Richard Bergeron has a brief opinion piece in La Presse about why French is in decline in Montreal, and it’s one thing: so many Quebec francophones are deserting the city for the regions.
Updates from February, 2022 Toggle Comment Threads | Keyboard Shortcuts
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Kate
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Kate
Global has an interesting piece – the video’s worth watching – about how the cuisine of Chinatown is the main thing keeping the area alive. Interesting chats with various chefs and their ideas.
DeWolf
I would argue that it’s the only Chinatown in Canada whose culinary offerings have actually improved in recent years. There’s a lot of interesting new mainland Chinese restaurants, plus old-school ones like Monnan and Dobe & Andy that have been given fresh energy by the second generation.
For all the talk about Montreal Chinatown’s struggles, it’s positively thriving compared to the historic Chinatowns in Vancouver and Calgary, which were bustling as recently as 10 years ago but are now verging on being ghost towns.
Kate
Sad to hear, but good for us.
Ian
I love Montreal’s Chinatown but it is SO tiny. Dobe and Andy are great, Mon Nan is also great, there’s excellent Korean (Chez Bong) and Vietnamese (Mỹ Cảnh) as well, especially excellent for such a small area. Chez Maxim is a gem. A little further out the whole noodle strip on Ste Kitty is great too, I especially like PM. Lots of very good Korean and Japanese places opening up over the last 10 years. For sure if you work or live downtown these are excellent food options especially considering what a bland desert of mall food most of downtown is otherwise unless you want to pay for “fancy” places that are clearly there to cater to the business corwd.
Montreal’s old Chinatown is very sweet but let’s be real, Toronto’s old Chinatown, is larger by orders of magnitude, & is very much still thriving. I’ve had better soup just at the Dragon Mall on Spadina than anywhere in all of Montreal, for basically pocket change. There’s also a relatively new Chinatown in the east near Parliament and Gerrard, Koreatown up on Dupont, etc. The entire city of Markham is basically a Chinatown with amazing food on offer, especially seafood.
Montreal’s Chinatown is great but let’s not pretend it holds a candle to Toronto’s… I mean can you even get Chinese ethnic Vietnamese food here, or Vietnamese ethnic Chinese food, let alone have your pick of restaurants? You can’t even get good dim sum here. Kim Fung is okay but I haven’t had better dim sum here, and I’ve tried lots of places, including places Asian friends insisted I try. Frankly, I’ve had better dim sum in Ottawa.
In any case, in general Toronto has WAY more on offer for ethnic foods of every variety. Talking about Montreal’s Chinatown in relation to other cities is a mistake IMO. By being so condensed ours is a little gem, with its own very particular presence and character.
Ethnic diversity & population density aside, surprisingly our Lebanese food in Montreal is much, much better. You hardly even see pickled turnips in Toronto falafel wraps.
Uatu
There used to be a great dim sum on tashereau Blvd in Brossard but they closed long ago and I don’t know if they relocated. But yeah Toronto dim sum is great. The best places are the ones with the chipped plates and bowls with the plastic table cloths where the bus boy basically grabs the 4 corners and wraps the entire table top into a bag that he throws over his shoulder and carries into the dish pit
JaneyB
@Ian – Agreed. The scale of Chinese and other Asian eats in TO is vast, just vast. I read somewhere that TO has 6 Chinese language daily newspapers. The historic Chinatown there is definitely robust and a significant, indeed expanding business district. Montreal has much more extensive connections with the Maghreb and Middle East though so those cuisines are more available in variety.
DeWolf
Ian, I wasn’t talking about the overall quality or level of Chinese food in Montreal, just in Chinatown specifically. There’s a reason I specified “historic Chinatowns” – the ones that have existed continually in the same location since the 19th century. In Canada, there’s only Vancouver, Calgary and Montreal that have them, and in the US you have Boston, New York, Philadelphia, Seattle and San Francisco. It’s select group of survivors and they all share some common elements that more recent Chinatowns don’t have, like clan associations and temples that have been in place for more than a century, and the physical legacy of exclusion and segregation.
Spadina Chinatown and Chinatown East in Toronto are much more recent. They only emerged in the 1960s after Toronto’s original Chinatown was demolished to make way for City Hall. As such they don’t have quite the same historical roots. They’re different beasts so I don’t think they can be directly compared to the historic Chinatowns.
When it comes to selection and sophistication of Chinese food, obviously Toronto is miles ahead of Montreal. Not surprising given that it has nearly a million people of Chinese origin compared to about 150,000 here. There are very few cities outside Asia that hold a candle to Toronto in terms of the multitude of Chinese cuisines available.
