We’re having an early encounter with 30° temperatures expected Friday and Saturday. Boroughs are turning on some water features and there’s a ban throughout most of Quebec on campfires and fireworks. The Journal says that 130‑year‑old records are being broken. Although they’re calling it a canicule, a heat wave is defined by Environment Canada as “three or more consecutive days when the maximum temperature is 32°C or more.”
Updates from May, 2022 Toggle Comment Threads | Keyboard Shortcuts
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Kate
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Kate
The City of Montreal ended 2021 with a $293-million surplus.
Ian
Bring in the clowns!
I guess the interminable infrastructure work is just our imagination? Or maybe it’s getting
done on the cheap, which would explain why so many sites need to be redone every other year.Kate
When there’s a tender, the law says they have to take the lowest bid. That’s Quebec’s imposition, not the city’s own.
Ian
While this is true, there are also other conditions that have to be met – patchwork on city roads could be subject to city inspections. Excavation could require an integrated schedule. Just 2 ideas that would vastly improve work done, and entirely within the city’s control.
thomas
There is nothing wrong with taking the lowest bidder and that shouldn’t be the problem. It just required precise work specifications and proper inspection. I suspect both are deficient in Montreal.
Ian
This from @TedRutland on Twitter:
Montreal announces that revenues were up $143M in 2021, an increase “principally linked to the dynamism of the real estate sector.”
That’s a strange way of saying housing crisis.
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Kate
A man was shot dead in St‑Michel on Wednesday afternoon. TVA has a series of photos (no gore). La Presse’s account also lists three recent shootings in Laval.
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Kate
There’s a new documentary about the Quebec anglo called What We Choose to Remember, and Toula Drimonis tells us about it.
Ian
“There’s been a shift from the largely sensible goals of Bill 101 to make French the official language and ensure francophones can work in their language to the current situation that treats allophones and anglophones as a danger or an enemy, and it’s frankly reprehensible,”
This is an excellent observation. The only people that benefit from ethnonationalism are the political classes whose only real goal is to keep the plebs at each others throats while the rich keep on getting richer.
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Kate
The city has arrived at a settlement with the family of Pierre Coriolan, shot dead by SPVM police in 2017.
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Kate
The minke whale is still in the river off St Helen’s Island. Experts would like to see the cetacean make its way back downriver to its normal saltwater habitat, but there’s no known way to safely chivvy such an animal the 400 km it needs to travel.
And now a second minke whale has been spotted.
EmilyG
The English CBC article is saying maybe it’s the same whale.
Ian
I know it’s the Sicilian in me but I keep wanting to say “Minchia”!
EmilyG
Actually, the CBC article says it might be the same whale that was seen elsewhere earlier. So there probably are two whales in Montreal.
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Kate
The city’s pandemic state of emergency is set to be lifted May 19. It was lifted previously in August 2021 but put back in place that December when Omicron arrived.
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Kate
The Globe & Mail’s Konrad Yakabuski sees the REM situation as a train wreck although he doesn’t excuse delays on the original REM as a consequence of the pandemic, as I’ve seen expressed here.
I can see the whole piece without a paywall, but if anyone wants to read it and can’t, I’ll make a new link.
qatzelok
“Transfer payments merci”
Every article about anything in Quebec is followed by a comment like this one from the ROC.
Could this be considered a form of “fabricated racism?”Ian
It’s only “racism” if you think of Quebec in terms of ethnonationalism. Despite the best assimilationist efforts of the CAQ, Quebec is not yet racially or even culturally homogeneous.
Kevin
@qatzelok
Through extensive interaction with people who make this frequent complaint, I’ve determined that nobody who complains about transfer payments actually understands how they work.The people who make this complaint also seem to think that an income of $100,000 is lower middle class, that gas should be $1 per litre, and that climate change isn’t real.
Ian
@kevin
…so you have an ad hominem and a straw man rolled up in one to substantiate this claim of racism. Clever.
FWIW the average household income in Montreal is 82,589 and the median is 61,747 so 100k household income before taxes isn’t exactly upper middle class. That’s just two adults with 50k salaries.
Ian
addendum:
Average (individual) income was higher at $51,802, reflecting the effect of higher earners.
Feb 14, 2022
https://montrealgazette.com/business/local-business/personal-finance/delean-median-income-in-quebec-for-2020-tax-year-was-38809Kevin
Ian
Sorry, I was just being flippant about people who complain about transfer payments.
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Kate
Rima Elkouri makes a plea that six months is not enough to learn French well enough to discuss serious matters like health and immigration, but the CAQ government is unbending on Bill 96, as they are on making indigenous people learn more French.
Kevin
I was recently in the ER with someone who was agitated and disoriented because of the medication they were on, and staff were telling them without success to calm down and let the machines work. I piped in that although the patient was bilingual, they were an anglo, and perhaps the staff should make their request in the patient’s mother tongue.
They did so and the patient immediately calmed down.
