11-13 Permalink
I’m really disappointed by this. If people need to be in-person for their jobs, or prefer it (me for both), sure let them go back if it’s safe. But for so many people working from home has been transformative, giving them time and money back in their lives. When Plante says “C’est un signal fort pour la reprise économique du centre-ville” it means that people who have been doing their jobs perfectly well for 18 months have to be miserable, waste their time and money, because she can’t imagine an economy that doesn’t depend on keeping the food courts and Van Houtte’s in business. This is what it’s come to, our society, mobilized to defend Tiki-Ming.
david4822 12:58 on 2021-11-13 Permalink
^ At my work, we’ve seen our productivity go way down with people working from home, and we’re not thinking of Van Houtte or Tiki-Ming.
Kevin 18:22 on 2021-11-13 Permalink
David
What do you do for a living?
LM 20:27 on 2021-11-13 Permalink
It could certainly be industry specific. I think productivity has gone up in the companies I’ve worked at, but I changed jobs over the summer and my new boss/company owner is a huge micro-manager. He mandated we all return to the office 5 days a week in August. We (his employees) are stand-ins for his social life…he asks tons of personal questions, but you have to play nice because he’s your boss (no, there is no HR…he is HR). It’s take it or leave it. I’m waiting it out till I hit the one-year mark. Then I’ll start looking for another job.
Work from home might help with improving the environment. On a personal level, I was able to save much more money, eat healthier, and I had more time with my family. Our hours are 9 to 6 pm….by the time I get home at 6:45, I just want to eat something from a microwave. Sure, some people like to batch cook on Sunday…it’s not my thing.
I guess there’s pressure to get back to some sort of status quo. Most of my colleagues are new graduates so they don’t know any better and go along with our boss’s weird demands and questions. I would love for my next opportunity to offer hybrid as an option for better work-life balance.
Kate 19:00 on 2021-11-14 Permalink
LM, a lot of bosses still don’t feel you’re working unless they can have you under their eye. I think a lot of managers don’t like writing or reading emails, they’d rather you looked them in the eye and wrote down what they say, which is so damn annoying.
david227 20:21 on 2021-11-15 Permalink
I’m an attorney, it’s been very difficult with people out of the office.