The Old Brewery Mission says there are not enough places to shelter the homeless – which, sad to say, is hardly news.
Updates from July, 2022 Toggle Comment Threads | Keyboard Shortcuts
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Kate
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Kate
Macleans has a feature on the evolution of the Biodôme with a few nice photos.
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Kate
André Boisclair, once leader of the Parti Québécois, was sentenced Monday to two years less a day on sexual assault charges, to which he pleaded guilty. TVA has a grim little timeline of his downfall.
Update: The Journal says Boisclair will probably be let go after four months.
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Kate
The 16 km of the Brossard-Central Station branch of the REM was electrified for the first time on June 30.
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Kate
The Journal’s Sophie Durocher gets bent out of shape about the growing use of English in Paris but she misses a step: “Ce qui me fait marrer, c’est quand les Français pensent parler anglais, mais utilisent des expressions fautives. « Take away » au lieu de « take-out ».” Actually, the British do call it takeaway, and it’s more proximate for Parisians to borrow British usage than North American.
Ephraim
Montreal is now the 4th largest French speaking city in the world… and it’s amazing how 9 of the other top 10 don’t seem to worry, like Henny Penny… it’s just become such an easy way to “Rally Round the Troops” and reality it’s simply Sayre’s Law
Kate
I did wonder about that in passing. Paris has permanent claim to the #1 position, but the second spot has been contested for years between Montreal and Kinshasa. What other city has pushed Montreal down to #4? One list suggests Abidjan, Côte d’Ivoire, at over seven million inhabitants. Kinshasa has more than nine million.
It isn’t clear how many of these people speak French ais a first language or even a usual language. Such numbers can be liberally interpreted. I’ve worked on some books about education in Haiti, for example, and while Port‑au‑Prince also figures on lists of French‑speaking cities, only a small percentage of the population actually speaks French daily. Everyone speaks Kreyol.
For that matter, only roughly half of Montreal’s residents commonly speak French at home.
John B
“quand les Français pensent parler anglais, mais utilisent des expressions fautives”
I bet she orders “un smoothies” when she wants a cold, blended, fruit drink…
Ephraim
Paris, Kinshasa, Abidjan, Montreal, Dakar, Port-Au-Prince, Yaoundé. Ouagadougou, Bamako, Antananarivo.
Kinshasa is over 17 million in the metro area. Paris is 13 million in the metro area. But they say that it’s about 2/3rd French speaking… so that’s 11.3 million French speakers. Abidjan is about 5.3 million in the metro area and French is the official language of Cote d’Ivoire. Montreal is about 4.6 million in the metro area and 71% are Francophone…
So Paris is really at risk of becoming the 2nd largest.. though by population it already is…. just not by number of French speakers.
Uatu
While we’re talking about anglicisms, I’m here at the Glen and they’ve just announced overcapacity in the adult ER. Where’s the column bitching about the ERs and the lack of doctors? Then again that ER waiting time is great to practise conjugating irregular verbs … I mean priorities, right?
mare
I love about the absurdity that a francophone (who apparently is good at English, she must have had more than 6 months of education) is complaining about other francophones speaking bad English.
Language topics never fail to generate clicks, as is proven by the number of comments on this topic here. (I’m guilty too.)
Ephraim
Uata – Verbe: Savoir – Subjunctif Imparfait…. the 12 year old in me wants to here it 🙂
Robert H
I also see Montreal so frequently described as the third or fourth most French-speaking city in the world behind Paris, Kinshasa or Abidjan. But definitions can be so murky: by French-speaking, are we refering to speakers for whom it is their first language, the one they learned as children and grew up speaking with family and friends, the one that occupies most of their daily life? Or is it a lingua franca, useful for communicating in a polyglot environment and with official entities? Specifically, I wonder if the great public of Abidjan and Kinshasa actually learn French as their first language among family and speak it in daily interactions outside the context of a classroom or government function. If we are simply refering to the ability to speak French, then I would find those rankings more credible. As Kate said, only about half of Montreal is francophone under that first criterion. If francophone means simply being able to speak French, would Ville Marie actually rank second?