So far as I can tell, such an action will still be legal under Bill 96, but due to the nature of the law, anyone overhearing this will be able to make an anonymous complaint to the OQLF.
It’s less clear if, under Bill 96, doctors and nurses will be allowed to speak in English to the families of those under their care — does the patient need historic anglo papers? The caregivers? Both?Kate
Kevin, how do we get our historic anglo papers?
jeather
I don’t feel confident discussing health issues in French and I’m fluent enough. I don’t mind if I am spoken to in French, really, but I prefer to reply in English.
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Kate
The man who punched and verbally abused an under‑age soccer referee in DDO on the weekend has apologized. Nothing said about whether he’ll be charged with assault.
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Kate
Typical indicators like employment figures are looking good for the city but it’s an object lesson in how these figures only look at a sliver of the reality, when inflation is soaring, food is getting ever more expensive and housing outright unaffordable. Having a job is no guarantee any more of even a modest way of life. Owning property has become an impossible dream for many.
La Presse has an analysis of the housing crisis in Montreal.
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Kate
Radio-Canada reports on a blatantly illegal Airbnb building in Petite‑Patrie, and the disturbances it brings to quiet Alma Street. And yet the city and borough seem powerless to act.
Wednesday, Metro has a piece on the toothlessness of government to enforce its own laws. Or is it that, in their hearts, they side with the property‑owning class and admire anyone who amasses profit?
harold
6295 Alma & Google Maps lists a business there under the name “Jean-Pierre Aumont” w/ 1 4 star review.
Ephraim
For one, send him a commercial bill for the building and see how that goes down. That’s 4X the tax rate.
Joey
I wonder how powerless the borough mayor would find himself if he happened to be living next door…
Robert H
Good question, Joey. Do you think there could be an Airbnb in Legault’s new condominium building too?
«Nous, pour aller en cour, ça prend une preuve directe, a poursuivi le maire. On ne peut pas avoir une preuve indirecte, c’est-à-dire qu’un inspecteur ne peut pas aller sur Airbnb, puis prendre un screenshot de la page puis aller en cour avec ça. Ce n’est pas considéré comme suffisant.»
Why the hell not? What’s “direct?” Is it or isn’t it illegal? This is just a festival of buck-passing indifference among Revenue Quebec, the CITQ, and Ville de Montreal. Considering that existing laws seem adequate, I have to agree with Kate that there is a lack of political will to enforce them. You can bet that Airbnb knows this. Meanwhile, the citizen-complainant is left to his or her own devices. Apparently, we need a local Murray Cox with infinite time and resources. Will it take a lawsuit to dislodge the legal logjam here?
Joey
Robert H, I don’t know why the city doesn’t just have an employee or councillor book a stay. Wouldn’t that be a “preuve directe”? The City is way too timid and cautious on this file. They should be testing the resolve of flagrant rule-breakers, not whining about how they can’t do anything.
Ephraim
The dossier is CLEARLY in RQ’s hands… they just don’t do anything about it, because no one is auditing them. The CITQ knew how to find them. The tools are there. And all RQ has to do is find a few and then audit their taxes and put down the fines. The fines are supposed to be PER DAY. You just need to make an example of a few people and miracles of miracles, AirBnB will do something to have their name out of the newspaper with the words “TAX EVASION”. And seriously, RQ can just offer up a reward of half the fine amount for anyone presenting them with an illegal reservation. That will turn AirBnB’s reservation system into a hunt for tax evasion. Can you imagine how many people would help when the return is $750 per day plus 10% of the total tax evasion amount and fines?
Ian
I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, someone is getting paid off huge. AirBnb is very well known as a powerful lobby internationally, with very deep pockets precisely for shutting down this kind of talk.
Joey 08:11 on 2022-05-12 Permalink
It turns out we’ve had 30+ degree temperature during the month of May in eight of the past 10 years. Time to recalibrate our expectations for (official or unofficial) heat waves at this point of the spring. Similarly, it is more likely than not that we’ll experience a similar episode in September. Our city has to expand its notion of ‘summer’ to start earlier and end later.
steph 13:04 on 2022-05-12 Permalink
Did we even have a spring? I think all the trees were bare of leaves just this last monday, and three days later they’re full of green.
dhomas 20:27 on 2022-05-12 Permalink
We had a 10-15cm snowfall less than a month ago! I also noticed that all my greenery just suddenly turned green seemingly overnight.
Kate 09:39 on 2022-05-13 Permalink
dhomas, I know! It’s like whiplash around here. I just put my snow shovel away two weeks ago.
John B 11:15 on 2022-05-13 Permalink
My snow shovel is still out & I still have winter tires in my bike. I’ve been so busy getting the community garden from winter mode to spring mode in the 1 week between snow & 30+ degrees that I haven’t really had a chance to change my personal life from winter to summer. At least I still have a pair of shorts that fit and are in ok-ish condition!
It really has been whiplash this year. “Spring” was very cold and basically winter. I’m looking forward to the rain & cooler temperatures next week.