Le Devoir tells about a 28-year-old who’s become a multimillionaire on an empire of renovictions.
Updates from May, 2022 Toggle Comment Threads | Keyboard Shortcuts
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Kate
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Kate
The beautiful old firehouse on Place Youville, vacant for some time since the Centre d’histoire moved, faces an uncertain future.
GC
I didn’t realize the Museum had moved out–in 2018, apparently. It’s a cool building and it would be nice to see something done with it other than just condos.
James
I’m all for affordable housing but the idea proposed in the article that this building should be converted into inexpensive housing is ridiculous! It would cost a fortune for very few apartments. There are loads of condos being built just a few blocks away.
Kate
I agree with you, James.
One logical use for this building would be to bring the firefighters’ museum down to this location, and give it more scope. It’s currently in a compressed space inside the fire station on Laurier and St‑Laurent with minimal opening hours – Sunday afternoons only, last I looked – but they have a lot of antique stuff and there would be aspects of history and technology that could be expanded on, with more space.
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Kate
Two men who shot another man in the legs in 2019 have been sentenced to 8½ years for what’s apparently called a wheelchair contract in criminal argot: a hit that’s not meant to be fatal but is intended to permanently disable. With one photo of a massive scar on the victim’s shin.
JP
It’s not enough of a punishment, if you ask me.
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Kate
The young man who attacked a random child in Pointe-Aux-Trembles in March has been judged not criminally responsible by experts at Pinel. They now have to convince a judge.
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Kate
A Pointe Claire woman tells about her experience trying to save the piece of forest under threat of development near Fairview.
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Kate
In more Journal red-raggery, we have the headline Des anglos veulent faire fermer sa boulangerie française à Montréal. Some Westmount Karen went off on a Greene Avenue baker who asked her a question in French, and suddenly all anglos are at fault.
Update: The Journal gets the anglo’s side of the story.
Blork
I saw someone linking to that on FB last night and I almost lost it. One anglo acts like a dick and it’s headline news. ONE ANGLO!
OTOH it’s a great experiment in seeing confirmation bias at work. The same people who talk about how Internet comments are bullshit, and how you need to apply the scientific method to data, blah blah blah will share this in a second if they’re fans of Bill 96, without even blinking (or thinking).
Daniel
This would be funnier if it didn’t take place the day after Loi 96 passed.
Where would we be without the Société Saint-Jean-Baptiste to denounce this situation as “tout simplement scandaleuse”?
“Cet événement montre encore une fois tout le mépris et l’intolérance face à notre langue française au Québec.” I mean, it shows that when your raison d’être is to see that. Otherwise, not so much.
Thomas
I was pretty heavily involved with the Blue Metropolis literary festival in my early years in Montreal, and Iet me tell you Westmount Karens are no joke.
It is delightful, however, that despite the strong undercurrent of resentment towards French expatriates among the Québécois population of Montreal, the opportunity to once again vilify the anglo was too tempting to pass up and so all of a sudden this most Québécois of media outlets loves the Frenchman (for the record I have a strong affinity for France and its people, much stronger than that of the average Quebecer).
But in all seriousness, I think we can all agree that it is impossible to get a decent cinnamon bun in Montreal and if there were fewer pâtisseries à la française and just one Scandinavian bakery perhaps this situation could be remedied.
jeather
Ignoring the stupidity of responding to one bad Yelp review — honestly unsympathetic to everyone in this story, though I have been to and liked that bakery — I am a HARD AGREE on the lack of non-French desserts in this city. Sometimes I just want a slice of layer cake, not some kind of mousse confection. I can make a cake, but then I have a whole cake.
GC
<<En plus, la cliente comprend et parle cette langue», soupire Jérôme Moutonnet.
So, it would also be fine to greet a customer in English–or Italian, etc.–as long as the customer understands and speaks that language? Strangely, the article doesn't get into that…
I'm certainly not defending Harris, however, as she sounds like a piece of work. I had a flashback to the famous mosque story and wondered if TVA was just making the whole thing up, but maybe she's a real person.
Kevin
So long as there is one person hearing English in Quebec, French can never survive.
How sad and frightening to go though life like that.