Meezly
As someone whose parents immigrated from Hong Kong, who grew up in Vancouver, and was familiar with the food in historic Chinatown and Richmondland, I understood what DeWolf meant in his first post.
Compared to Van & TO, Mtl has long had a dearth of great Cantonese cuisine. The dim sum at Kim Fung and the classic fare at Noodle Factory are decent, but it’s not the same calibre as even the dankest hole-in the-wall in Vancouver, where you can usually find a cheap decent Chinese takeout joint in a given neighbourhood. In Montreal, the equivalent would be a Thai or Vietnamese place.
There’s long been a big dark hole in my soul not being able to enjoy the dishes I had as a kid. I can only get the rare fix whenever I visit my parents in Vancouver, and the odd visit to TO, but it’s been harder now with the pandemic.
I would say that the range of regional Chinese cuisine in Montreal has improved and diversified due to the influx of mainland Chinese immigrants. The Cantonese speaking population is actually shrinking in Montreal as demographics change. It’s great that new generations are taking over institutions like Dobe & Andy and Mon Nan, but the exciting new places in Mtl’s Chinatown now tend to be cuisines from other regions.
Thankfully, I have folks like Jason Lee to keep track of it all. Here’s a good rundown: https://www.mtl.org/en/experience/where-eat-some-best-chinese-food-montreal
Janet
@DeWolf
Victoria, British Columbia, also has a Chinatown, the oldest in Canada and second-oldest in North America. It is small but still vibrant and the architecture remains distinctive. However, it may not have many good restaurants left. Back in the 70s, something Fung or Fung something (oh my fading memory) was considered the most authentic. We took my boyfriend’s father when was visiting from Montreal but he was physically thrown out by the owner when he insisted on having ketchup.Meezly
My last comment was made before watching the Global news piece. Now having just watched it, it pretty much outlined what I had said. Should’ve just watched it first!
DeWolf
Thanks Janet, I totally forgot about Victoria but it’s definitely part of the club!
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Kate
Quebec’s four major museums are asking to impose a vaccine mandate on visitors, in response to requests from their patrons.
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Kate
Longueuil is asking residents to cut back on water usage from February 7-21, while it works on its sewage treatment plant. Sales of deodorant are expected to rise in the suburb.
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Kate
Says here that snow removal will begin Sunday morning but I’ve seen tweets suggesting some boroughs may be starting Saturday.
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Kate
Repair work on the pont‑tunnel Louis‑Hippolyte‑La Fontaine (in all these years, has no one ever thought of giving it a shorter, snappier nickname?) will be ramping up soon and continuing through the rest of 2022.
Mitchell
The Hippy Fountain bridge?
dhomas
Most people just call it the “LaFontaine Tunnel”, it maybe that’s just us Eastern Anglos. CTV even headlines with this moniker:
https://montreal.ctvnews.ca/mobile/construction-to-intensify-in-eastern-montreal-s-la-fontaine-tunnel-1.5768474MarcG
I can hear a traffic reporter saying “The LaFontaine Tunnel is backed up” in my head – not just the Eastern Anglos, me thinks.
thomas
Francophones sometimes refer to it as simply “Louis‑Hippolyte”
Kate
I suppose one could just call it the tunnel. It’s not as if there are any others.
Tee Owe
I was going to say the same, but I thought I would get shot down for the Atwater tunnel
CE
Interestingly, my girlfriend mentioned taking “the tunnel” to someone driving us to PSC last night and I couldn’t figure out why she would suggest it considering we were staying on the island. She then clarified that she meant the Ville-Marie through downtown to Atwater.
Kate
Oh true, I don’t think of the Ville-Marie so much that way, but it really is.
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Kate
A woman taking the bus to work in St‑Michel last week was physically attacked and racially abused by another woman, who’s been arrested. It’s no joke to have your glasses stolen or broken either – too bad there’s no GoFundMe link here to help her pay for a new pair.
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Kate
CTV gives a platform to a guy from Evenko kvetching about the impact of pandemic measures on the entertainment industry: “No announcement has yet been made regarding rules that will eventually apply to summer shows and events. For the cultural industry, this announcement is wholly inadequate. After two years of uncertainty and ever-changing health measures, we are asking for a clear plan…”
Mr. Farkas, the uncertainty is not a game the government has been playing with you. The arrival of Covid, the subsequent waves of Covid variants, are not something over which the government, or indeed any human institution, has control or agency. The government is not obfuscating its plans. IT DOES NOT KNOW how things will go this summer. It cannot tell you.
IT IS NOT ABOUT YOU.
Sorry to be shouty, but god DAMN, people are stupid about this.
Take these little factoids home, Mr. Farkas: More little kids have been hospitalized here in this wave than in any other. Thousands of kids are home sick with Covid, or isolating because classmates are sick. Is your entertainment industry worth making people sick? Making kids sick?
