It’s only a statistical forecast, but the populations of Montreal and Laval are expected to grow more slowly than the rest of Quebec over the next 20 years.
Updates from July, 2022 Toggle Comment Threads | Keyboard Shortcuts
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Kate
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Kate
A new passport office has opened at Fairview, giving the island of Montreal its fourth office and presumably taking pressure off the other three.
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Kate
The STM has begun installing a new kind of metro turnstile that will read bank cards.
I can’t help wondering whether this will eventually cause the phasing out of deals on ten tickets, or even passes, if every trip costs you the same, no matter how often you need to use the metro.
Jim
I was happily surprised when I was in NYC last week, where they offered tap and go on the subway turnstiles. I was only there for a couple of days with very few trips, so single fares worked fine, but it seems they are eventually having a way to combine fare payments (https://new.mta.info/fares/omny)
Bob R
This doesn’t work for everyone, obviously: but in NYC, if you have a smart phone or apple watch, you can use those for single-pay at the turnstyle. If you use it enough to pay for a full weekly pass, it then stops charging you for the remainder of the 7 days.
walkerp
In Vancouver, you can pay for the bus with your credit card, just a quick swipe. It’s really great for tourists.
Ephraim
It’s really weird what Americans can and can’t tap for… They don’t have the $100/$200 limits that we do… but sometimes even on a small tap… it puts up the signature line and you have to make them sign the receipt.
Blork
Ok, so how are they going to screw this up?
You swipe your card, but then you have to go to the STM website, register, and then confirm your purchase. The good news is that once you’re registered, next time you only need to go to the website, enter a PIN, then confirm your purchase. Although you’ll be hit with a survey every third time, and you won’t be able to confirm your purchase until you complete the survey.
Or…
You first have to download an app. Then, when you swipe your card you wait for a confirmation prompt to appear in the app. But before you can “OK” it you have to sit through two 30-second video ads.
Or… (?)
Dominic
@Blork: Also if you click in ENGLISH it brings you to a 404 page
Daniel D
How will this work with buses? A lot of Metro journeys start or end with a bus trip, so if they’re not adding these readers to buses as well, it seems like the number of people whom would benefit is quite low. Also, what about trips out into other zones, for example starting Downtown and ending somewhere in exo land? It seems this could only work if the system requires “tapping out” at the end of a journey so it can calculate the correct fare.
I remain hopeful they’ll do a good job with the implementation, but this sounds like a hack to me so they can claim they’re up there with the systems of London, Tokyo and Hong Kong.
MarcG
The project was started 7 years ago, don’t expect it to be cutting edge. I understand that it’s important to keep money in Quebec by hiring local companies to do stuff but if a product already exists, sometimes it makes sense just to buy it and install it rather than reinvent the wheel.
Uatu
I saw them installing the new turnstiles at Vendome. It took them about 10 days and workers were there at 8am and still there when I left work around 4pm all 10 days. I’m not optimistic about the system if it takes that long to install and program
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Kate
No link, just a note about how good the Île d’Orléans strawberries are this year. They have a rich complex sweetness that are testimony to a perfect growing season.
JP
I was there yesterday. It’s such a lovely place. The strawberries were amazing. We also got chocolate and did a wine tasting among other things.
Kate
The Île is such a little paradise in the river. I’ve only visited it briefly and it felt like a separate little world.
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Kate
A vacant building was torched in St‑Laurent overnight. They already have a possible suspect.
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Kate
24 Heures has an interesting look at an ordinary Rosemont plex with geothermal heating and cooling and how it was done.
mare
We looked into this for our 5-plex ten years ago, but the total quoted price of an installation was much higher than the $35,000 mentioned in the article, especially if all apartments were going to be converted. And there were only very limited subsidies for existing construction. The electricity to run the thermopump (always on) was already more than we used on electricity ourselves all year, and if we added all apartments we couldn’t legally change the rents with $50 or so per month to include heating, the increase had to be spread out gradually. So the time to recoup our investment was going to be very, very long.
On top of that, the mess was going to be huge: they would destroy the garden, and installing hot water radiators in all apartments (2 and a tiny one in the bathroom with supply hoses running through the ceilings of the apartment below) would also cause a major mess and be quite costly.
Converting the old ground floor heating system from oil to electric and upgrading the electric heaters in the apartments to more efficient ones made economically and environmentally more sense, so we did that instead. For new construction the ROI is slightly better, but it’s also rarely done. In Quebec alternative energy sources like geothermal, solar and wind have to compete with our existing ‘green’ energy infrastructure. (Whose environmental damage and massive use of construction materials makes it much less ‘green,’ but that has already happened.)But yeah, when the whole economy is going to move away from fossil fuels (which is not going to happen very fast when oil and gas still get huge subsidies from our government; so IMHO we’re already royally fucked) it will put a higher strain on the electric grid. Our hydro installations have quite some excess capacity, but that might change if the current snowfall and river runoff up north is going to diminish in the future, which is uncertain.