I find Sophie Durocher’s complaint about the ubiquity of English in Paris a more interesting observation. Paris is one of the great, global migratory capitals with tides of humanity flowing in and out and large immigrant populations from around the world. It doesn’t surprise me that English, the world’s lingua franca and the most expansive of tongues would wash over the city and manifest itself in every corner. The unmatched creativity and vitality of American culture and wealth, generating innovation, trends and influence spreads around the globe. It takes on an allure and symbolizes everything hip, contemporary, lucrative, and international. The French seem to love the sound of “ing”: un smoking, le feeling. As Durocher mentions about a columnist being invited «en backstage» (why not «dans les coulisses»?), English is so attractive that it’s used even when a French word already exists. The seeming apathy or enthusiasm about English usage in France relative to Quebec probably reflects an attitude that comes from being a nation of 65 million on a multilingual continent instead of a province of 8.5 million sharing a nation (reluctantly or not) with 30 million English speakers and another 330 million of them just over the border to the south. That would cause a certain amount of existential anxiety, hence, language laws and crabby newspaper columns.
Robert H
Ephraim — Mais, la situation des urgences est dégoûtante. C’est incroyable qu’ils AIENT SU tout le temps!
Ephraim
@Robert H – que je susse, que tu susses, qu’il/elle/on sût, que nous sussions, que vous sussiez, qu’ils/elles sussent…. Best French very ever… suce…. 🙂
Robert H
Ha, ha, fun and games with homonyms, Ephraim!
CE
The 2022-2023 Bonjour Montréal tourist guide says Montreal is “the second-largest francophone city in the world after Paris.”
Ephraim
@CE – And it’s wrong. this fallacy has been going on for far too long. Even if we don’t count just Francophones, we are definitely third. And Paris is barely holding on to first, since Kinshasa is more populous than Paris.
In other news… London is second or third to New York City and LA. But then it gets murky… like is Hong Kong included, since it’s their second language. Singapore is 5.4M but 48% speak English at home, but it’s the lingua Franca. Of course Delhi, Mumbai, Dhaka and Lagos all have very large populations that speak English as a second language. You also have J’burg, Washington/Baltimore, Seattle, San Francisco, Boston, Philadelphia, Dallas, Sydney, Melbourne, Chicago, Toronto, Houston.
Kevin
Pauvre Sophie. She’s like a resident of Victoria who visits the UK and decides it’s not sufficiently British.
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Kate
The Globe & Mail reports that a “near record” $1.7 billion in business investments “poured into Montreal” in the first half of this year, but it’s possible that the new language law will slow things down and make it harder to do business. Radio-Canada has the French version (and no paywall) of the same CP story, with a headline saying it’s despite linguistic fears, while the Gazette has a gloomy forecast about business investment because of a global slowdown.
It isn’t so much linguistic fears, I think, as resistance to the extra layer of bureaucracy and documentation that the new laws will require. Those cost money to do, and they narrow down the pool of possible hires at a time when all kinds of businesses are finding it hard to find workers.
Robert H
Good news for Montreal, except for that cloud behind the silver lining. All one can do now is hope that the OQLF applies bill 96’s measures with nuance and leniency, and that they provide business and workers with the tools to meet the new requirements. Not that its past actions cause much hope, but perhaps the prospect of the Office, and the CAQ by extension, being responsible for an economic debacle might inspire some restraint.
Kate
I wonder whether a nice donation to the CAQ would arrange things.
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Kate
I’ve never set foot in Bronx Books but it’s a little sad to read that it’s closing this week.
Robert H
It’s sad, because it’s the loss of another of those third places, so enriching to a community, but usually, not so enriching to the merchant or founder. It’s one less store run by someone who cares about what they do or the service they provide; a vocation as much as a business. The personal touch yields to outlet #9999 of whatever chain, or an online site with a chatbot.
JaneyB
I’ve been in there. That’s sad news. It’s hard to imagine there’s no vacant storefront nearby that could be used by her instead.
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Kate
On the weekend, Urgences‑Santé got a ruling against pressure tactics by its overworked and underpaid paramedics, who get no lunch breaks and are subject to mandatory overtime.
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