Michael
The government doesn’t do things based on science. There is uncertainty in their actions while the rest of the world opens its doors.
We know from New York contact tracers that less than 1% of infections were happening in restaurants and gyms, yet gyms are the last to open up and the first to close. Meanwhile everyone is jam packed into Walmart / Cosco / shopping malls.
We can’t keep bankrupting our industries (turning them on / off) based on a virus that everyone will eventually get and are adequately protected with vaccines.
Kate
Michael – and I suspect you’re just Phil from Frelighsburg back again – a Quebec City gym became a hub of superspreading. Where people are exerting and exhaling a lot indoors it’s a hotbed of contagion. Please don’t come here with false information.
Kevin
We are not all going to get this virus.
There is a world of difference between being exposed to it and actually getting it.
Kevin
And there is also a world of difference in hospital capacity between Quebec/Canada and other regions.
We are currently coping with the end result of generations of mismanagement.DeWolf
I don’t think it’s unreasonable to ask for some coherent planning that is set against benchmarks instead of whatever random whim Legault has. Yes, the virus is unpredictable, but so is the CAQ. It’s an incompetent government that has by all measures done worse than almost anywhere else at managing this pandemic.
Tim S.
I generally agree, Kate, but I also think some things are predictable – that there’s stuff we can do outside in summer that we can’t do indoors in winter. I really wish the government would stop hoping that 2019 is just around the corner and put in place a structure, for say the next two years, that, for example, no indoor dining and shows November-March, but outdoor dining and festivals are OK.
I also wish they would publish, promote and stick to their priorities in terms of reopening. It seems to be 1) health care 2) non-essential retail 3) schools 4) activities for kids 5) restaurants 6) clubs shows, gyms. It drove me nuts that the week schools reopened the press conference questions were all about restaurants. Legault and co responded by talking about hospitals, as they should, but didn’t emphasize what a big deal schools were, both in terms of progress and risk.
MarcG
This kind of shoots a big hole in the idea that government is in the pocket of big business. Evenko is owned by the Molsons but the only way they can get the ear of the premier is to write an op-ed?
Nick D
I agree with Thomas here – I think, at this stage of the pandemic, the government should be able to offer a base from which promoters can plan, at least for the summer and early fall (i.e. these are the possible restrictions, but they may be less severe if the public health situation permits) and I think it’s fair for people to ask for that. Shows and cultural events are part of what make Montreal special, and we need to figure out a way for people who put on those shows and perform in them to make a living.
Meezly
For the Jan 31, Ontario gave businesses weeks of advance notice for reopening. I think it was less than a week for QC? Even the Ford administration seems to be more organized than the CAQ.
But to be fair, I haven’t heard of any provinces announcing summer reopening plans yet, at least BC and ON. I could be wrong.
ant6n
It’s not stupid to ask for government to come up with rules that define measures based on different scenarios (or kpi) defining the current status of the pandemic.
Chris
>The arrival of Covid, the subsequent waves of Covid variants, are not something over which the government, or indeed any human institution, has control or agency.
Correct of course. But they *do* have agency over how we react. That’s a choice. It’s not a law of nature that stores need to be closed as a reaction. Especially *after* 90% of us are vaccinated, and we have treatments, masks, distancing, and other mitigations.
qatzelok
**waits to see how Kate reacts to the convoy of pro-opening-up comments**
Kate
qatzelok, let them open up, let’s all get Covid, let’s have a big party. I don’t care, I’m old, I don’t have kids, let the health system collapse, what do I care.
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Kate
The flare of success the Canadiens experienced last spring cost $2.3 million in extra policing, according to documents obtained by La Presse, but the pandemic and the epidemic of gunfire around town are cited as even bigger reasons the SPVM overran its 2021 budget.
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Kate
A woman was found dead by the CP tracks near Van Horne and St‑Laurent on Thursday. She may have been hit by a train, but the circumstances are under investigation.
GC
Oh, man. I went by there this evening. (Not crossing the tracks, but just walking along the fence on the south side.) I wondered why there was fresh police tape across the hole in the fence. I thought the police had kind of just given up because someone eventually cuts a new hole in the fences.
walkerp
Whoah!
That’s sad, though I have to wonder if she was intoxicated (still sad). People have been crossing there for years since CP Rail stopped their aggressive enforcement. Will this bring it back?