Daniel
Regarding the update: I’ll be the first to admit I would never have imagined she was perfectly bilingual!
Also, lolz at the line at the bottom of the piece: “Vous avez un scoop à nous transmettre?” No telling what language “scoop” comes from there.
jeather
Entirely unsurprised that the store owner is now claiming he refuses to speak English as a political stance and not that he accidentally said one sentence in French.
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Kate
How anyone could walk through Montreal streets just now, with trees in bloom, flowers in front yards, everything bright and soft, with a pervasive mood of optimism for the coming summer – and write a column about how dirty, ugly and depressing it is, I do not know. I see why Elsie Lefebvre is out of political life if she’s this bad at reading the room.
(What are the odds the Journal has a rota where each columnist has to take a turn shitting on Montreal and saying how lousy it is?)
Robert H
Au JdM, Ce genre de commentaire n’est que service au lectorat. C’est practiquement un gabarit marque deposée qu’on peut s’appeller Montreal Est Un Trouᴹᴰ. Il suffit de lire les commentaires qui suivent chaque article de ce type: Un chœur de fâchéphones (VF des angryphones) témoignant combien ils détestent Montréal, combien la ville est devenue dégoûtante, combien elle est dangereuse, comment ils évitent d’aller en ville pour quoi que ce soit, comment ils sont partis il y a des années et ne reviendront jamais et combien leur vie est merveilleuse maintenant à Québec, Les Laurentides, L’Estrie, Le Gaspé, zzzzzzzzz…
Poutine Pundit
This article is a month late, but it would’ve been true in late April. It is true that Montreal is slow and under-resourced when it comes to spring cleanup, as it has been for decades. Although I would never move back to Quebec City, the contrast in cleanliness is shocking when you go there in April. It’s a chronic problem that should be solved, regardless of whether we like the Journal’s suburban readership or not.
DeWolf
Quebec City is generally more well-kept than Montreal, even in areas that are rough equivalents (eg Saint-Sauveur and Saint-Henri). It would be interesting to really dig into the systemic differences behind that, because clearly things are not working the same on a bureaucratic level.
JaneyB 08:27 on 2022-05-26 Permalink
That’s quite a story. The guy buys blocks with private loans at 25% interest, pays out tenants for about 4k each and goes from there. And he’s got a bunch of those simultaneously. He must have nerves of steel to juggle all that. Of course, renoviction is a problem but that’s one ballsy businessman.
Kate 08:50 on 2022-05-26 Permalink
Well, he’s a man with access to private loans, which suggests he hasn’t exactly bootstrapped himself out of nothing.
JaneyB 09:05 on 2022-05-26 Permalink
The world of private loans is easy for anyone to access – and anybody will lend to you if you’ll pay 25% interest on the loan. They take the bldg as collateral if you default, after all. All the risk is the borrowers.
There are many immigrant groups here who have a community of lenders available btw, notably the Lebanese, Sikhs, and others. Many house purchases and business expansions are financed that way in Montreal because often immigrants can’t access bank loans without a credit history or perhaps because they are working partly or wholly in cash. Most private lenders are not lending at an extortionist rate of 25% though. He is very insane to borrow at that rate but I guess it’s has been working so far.
Kevin 09:37 on 2022-05-26 Permalink
“They’re not confessing. They’re bragging.”
Blork 10:21 on 2022-05-26 Permalink
For generations, the idea of the “self-made millionaire” was put forth as the pinnacle of success and achievement in our society. The entire U.S. national mythology is based on this. Everyone from the 19th century robber barons on to Howard Hughes, then the Silicon Valley moguls, and even Donald Trump rode those waves of mythology.
In recent years we tend to take a closer look at exactly how these people made their millions, and at what cost, but don’t be fooled into thinking most people raise those questions just because they swirl around in popular culture and in progressive or leftish media.
Your average schmuck out there is still big on the self-made millionaire mythology. This is how snakes like Peter Sergakis manage to stay popular despite the nefarious ways he runs his businesses. Even the monsters at Shiller-Lavy have their following among the ignorant populace who see no other value associated with getting rich off other people’s misery beyond the monetary value.
This guy is just another in a long and unbroken line. He has his detractors, but he’s undoubtedly a hero to many.