Kate
I wondered about the stress on the grid from “l’électrification de divers secteurs de l’économie” – maybe that means transportation, but I certainly hope it doesn’t mean more cryptocurrency farms.
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Kate
A young man was found unconscious in an outdoor city pool in Anjou overnight, and couldn’t be revived. He’s in hospital in critical condition.
There were four drownings around Quebec on the weekend.
Update: Make it five. The young man in the Anjou pool died despite CPR and hospital.
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Kate
The Pope has arrived in Canada and there will be endless news stories about what he’s doing. He’ll be saying a mass at Ste‑Anne‑de‑Beaupré on Thursday which will not only be shown for free at all Guzzo cinemas, believers will even be offered communion at these locations. I wonder how much of an indulgence Vincenzo Guzzo is getting on the deal.
Unless something startling happens, this is the last nod I’ll be giving to the papal visit.
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Kate
A possible tornado touched down in the Laurentians overnight Saturday to Sunday – at least, something happened that damaged houses and trees and took down power lines.
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Kate
There are growing numbers of Covid cases in homeless shelters. Should this come as a surprise with a contagious variant and people bunking together?
H. John
Dr. Tara Moriarty is the director the Moriarty Lab, an infectious diseases research laboratory at the U pf T.
She and her grad students, on their own time, have been maintaining “Covid-19 Data Discussions” (a web site which is updated weekly).
https://covid19resources.ca/data-discussions/
According to their current estimates, on July 22nd Quebec had 17,700 new daily infections. Ontario had 29,298.
Based on data from France and the UK, she projects this wave should peak in a few more weeks.
Kate
Just in time for school to start, H. John?
We can only hope that enough kids get the vaccine over the next few weeks.
H. John
Kate, she is also concerned that this could be a major flu season since masking during covid helped to keep our numbers low for a few years. Australia, which is currently into their flu season, has seen numbers explode.
As to the projected peak for this wave, she tweeted:
New daily hospitalizations in France, which has a similar age structure and vax rates as Canada, have finally peaked.
Trough to peak was about 6 weeks in France and the UK. Canada is about 2 weeks behind France.
My guess is that Canada new daily hosp will peak in about 2 wks.
https://twitter.com/MoriartyLab/status/1550185260410966017?s=20&t=5hPEbZEIb8G5qNs0Cbct8Q
and,
Total hospitalizations take longer to decline. France hasn’t peaked yet, although UK (~4 wks ahead of Canada) may be peaking now.
I’d guess that Canada’s total hospitalizations will peak toward 3rd wk/end of August, and that by early Oct will be at lowest for this wave.
https://twitter.com/MoriartyLab/status/1550186542123175936?s=20&t=5hPEbZEIb8G5qNs0Cbct8Q
I found two of her other tweets really interesting:
July 22 estimated % of population infected since Dec 2/21
All ages: 51%
People 40 and younger: 59%
People older than 40: 39%https://twitter.com/MoriartyLab/status/1550908671986700290?s=20&t=5hPEbZEIb8G5qNs0Cbct8Q
and, finally:
Very useful survey from Angus Reid
2 (of many) points:
1) 75% of Canadians know masks help prevent infection
2) 47% of people express frustration at not having sufficient COVID data from provinces to make personal decisions about COVID
https://twitter.com/MoriartyLab/status/1551024399016402947?s=20&t=5hPEbZEIb8G5qNs0Cbct8Q
Kate
Well, there we are.
Thanks, H. John.
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Kate
Le Devoir outlines how François Legault will try to capture more Montreal ridings in October. This week he introduced candidates in two traditional PLQ ridings, Verdun and north‑end Maurice‑Richard.
If you look at my list of Montreal provincial ridings it will strike you how many PLQ MNAs have decided to pack it in, and yet we don’t see news of Dominique Anglade introducing new candidates.
Niki
Good luck with that. He’s a wealthy nationalist dinosaur, his divisive politics are not wanted in Montreal. CAQ’s racist, sexist and anti-Anglo agenda is simply regressive and bad for business and society. Non merci. NON.
jeather
He doesn’t really care, he can manage to get reelected fine without Montreal, and then he can continue to give Montreal less than its proportional share of everything without worrying about votes.
Kate
No, but he’d be terribly smug if he won two or three more ridings on the island, showing that even these corrupt city dwellers can be brought into the neo‑Duplessis fold.
mare
In a certain way we should hope the CAQ wins a *lot* of Montreal ridings so they can’t cut off Montreal from the provincial money tap anymore, as they do now.
I won’t vote for them, but neither will I for my current MNA, who voted with the CAQ for Bill 76. So I’m probably going to spoil my ballot or not vote at all, for the first time in my life. I hate the First Past The Post election system.
