Grand Prix to dominate weekend
Crescent Street is returning to its Grand Prix self as our media generally hail a “return to normal”.
Although I’m not a fan of the drawing style of Le Devoir’s cartoonist Pascal, he makes a point with Friday’s squib.
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Kate
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Ian 10:22 on 2022-06-17 Permalink
La Presse is pretty direct, too:
Urgence climatique – Le Grand Prix au pilori
John B 15:11 on 2022-06-17 Permalink
Disclaimer: I’m a fairly recent F1 fan, (thanks, Drive to Survive!), & like the spectacle.
I think cancelling the Grand Prix would be pretty much symbolic compared to how much carbon the city releases every day. We can’t even get a safe bike path down Verdun, but we have to cancel the GP? Let’s actually take some meaningful action in the city before complaining that F1, which says they’ll be carbon neutral in 8 years, (faster than the city…), is destroying the environment.
Thomas 15:32 on 2022-06-17 Permalink
F1 is kind of the epitome of general eurotrashiness, but the Canadian Grand Prix is also one of those events that makes Montreal a truly global city, as opposed to the rest of North America that has traditionally only been interested in American sports. On a related note, I’m surprised we dropped out of the running to be one of the 2026 World Cup host cities, given the worldwide exposure that would have brought.
But let’s be real: building the REM de l’Est would have been orders of magnitude more useful in creating a more sustainable city than cancelling the Grand Prix ever will be.
EmilyG 16:22 on 2022-06-17 Permalink
Bring back Formula-E!
/s
Kate 10:19 on 2022-06-18 Permalink
Thomas, Toronto is spending $290 million in taxpayers’ money from all three levels of grovernment. Quebec quite reasonably refused to play this game having been singed before by Montreal’s venture into big world sporting events.
When the idea was still in play, in 2018, Taylor C. Noakes wrote a piece about what FIFA requires of host cities: “FIFA doesn’t pay municipal taxes. It also demands that the host city refrain from promoting any other major sporting event in the year preceding the World Cup; that no major cultural events occur on the day of, after and before a game; that FIFA’s commercial partners have free and unrestricted access to the entire site of the matches and that none of their competitors advertise anywhere close to said site. FIFA also demands the city be made as attractive as possible and — astoundingly — reserves the right to rename official venues.”
Noakes also linked to a Christopher Nardi piece for TVA which suggested FIFA might demand English only on signage for the event.
We’re well out of it. It wasn’t a good gamble when the decision was made, and it still isn’t.
On your other topic, Thomas, a REM going east in Montreal will be built, but simply not in the format CDPQ‑Infra was intent on imposing on the city.