Le Devoir’s Alexis Riopel visits the Rosemont reservoir, a massive water tank under Étienne-Desmarteau park. This reservoir was initially excavated decades ago but, for some reason, never completed; the city revived the project in 2014 and put it into service late last year.
Interesting side note: the city’s consumption of potable water has declined by 26% since the new millennium because repairs to chronically leaky water mains have reduced wastage.
This Journal piece makes grim reading: the coroner’s report is in on a murder‑suicide last year in the Mile End. Readers may recall that a scion of the Fairmount Bagel family was found dead alongside a murdered sex worker. There’s nobody left to charge, the case is closed. I hope the bakery worker who was sent to check up on Daniel Shlafman was given some support.
A library story hour held by drag queen Barbada has been cancelled in Saint‑Laurent even though she has a Radio‑Canada TV show and has been holding similar events for five years. Borough mayor Alan DeSousa hedges with wanting to know “what topics” would be discussed. I think this story’s resonance is against similar resistance in the United States, where the practice of drag queen story hour began in San Francisco and has faced conservative resistance there as well.
She would be the person who knows if her story hour is appropriate for children. And obviously it is.
In other parts of Canada, some Freedom Convoy jerks have been either causing trouble, or threatening to cause trouble, at drag queen story hours. It’s so sad.
Aren’t these the same people that are all about “personal freedom” (mostly, the freedom to not get vaccinated/wear a mask) and “the market will regulate itself”? If there is no market for these story hours and nobody goes to them, they’ll just disappear, right? Also, if people do indeed want to go to them, isn’t it within their personal freedom to do so?
I brought my kids to a story hour hosted by Barbada a few years ago. It was great! Really engaging and fun for all. Sounds like the unnamed VSL city councillor should have come, too.
First story that comes up on Google news this morning is a Macleans piece on this mansion you can buy for $31 million on Pine Avenue.
Pfft, all that cash and it’s only Westmount adjacent. Also, the photo over the caption “the walnut‑panelled library” actually shows a bathtub.
On the upside: no breakfast bar, even in the photo essay on Sotheby’s.
I’m puzzled, don’t you put your books in the solid marble bathtub, like any rich person?
Been for sale for a LONG time. Philippe III de Gaspé Beaubien I think is the owner. Tax-wise, the property and building is only valued at $7.5M. Maybe the city should tax them based on what they think they could sell it for. They obviously can afford to pay the higher tax bill.
Incidentally, not the most expensive house on the market at the moment. $35M for 3165 Place De Ramezay ($4.4M property evaluation) and that’s Irwin Lande… notorious and infamous in the news (and that is all I will say about that).
It’s clear… these houses aren’t evaluated properly by the city and clearly, the city could probably make up some of it’s shortfall by fixing the evaluations of homes in that part of Ville-Marie by the values they want to sell at. Might also make them a little less “over the top” with their prices.
La Presse says the seventh wave of Covid is here. I was struck this morning by how the CBC news reader introduced the story about the Luc Boileau presser planned at 9 am: her first, firm statement was that Boileau was not going to reinstitute any health mandates, as if that’s the most important thing – reassuring people they were not going to have to do anything even if the virus is resurging among us.
Likewise, the headline on TVA’s live stream of Boileau’s presser reads “Pas de retour du masque obligatoire ni de nouvelles mesures sanitaires”. Those “freedom convoy” folks have our authorities running scared.
I saw a tweet yesterday saying politicians are acting now as if the pandemic never happened. Even journalists are getting into it. Radio‑Canada has a piece Thursday morning about how Exo is cancelling some bus departures because of a shortage of drivers. There isn’t a word in the article about whether some drivers are off sick with Covid, but that’s bound to be a factor.
>not going to reinstitute any health mandates, as if that’s the most important thing
We must hang out in very different circles, because that *is* the most important thing for most people I know.
90% of us have taken the vaccines (and they work), and now life must go on.
>Those “freedom convoy” folks have our authorities running scared.
Be careful what you wish for. Would you rather more lockdowns or another president Trump and prime minister Poilievre?
Yesterday, a perfect mid-20s summer day, I passed by several restaurants and cafes which had very nice terraces, and yet everybody was sitting inside instead. If we want to avoid more severe restrictions I wish we would get better at the easy stuff.
Chris, it’s probably clear to most readers of this blog that you and Kate would hang out in different circles.
Tim S., that is indeed dismaying. I doubt there’s the political will for more (any) restrictions, but, yes, it sure would be nice to chalk up some easy wins.
Covid is now impacting all the things that the freedom posse and the short-term politicians that desperately want “normal” were trying to preserve by lifting all the mandates. Given that this is the warm weather period, I expect this fall/winter to have a much worse impact. Anybody who thinks we can just ignore covid and go along as we did before it came around is just stupid or willfully ignorant because of their facebook-brainwashed cult ideology.
I don’t know what the specific solutions will be, but government and private industry need to come together and start developing policies that will strike a balance between a functioning society/economy and health. This shit is not going away and it’s not going to solve itself.
The lack of public education on how this thing works and why it’s important has been a massive failure.
From all the house parties and BBQs I go to, covid is not even a discussion at all. People simply don’t care nor do they want to care about it.
I visited an apartment for rent of an elderly person that was moving out and the elderly person said “don’t bother wearing a mask here, we got to move on with this”. That was that, everyone took their masks off.
Living with Covid apparently means living with nothing working right but pretending everything is fine.
Yep. Health care, public transit, so many things right now aren’t operating properly because a significant part of the work force is sick. But official policy is that it’s on individuals to behave responsibly, because a small but vocal segment of society will get very loud very fast if any health mandates are put in place.
I don’t usually do off-island stories, but it’s news that a 16-year-old was injured in a shooting in Repentigny on Wednesday evening.
Another young man was shot and injured in Montreal North around the same time.
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