Kate
Is that Vincent Marissal, mare?
Also… do you mean Bill 96?
Kevin
Generations of Quebec politicians have been shortchanging Montreal. That’s not going to change until the regions have fewer MNAs.
Kate
There’s almost as little political will to change that, Kevin, as there is to bring in proportional representation.
Kevin
I believe Montreal will become an eleventh province before the regions get fewer MNAs.
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Kate
A man was shot on Sherbrooke near Des Érables on Saturday night, and another man was stabbed on Des Érables up in Rosemont, some distance from there, around the same time.
Once again TVA characterizes the non‑fatal shooting as a tentative de meurtre although no other media make it an attempted killing.
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Kate
Locals as well as tourists visiting Montreal were able to get a monkeypox vaccination in the Village recently. The WHO has declared monkeypox a global emergency; the Guardian has a grim little piece by a man who tells about his experience with the disease, evidence that it can be an ordeal.
SMD
The vaccine is available in pre-exposure to all men who have sex with men, and post-exposure to everyone. There are currently three indoor sites in Montreal offering the vaccine and one outdoor one (info on hours and appointments here: https://santemontreal.qc.ca/population/fh/actualites/nouvelle/ce-quil-faut-savoir-sur-la-variole-simienne-a-montreal/).
Kate
Thank you, SMD.
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Kate
How does onetime environmentalist Steven Guilbeault live with himself these days when he has to announce things like this: the oil and gas industry could get extra time to fully meet 2030 emissions reduction targets?
SMD
His response: “I will respect History’s judgment.” Source: https://mobile.twitter.com/globalnews/status/1550229371411103746.
su
“Highest per capita carbon emissions in the world”
qatzelok
Canada’s real govenment: oil, gas and mineral companies.
Steven Guilbeault’s job: Doing PR for them.
Spi
Apparently he does it with a level of maturity and pragmatism that escape many in these comments. Frankly I’d be more concerned if an idealist got into a position and didn’t moderate their views.
Kate
I was thinking about this and the problem with Justin Trudeau’s government. Trudeau was recently quoted as saying that the federal Conservatives’ unwillingness to focus on climate change boggles his mind – then he sends Guilbeault out to make a statement like that.
Did Justin learn too much realpolitik at his father’s knee? Talk with one hand, make “mature and pragmatic” deals with the other?
John B
Considering he was elected on promises of actually doing something about climate, then swiftly bought a pipeline that was looking like it would otherwise fail, I think the answer to Kate’s question is yes.
MarcG
Like asking a new gang member to break someone’s legs to prove their loyalty.
MarcG
I just realized it was Yves Engler who interrupted him. https://yvesengler.com/2022/07/31/time-to-disrupt-ottawa-climate-criminals/
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Kate
Three east-end hospitals are now requiring all visitors wear an N95 and keeping visits down to one person per patient.
Six percent of Quebec kids are experiencing long Covid.
Why is Covid so unpredictable? Some experts weigh in.
And CTV has a rundown of what to do if you think you have Covid.
H. John
VIVRE… AVEC LE VIRUS POUR DE VRAI
Alain Vadeboncoeur MD
https://www.noovo.info/chronique/dr-alain-vadeboncoeur-vivre-avec-le-virus-pour-de-vrai.html
DeWolf
Thanks John, that was an excellent article by Dr. Vadeboncoeur and one of the few level-headed analyses I’ve seen about this new Covid wave. I have tuned out most Covid content on social media because so much of it is driven by doomers and ego-driven charlatans, so I would have missed this article otherwise.
Chris
Yup. And if 80% of Canadians gave up driving, or if 80% of Canadians stopped buying trinkets on Amazon, or if 80% of Canadians ate better, or exercised regularly, then we’d have x% less people in hospital.
But: We – do – not – want – to!
Ephraim 21:37 on 2022-07-25 Permalink
Really? There have been 50K jobs in the regions that they haven’t been able to fill in 5 years… where are these magical people that want to move to St-Louis-de-ha-ha?
Kevin 22:05 on 2022-07-25 Permalink
There is a group of people that dream of fleeing Montreal and the burbs as they get old and retire.
The ISQ projects that most regions will have a dramatic decrease of working age adults in the next 20 years. Double digit drops in many areas, including 22% in the Cote Nord.
Personally I don’t think it’s that wise to move hours away from your doctor or the closest hospital or your children when you’re at an age that you need more medical care, but at least this way we get loads of news stories about all the oh so many unintended consequences.
dhomas 13:52 on 2022-07-26 Permalink
To be honest, if I ever move away from Montreal proper, it would NOT be to “les régions”. I’ll move to somewhere it doesn’t snow. Then again, I have the luxury of European citizenship, so I have more options.
Kate 10:45 on 2022-07-27 Permalink
So envious. My UK citizenship used to give me European citizenship too, but not since Brexit.