Ideally, the city and CP Rail build a proper overpass, but my understanding is that CP Rail has resisted this.SMD
Walkerp, CP has no problem with overpasses or underpasses (as long as they don’t have to pay for them and they can keep running trains while they are being built). But they will fight to the death against any new level crossings, which is what the City has been requesting for almost a decade now.
walkerp
Ah, thanks for that clarification, SMD. I can see their argument. They should then pony up for a good chunk of an overpass, then, since they are squatting on prime city real estate. At least let’s start some negotiations.
James
Just to add what SMD already said and who also reported the details back in December 2021:
Henri-Julien and Saint-Dominique crossings: crossings must be grade seperated and be fully paid by the city.
Ogilvy, Henri-Bourassa and de l’Épée crossings: at-grade crossings allowed but also to be fully paid by the city.
Details: https://otc-cta.gc.ca/eng/ruling/34-r-2019Kate
Thank you, James.
GC
I think they could put an elevated crossing there and someone would still cut a hole in the fence. It’s not that far to walk to St-Denis or St-Laurent and go over/under the tracks in a safe manner, but people go through the fence because they want the shortest route possible. I doubt a lot of them would want to bother climbing stairs, either.
walkerp
While you may be right about some holes still being cut, it is a huge pain in the ass to have to walk over to St-Laurent. You are forced to cut back to Bernard on the south side and then forced to go way past the running trail on the north side. It adds another 20 minutes at least for me to get to Home Hardware when I can get directly there by cutting across the tracks.
On a bike it is a different story and the proper bike path has made a huge difference. I almost always take that rather than cutting across the tracks.
Designing the routes for the way people want to use them does work.
GC
Yeah, I get that. Personally, I live closer to Saint-Denis so it’s not going out of my way to go under the tracks on St-Denis, even if I want to head to Home Depot or get on the Reseau-Vert or something. In the interests of full disclosure, however, I will admit I’ve scampered through that hole in the fence a few times, just for a change of scenery. I wouldn’t ever damage the fence myself, but when there’s already a hole… I also think the the Van Horne over pass is not very inviting as a pedestrian, so I don’t blame anyone for wanting to walk just about any other way than over that.
Kate
GC, the viaduct isn’t inviting at all. The only good thing about it is the view.
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Kate
I haven’t followed the Chez Cora kidnapping trial, although some odd things came out of it, essentially the suspicion that the “victim” had engineered the incident himself. Now the jury is at an impasse and say they are unable to reach a verdict. What the jury doesn’t know, because they’ve been sequestered, is that the brother of the “victim” essentially agrees with the defense that the whole thing was a setup.
Friday, the news comes that the judge has declared a mistrial, the jury has been dismissed and a second trial will have to be held.
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Kate
There’s not so much local news this week with Tory meltdown and the “Freedom Convoy” noise practically audible from Ottawa. Now another convoy is converging on Quebec City just as its carnival starts. In a weird footnote, the man who kept his gym open in Quebec against sanitary rules last year, turning it into a superspreading spot, has been found dead.
Janet
In a weird footnote to your weird footnote, check out the name of the coroner’s office spokesperson. I guess his folks were Raging Bull fans.
Kate
OMG, my eye skidded right over that.
Joey
Jake Lamotta investigating the death of Dan Marino? Is this some kind of weird Ace Ventura remake?
Meezly
The co-organizer of the QC convoy left La Meute a few years ago because he felt they weren’t serious enough. Enough said.
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Kate
There have been reports of increased pet adoptions during the pandemic, but also fears of pet abandonment. Whatever the truth of these stories, veterinarians are overwhelmed and it can be hard to get an appointment. I’m sure that’s not easy for them, but it’s a good sign that not only are people getting pets, they’re also looking after them.
jeather
I will say that my vet is slightly expensive but has always been able to get me an appointment within 48 hours, and almost always 24 if I wanted it. (Also, it’s 2 blocks away.)
I’m vaguely looking for a young, bonded fluffy pair and it remains difficult to find, though this is not really the season for them.
Kate
jeather, the Animal Rescue Network has a pair of 8‑month‑old tabby littermates up for adoption. Not fluffy, but stripey!
jeather
I am absolutely fixed on fluffy. It will come eventually.
jeather
Or someone I know will find little ones that need socialization first, something.
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Kate
The High Lights festival is to go on later in February, with the usual confusing mixture of food and musical events.
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Kate
Three high school coaches in St‑Laurent have been arrested and accused of sexually assaulting minors. La Presse goes further, naming the suspects and specifying that they’re basketball coaches. The charges concern alleged incidents between 2008 and 2014.
Kevin 14:36 on 2022-02-06 Permalink
I want to see a Leger(or other) survey asking francophones if they want to live in Montreal, if Montreal is a French city, and if they want Montreal to be a French city.
j2 18:09 on 2022-02-06 Permalink
We all know the results: Hell no, no, absolutely. Unironically of course.